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Posted |
March 10th, 2010 |
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The
Doors 'Break
on Through'
The Silver
Screen |
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Documentary
revives
unseen
footage |
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By STEVE CHAGOLLAN
 There's
something about the Doors and
their music that seems to rile
people up. Filmmaker Tom DiCillo
discovered this as he was
feverishly trying to complete
his documentary about the group,
"When You're Strange," in time
for last year's Sundance Film
Festival.
"The Doors are
enveloped in a cloak of legend
so thick sometimes it is
impossible to penetrate,"
blogged Tom DiCillo at the time.
"People have deeply personal and
passionate convictions regarding
the 'Truth' about the band."
Perhaps that need for
"truth" began when the group's
mercurial lead singer, Jim
Morrison, was found dead in the
bathtub of his Paris apartment
in 1971 at age 27. No autopsy
was performed.
When
DiCillo's film, now getting a
limited release April 9, was
screened at the Park City
showcase in 2009 as a work in
progress, some critics and
distributors stormed out of the
theater, convinced the
filmmakers had used an actor to
play Morrison in the film's
opening sequence.
What
they actually saw were outtakes
of a bearded (but not bloated)
Morrison from a 51-minute short
called "Hwy: An American
Pastoral" that Morrison, a UCLA
film school graduate, had made
with Paul Ferrara in 1969.
DiCillo discovered the original
35 millimeter master, "literally
right before we finished," he
tells Variety.
The
footage, which DiCillo uses to
frame his 89-minute film, is one
feature that sets "When You're
Strange" apart from previous
documents of the Doors, one of
the most chronicled bands to
emerge from the
late-'60s/early-'70s pop-rock
renaissance.
"Every new
generation seems to have to go
through its Doors rite of
passage," says John Densmore,
the group's drummer, and one of
three surviving members of the
group -- along with guitarist
Robby Krieger and keyboardist
Ray Manzarek. The film was made
with the cooperation of the
band, which supplied most of the
footage, as well as the families
of Morrison and that of his late
girlfriend Pamela Courson, who
also died at age 27.
Reviews out of Sundance 2009
were mixed (this paper was
particularly scathing). But
since then, the
writer-director's wall-to-wall
narration has been pared down
considerably, with actor Johnny
Depp recruited to do the
voiceover. "It's the
inflections," explains Densmore
about Depp's contribution, "it's
so personable. He's an icon like
Jim, so he brings something
that's closer to Jim."
"When You're Strange" dispenses
with the usual talking heads
format that characterizes so
many VH1-styled music docs -- or
what producer and Rhino
Entertainment exec John Beug
refers to as "a bunch of old
pirates talking about the good
old days" -- in favor of
allowing the footage, and the
music, to speak for itself.
That music -- alternately
rough-and-tumble rock,
jazz-inspired improvisation and
Brechtian, existential musings
-- is so exotic that no group
could be mistaken for the
foursome that formed in Venice,
Calif., in 1965, and released
six studio albums by the time of
Morrison's death.
Still,
the group remains one of those
phenomena that rises,
Phoenix-like, every decade or
so. When "Apocalypse Now" was
released in 1979, the use of the
Doors' "The End" helped triple
the group's catalog sales,
according to Jeff Jampol, the
Doors manager. Similar sales
spikes occurred when the
sensationalistic Doors bio, "No
One Here Gets Out Alive," was
published in 1980 and then in
1991 when Oliver Stone's "The
Doors" hit theaters.
The
10-12 market theatrical
engagement of "Strange,"
produced by Dick Wolf (of "Law
and Order" fame) in association
with Rhino, will be followed by
a May 26 airing on PBS as part
of its American Masters series,
with a DVD release soon
thereafter. (Along with Wolf and
Beug, Jampol and Peter Jankowski
are credited producers.)
Bruce Botnick, who
engineered the Doors albums and
produced "L.A. Woman,"
supervised and mixed all the
music for the doc.
According to the RIAA, the Doors
have sold more than 32.5 million
albums in the U.S., much of them
after the group finally called
it quits in 1973.
Beug
acknowledges that music docs are
a tough sell. "The major screens
aren't particularly interested,"
he says. But the filmmakers are
hoping to recoup their $2
million investment, and then
some, via ancillary sales.
A soundtrack, which is still
being compiled, will include
previously released songs from
the Doors, readings of
Morrison's poetry by Depp, and
live recordings from scenes
featured in the film, such as
their set at the Isle of Wight
in 1970 and a TV appearance on
"The Ed Sullivan Show."
Regardless of how the doc
performs, the filmmakers can
take some satisfaction in having
produced a movie that all those
associated with the Doors, who
have had their differences, are
satisfied with.
"I can't
quite put my finger on what Tom
DiCillo did," Densmore says,
"but he somehow found more depth
and magic. You do get a feel for
the turmoil of the times. It was
a time of flower power and maybe
we were the shadow side of the
undeclared war in Vietnam and
writing darker stuff, and it
seemed to last longer."
Adds DiCillo: "I hope (the doc)
allows people to see them as
close as possible to what they
were. Strip the myth away, strip
all the bullshit away -- the
drugs, the sex and alcohol
(associated with) Morrison, that
certainly was a part of him --
and really look at (the group)
and what they accomplished."
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