When You're Strange offers a window into the Doors. Beyond the doors of perception.
By Ed Rampell
Like 2006’s The U.S. vs. John Lennon Tom DeCillo’s new Doors documentary, When You’re Strange, is a great reexamination of not only musicians but of the era that spawned them. DeCillo wisely provides some historical context for the sizzling sixties, firmly placing Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger in the turbulent times that, as the Lizard King himself put it, the Doors’ music reflected and grew out of.
Were the Doors avatars of a new consciousness, tuned into alternate realities, as the group’s name, borrowed from a William Blake poem, and songs such as "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" suggest? Were they, and in particular with Morrison’s poetic lyrics, the counterculture’s muses? When You’re Strange explores this with Johnny Depp’s insightful narration and through you-are-there archival footage of the Doors onstage, offstage and backstage, from Sunset Strip’s Whiskey A-Go-Go to "The Ed Sullivan Show" to live concerts at the Isle of Wight, mass arenas and beyond. (By the way, unlike Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, who changed their lyrics to suit the square Sullivan’s strict rules, Morrison the rule breaker refused to compromise when singing "Light My Fire" on the highly rated CBS variety show. And to this date the Doors’ music hasn’t been used in a car commercial, either, much to the surviving members’ credit.)
I know a little something about Morrison because I lived at Guam, where Jim is believed to have spent part of his childhood, as his father was reputedly a Navy admiral at this American colony in the Western Pacific. In any case, his father played an important part during the Vietnam War. My own interpretation of Morrison, his role in rock music and his slide towards self-destruction is that he was full of angst and guilt due to his father’s role in the Indochina genocide. On the one hand, you had Admiral Morrison on the Pentagon’s side, and on the other, you had his unloved son, leader of the counterculture, who believed in making love, not war, and at one point in "When You’re Strange" advocates "total democracy.” It was all too much for the angry angel, who, like fellow revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, fell from his perch in a Parisian bathtub (unless you are one of those who believe that Morrison pulled an Eddie and the Cruisers-like disappearing act).
The best part for me of experiencing this film was being lucky enough to sit behind Ray Manzarek, who looks fit and healthy at 70. In a sort of split screen experiential mode, I kept one eye on the screen and one orb on Manzarek, watching his reactions to what was, after all, largely his life story unfolding on the silver screen.
