In May, American Masters, the Emmy Award winning PBS series will feature When You’re Strange: A Film About The Doors. The documentary, about one of the most influential and fascinating bands of the early rock era, was written and directed by Tom DiCillo and is narrated by Johnny Depp. The film follows The Doors, Jim Morrison-lead singer, Ray Manzarek-keyboards, Robby Krieger-guitar and John Densmore-drums from their beginning in 1965 through the rest of the riotous 60’s until Morrison’s death in July, 1971.
DiCillo had the unique opportunity of access to a massive amount of mostly unseen archival footage and tapes. Not many groups from that era had a film crew shooting their concert tours, recording sessions, rehearsals and even back stage adventures. Of course, it helped that both Morrison and Manzarek were graduates of UCLA’s film school and hired some of their former classmates for the production team.
As Johnny Depp so succinctly states in the film’s press release, “When You’re Strange is a meticulously crafted, exhilarating ode to one of music’s greatest ensembles. Watching the hypnotic, hitherto unreleased footage of Jim, John, Ray, and Robby, I felt like I experienced it all through their eyes. Here, Jim has been resurrected to remind us that he is, to this very day, one of the most significant frontmen/poets/shaman to ever grace a stage while the band behind him kept the music alive, adding fuel to an already raging ride into history. As a rock ‘n’ roll documentary, or any kind of documentary for that matter, it simply doesn’t get any better than this. What an honor to have been involved. I am as proud of this as anything I have ever done.”
When You’re Strange will first be released theatrically in a limited run on April 9, 2010.
The following partial interview, from the Television Critics Association PBS session, is with Doors’ drummer John Densmore, along with manager/producer Jeff Jampol and producer Dick Wolf. (Yes, the same –producer/creator of the successful Law and Order franchise.)
QUESTION: For the producers, the version of the movie that played at Sundance [Film Festival] last year had director Tom DiCillo doing the voiceover. Is the actual text of the narration different now with Johnny Depp doing it?
DICK WOLF: It’s essentially the same text. It was edited and massaged and changed, and I can tell you that, in a strange way, Johnny made such a contribution to the film by, not only the performance, but just the ethos that he brings to the project by being a part of it. But he made one astounding change in the script, which I think resonates throughout the entire film. If you remember Tom’s voiceover, which was very good, but he kept referring to all the band members by their last names. Johnny switched it and personalized it by using their first names, and for a very minor change, it was a magnificent shift in the emphasis of the film from being a true documentary, and one step removed, to personalized and empathetic. And that’s something you can’t buy.
QUESTION: And otherwise structurally, is it the same movie exactly?
WOLF: Structurally — not exactly. I mean, that was a fine rough cut. There is constant tweaking that goes on until they pry the film away and it has to be locked. Yes, there were tweaks, twitches, shavings, lengthening, things like that. It’s essentially the same film, but the voiceover, as I said, is another character to me in the movie.
QUESTION: A question for Dick about the source of the footage. I think, Doors’ fans are familiar with a lot of it. Was there a quest here to find new material?
WOLF: Actually, most of it is not out there. John, you should jump in here because I’ll probably get part of this incorrectly. But the reason that there is the footage that exists is that it was one of Jim’s classmates at UCLA that was traveling with you guys for an extended period?
JOHN DENSMORE: A lot of the footage I’ve seen, but I don’t know what it is about the way it’s assembled with this and the narration. There’s some more depth to the whole story for me, and maybe Jeff can elaborate about the Highway footage. [NOTE: The film was officially called HWY.]
JEFF JAMPOL: Remember, Ray and Jim Morrison met in film school at UCLA. Ray got his master’s in film, and Jim got his bachelor’s in film, and they had a couple of classmates — Paul Ferrara and Frank Lisciandro, and they were all very interested in film. So when The Doors went on their first tour, they took Frank and Paul with them to film the whole tour and to film things offstage and in between. So we have this beautiful, visual documentation of that time in ’67, ’68 and ’69, when most bands of that era, there’s very little documentation about.
DENSMORE: Actually, excuse me for interrupting, when we played The [Hollywood] Bowl, Harrison Ford was a grip on our crew. (Laughter.)
JAMPOL: We shot the Hollywood Bowl show in 1968. Jim was very interested in getting back into the film world, both as a director and as an actor, and he had written a script called The Hitchhiker. So they decided to make a film of The Hitchhiker, which was going to be Jim’s artistic piece and also serve to show what he was looking for and what he was into. So these guys went out and, on really the best equipment and 35-millimeter film, shot a film called HWY and that film has never been released. It was shown at a film festival for two days, once, in 1969, and that was it.
The Doors were also working on a documentary called Feast of Friends, and there are some bootleg copies of edits and film pieces, but it’s never been fully put together. So on this project we spent the first year and a half transferring. We had thousands of reels of film and video in The Doors archives, and we had to transfer them all, and it took about a year and a half to do, just to get it transferred. Then we had to start going through it and cataloging it and categorizing it. So I think when you say most of the film has been seen, I think that’s a true statement. I think most of it has been seen, but there’s pieces and clips and parts that have never been seen. With the HWY footage, we’ve had several people come up to us and ask, “Where did you get all those vintage cars?” (Laughter.)
WOLF: That was one of the biggest problems at Sundance. A distributor marched out 10 minutes into the film, outraged because, he said, “These are reenactments. That’s not Jim Morrison in the opening,” …the picture with the beard. There is not one foot of film in this picture that was not shot between 1965 and ’71. And it was very confusing. It was one of the things that there were endless discussions on, “How do we educate the people that that is really Jim Morrison and it was shot then?” Because nobody’s seen that film.
DENSMORE: Personally, I like the confusion. (Laughter.) It’s an example of the depth that Tom DiCillo added to footage. I’ve seen HWY, obviously. Maybe the public hasn’t. But here you have Jim driving in a car — it’s the HWY footage — [he] turns the radio on, and the disc jockey says, “Jim Morrison has just died.” I find that interesting, those opposites, putting the film together that way. Pretty great.
JAMPOL: And we also made a conscious decision together with Tom not to use any talking-head interviews, no new footage in this movie, the entire thing, front to back. Because, for me we’re close to it, but you get pulled into this era; and all of a sudden, you’re there, and the magic comes alive.
QUESTION: For John, when you mention Jim, does it sometimes really almost seem like yesterday that you guys were all together, or does it seem like just long ago and far away at this point?
DENSMORE: It’s some kind of beautiful dream I had, and now here it is right there on the screen again.
QUESTION: Is it easy to watch or hard to watch sometimes?
DENSMORE: Well, I’ve seen it a zillion times and given notes, but in the first few screenings… Jim sitting on the Santa Monica Pier laughing reminded me of the early days when we were hanging out with no money. And there’s a sweetness to that.