Doors Keyboardist Ray Manzarek on New Doc, Old Influences and Oliver Stone's Folly

It's always seemed like The Doors are one of the rare bands of the '60s whose legacy owes as much to film as to music.

Oh absolutely. Well, you know, Jim and I both went to film school, so all of that sensibility enters into the musical creation and composition. Someone was telling me about listening to "Strange Days" with headphones on a long time ago. This guy was 17 years old. Smoked a joint, and he said it was such a trip. He saw images and pictures going along with the songs. I said, "Exactly, man!" I think that the structure of the songs -- certainly the softness and then the volume -- are smash-cuts. They're the same thing as Eisensteinian editing. We would do Eisenstein musically, you know? We would do montage musically. And that comes from the film school. My God, Jim and I both had a class with Josef von Sternberg and--

No way.

Yes way! What a joy, right?

I'd never read that.

Well, that's almost like something where people are going to say, "Who's Josef von Sternberg?" Only someone who knows movies would know something like that. But I had the class one semester, and Jim had the class the next semester, and von Sternberg was only there for a year. He so influenced me and Jim. It was absolutely amazing. He showed all his films. We watched Shanghai Express and... Oh, but he wouldn't talk about the personal life of von Sternberg and Dietrich. He wouldn't do that. He talked about Dietrich as an actress in his films. But he maintained a silence when we wanted the dirt! Come on, Josef! Come on, von Sternberg, sir! I mean, you couldn't call him "Joe." He was always sir. But when he showed us Shanghai Express with Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong as "coasters" working the coast of China between Beijing and Shanghai -- prostitutes, in other words? My God, were they sexy women! It was unbelievable. And the pace was so languid and sensual. We tried to put that kind of pace into our music. I mean, "The End" is an eleven-and-a-half-minute song. Rock and roll does not do songs that will hold your attention for eleven and a half minutes. That's all due to Josef von Sternberg.

Are there any contemporary bands you're fond of that you think have -- or could have -- that same kind of attention to cinematic detail?

I don't listen to bands today. You know what I listen to? Electronica. And electronica is usually composed by two guys working in their laboratory like mad scientists, track after track after track. I love that stuff. The Chemical Brothers -- I love The Chemical Brothers.

And Daft Punk is doing some of the music for Tron Legacy.

Infected Mushroom is another band. And there's some obscure Italian, DJ Rodriguez. Latino cool as you can possibly be, man. You listen to that and you think. "My God, is that cool." Then there's a jazz group of out of Australia called The Necks. Boy, are they good. The entire album is just like one cool riff going on an on and on. It's got such a groove to it. And Beck. I like when Beck works outside of the folk medium and gets into the recording studio. I love what Beck does. But that's the kind of stuff I listen to.

It's kind of hard for me to believe Oliver Stone's The Doors came out two decades ago. When did you last see it? Does it hold up?

I haven't seen it in ages. How does it hold up? I don't know. But I wasn't really happy with it. The portrayal of Jim Morrison as this crazed, drunken poet spouting his poetry on the streets and on the beach... It was a fantastical look at a poet, and I always thought it was Oliver Stone in leather pants. That's what that movie is. It's not Jim. Jim was much more subtle. Much more artistic. Much wittier! The fellow in the movie isn't witty at all. Nobody laughs! There's no laughter, and The Doors laughed all the time. It was a joyous time in the '60s! I mean, sure Jim got drunk. When he got drunk, he was a nasty fellow. But that wasn't all the time. That was some of the time. He was great to work with. Great to laugh with. A great guy to sit down and have a beer with. A great guy to drink with at the bar and tell stories. Very loquacious, very verbose, and a real pleasure to know. That's my Jim Morrison. And I think you get a sense of that Jim Morrison in When You're Strange.

Why do you think that didn't come through in the Stone film?

I think he had his own agenda. He wanted to make The Wild Child. I think he was intrigued by that idea of just the wildest, craziest guy in all of rock and roll. That really appealed to him. I talked to Oliver Stone. There was a guy who said 2,000 years ago, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Well, Oliver heareth not. He didn't get what I was telling him. He didn't even want to know about the Maharishi's meditation. He said, "Oh, that's a cliché." I said, "Wait a minute: How do John and Robby enter the band?" You see Jim and Ray on the beach, and then all of the sudden there's a band! There's a guitarist and a drummer playing. I said, "My God, you've got to have the whole Maharishi thing. It's a spiritual quest." He said, "It's a cliché." What are you talking about? It's been going on for 5,000 years! Young men have been seeking spiritual answers to life forever in this mantra or meditation. We're a continuation of a line. It's not a cliche; it's classic, man.

He just didn't get it. He didn't get the spirituality of The Doors. And he put some strange episodes in the desert. [Laughs] I almost died, man, when he gave Jim the line, "Have no fear -- I will be with you 'til the end of time." I said, "No, no, no -- that's Jesus's line. Jesus said that! You can't put those words in Jim Morrison's mouth! He didn't say that!" And I don't know, maybe he couldn't tell the difference? He was so enamored of Jim. Anyway, certainly When You're Strange is the antidote to that Oliver Stone fiasco.

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