Doors Closing. Mind the Gap

With wife and eldest offspring gone orf to see a friend performing in a local production of Carwash tonight, I was left to my own diabolical devices. Rejecting the obvious allure of the X Factor on TV, I cooked a steak, and settled down with a bottle of wine, to watch the dvd of " When You're Strange" the  doc. film about The Doors with narration by Mr. Depp. This was a self-chosen birthday present.

Other than some misleading film footage, which purports to show J.M. driving in the desert (actually a look-alike) it is a decent overview of The Doors and their brief life as a band but with a Jim bias.

When I read in reviews, that the surviving members of the band approved of the film as an honest portrayal of the band - and in particular of Jim Morrison, and that they were not involved in the production, and were not interviewed for the film, I counted myself in for the ride.

Somehow the film left me just feeling sad. The previously well documented decline of Jim (due to the pull of " Jimbo" according to Manzarek) was the focus, made difficult to take at face value, by the use of shots of Morrison in various stages of off planet mind trips, but often slowed down, and with no continuity of hair length or biblical beard / no beard. They seemed to be random, eyes half closed photographs in non-linear sequence. Stoned immaculate?

The first and last album were both recorded in about a week, and some of the material was written in the studio at both sessions, which I think illustrates something greater than the simple idea that J.M. was just wasted all of the time.

He was however, wasted a lot of the time.

The film does manage to portray the period when The Doors were active in a way which should make young folk sit up and take notice. 100 police at a Doors gig! Many of them on stage! Jim(bo) was arrested on stage and sentenced for a second offence. rack(sic) and role. I think the doors opened around that time, before the end. Groan. Jim sould be alive now, and be creating music with a blend as Plant has done recently.

One of my points, is that it is easy to see how directors & producers work backwards to produce the story they can sell, to get the funding for a film. A celebration of The Doors can't be done without Jim's story, but the film only mentions the nights he crashed, whilst listing how many dates they performed. LOTS.

I lay under my tenage bed-covers listening to Radio Luxembourg the night Jim Morrison died. They played the Doors for hours. L.A Woman is part of my mythology, and Riders on the Storm is a deserted island risk.