Welcome back to Moment of Truth, Movieline's weekly spotlight on the best in nonfiction cinema. This week, we hear from Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek about the band's new documentary When You're Strange, which opens Friday in limited release.
For a rock band whose filmed legacy includes at least a dozen concert and video compilations -- not to mention a full-scale Hollywood biopic -- it's not just a little bizarre that The Doors were never the subject of a feature documentary until now. Enter When You're Strange, director Tom DiCillo's fairly straightforward doc (narrated by Johnny Depp) interweaving archival performance and interview footage with extended, never-before-seen footage of late vocalist Jim Morrison's own experimental film, HWY: An American Pastoral. Some of it looks like it was shot yesterday, reinforcing Morrison's enduring mythology as a half-martyr, half-ghost whose mission is carried forward here by surviving members Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore. In a candid, freewheeling discussion recently with Movieline, Manzarek explained the film's mission, the Doors' cinematic influences, Oliver Stone's blundering and how making a movie is like "World War III."
How did we not have a feature-length documentary about The Doors until today?
Well, The Doors move in their own time frame -- in their own sphere. Better now than 20 years ago, because if he had it 20 years ago, there wouldn't be anything new to put out today. So here we are with a brand-new Doors documentary -- stuff you've never seen before, telling the story of The Doors to all those people in the 21st century who might not be aware of Jim Morrison, The Doors, or "Light My Fire." Though I don't know who they might be.
How and when were you approached for When You're Strange, and what was your first impression of the project?
We were first approached by Dick Wolf Productions, and we said, "Yes, man. Let's do it. Let's put a documentary together." He had done a couple of documentaries -- he won an Academy Award with the one about the firefighters in 9/11, a couple of brothers [Twin Towers] who didn't make it. So he was into documentary films and wanted to make a feature-length. He had been a Doors fan ages ago, since back when we actually booked the Doors in college. We said, "Hey, sounds like a great idea! Let's do it." He had a great director in Tom DiCillo; we talked to Tom, and his ideas were terrific, especially [his] framing it with Jim Morrison being dead and yet driving that car -- that reference to shamanism, or the shaman being able to work beyond space and time. In essence, Jim being alive kind of flip-flops the idea of death and makes it a different experience entirely. So that was about three or four years ago. And we said, "Sounds good, man."
The archival and short-film footage is quite revealing. What was new, and what role did you play in its unearthing?
We've had the footage in storage, in one of those temperature-controlled storage vaults in Hollywood like you should do with all your film and all your tapes. It was there. It had been sitting there waiting to go to work -- in cold storage. The footage said, "Any time you want to use us, we're in shape here. We just need some processing." We had everything archived and just went to work on it.
The long tail of The Doors goes on for decades, as most fans know, but When You're Strange chooses to focus on the specific years the band was active. What's left to tell of the band's legacy, perhaps?
You want me to tell you another story? "What's next, Ray?" That story will be the philosophical antecedents of The Doors.
You don't say.
Yes. What is the philosophy of The Doors? What is cosmic consciousness? What does that mean? What is opening "the doors of perception." What does that mean? How does it manifest itself in Doors music, and where does The Doors' music come from. What are Jim's poetry influences, Ray and Robby's musical influences, and John Densmore's drum influences. Who are those people, how do they influence The Doors, and what is the philosophy? That'll be the next thing. That would be sort of intellectual, though. This is a very exciting documentary for people who both know The Doors and as a great introduction to The Doors.
For people who know The Doors, though, would you address the legacy? The fractiousness in recent years, for example -- would you cooperate with telling that story?
Well, that's a possibility. I hadn't thought about it, but it sounds good to me.
There's some drama there! It's a real story. You guys are like brothers.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, we could be doing a contemporary rock-and-roll version of The Brothers Karamazov. You know? Let's do Dostoevsky, man! What the f*ck?
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.
And we're also 10 years removed from your own feature-directing debut Love Her Madly -- which was a story you developed years ago with Jim. What are your recollections of that?
Well, recollections of making a feature film are: The art form is the writing in the beginning, and then at the other end you've got the editing and music. In the middle, you've got World War III. That's called shooting the film. What a f*cking battle that was. And everybody was on the same page! We never had problems. It's just that making a film is one of the hardest artistic endeavors anyone could ever undertake, and I'm not so sure the actual filming process is even artistic at all. I think it's akin to Hannibal moving elephants over the Alps. What a job, man. At some point I said, "Jesus, I don't think this is worth it."
So you're not making another, I guess?
Enh, you know what? I think that happens with every director when you're in the middle of shooting. I think you always say, "Never again! What, am I insane to do this?" And then as the years go by, you think, "Boy, I'm getting itchy to do another one." What a perversion, making a film. But on the other hand, it is the modern art form. That's why I went into film in the first place. I was at the law school at UCLA -- I'd come there from Chicago, from DePaul University. In two weeks' time, I said, "Wrong profession! Your pianist has made a mistake here." And then somebody said, "UCLA has a great cinema department." I said, "Oh my God -- cinema! Yes!" I had seen The 400 Blows back in Chicago. Orfeu Negro -- Black Orpheus. Holy cow. The sensitivity of The 400 Blows, and the music that went along with this poor boy's story. And then the rhythm of Black Orpheus -- taking the myth of Orpheus and setting it in Carnivale time. What a great idea. So that was it, I was totally hooked on film: It was acting, it was writing, it was lighting, it was photography, it was music. It was all of those art forms come together in this one modern, 20th-century art form.
You know, I gotta tell you: I'm not real knocked out with today's cinema. I'm spoiled. I was there at UCLA during the Nouvelle Vague and when all of that was going on. Kurosawa was a contemporary. "Hey, there's a new Fellini movie at the Nuart Theater." Oh, really? What's it called? "It's called 8 1/2." What's it about? "I don't know, man; nobody seems to know what it's about." Can you imagine? 8 1/2 was a first-run movie when I was going to UCLA. So I'm spoiled.
At least there's 3D, right?
Hey, you know, I'm really looking forward to 3D reconstructing the past. Wouldn't you like to see Egypt in 3D? Wouldn't you like to go to India in 3D? You know: India, 4,000 years ago, even before the Buddha. Bhagavad Gita in 3D! Woweezers. That's what I want to see. Of course, it'll never happen, because I want to see it.
Make it! That's your job. Get it done!
OK! I'll take it.