Ever get the feeling that Jim Morrison and the Doors are more interesting in Hollywood movies than they were in real life? “When You’re Strange,” a documentary on PBS (Wednesday from 9-11 p.m. ET, but check local listings) will do nothing to dispel that notion. But it might make you laugh.
True, “Strange” is filled with archival film that few viewers will have seen before. That makes up for the fact that many of the actual scenes of the band’s on- and off-stage life from the mid-1960s until Mr. Morrison’s death in 1971 were served up in more glorious detail in Oliver Stone’s biopic, “The Doors.” In that 1991 movie, Val Kilmer sang so powerfully as Mr. Morrison, and was so mesmerizing, that the real Mr. Morrison in this documentary often sounds vocally uninspired by comparison and bears a disappointing resemblance to Zoolander.
The Doors’ Jim Morrison, circa 1970.
Of course, the secret of Mr. Morrison’s sex appeal is locked up behind the old times and places, and we cannot expect behavior that excited people four decades ago to seem titillating now. Today, in fact—is one allowed to say it yet?—Mr. Morrison often seems … ridiculous.
There he is blathering away in old concert footage, as narrator Johnny Depp explains that Mr. Morrison picked out all his own stage clothes, “from the concho belts to the leather pants seemingly designed to accentuate his crotch.” Meanwhile, the rock god is leaping spasmodically around the stage before throwing himself to the floor, where he flops like a holy rolling flounder.
Inquiring minds have long wanted to know what really went on at some of those concerts where Mr. Morrison was maced, dragged offstage by police, or arrested. But even Mr. Stone did not dare tell all, perhaps because the truth, some of which finally emerges here, is so pathetic: “Would anybody like to see my genitals?” Mr. Morrison yells to an audience, apparently too drunk to notice that nobody cares.
“When You’re Strange” is not without food for thought. Until now, for instance, many of us had decided that the best thing about the 12-minute “The End” was how fabulous, and appropriately demented, the song sounded during the big napalming scene at the beginning of “Apocalypse Now.” But whatever was compelling about the song before seems more so after we are informed here that Mr. Morrison really did compose “The End,” which builds to a screamed fantasy of patricide and maternal incest, “after a breakup with a girl he liked.” Chew on that for awhile.
But nothing here, nothing, can top the narration. Written by director Tom DiCillo, it is voiced by Mr. Depp in such a monotone that it is impossible to tell whether either man is being intentionally funny. Some comments arrive from pseuds’ corner: “At 16, [Jim was] already reading Nietzsche, Rimbaud and William Blake.” Yet it gets better from there, as Mr. Depp charts without a hint of emotion the arc of Mr. Morrison’s career.
“Jim still has doubts about his voice. He’s had no musical training and he can’t read a note. Sinatra has replaced Elvis as his favorite singer.”
“At a party in L.A. he ends up with his face in Janice Joplin’s lap. She breaks down in tears, and then cracks a whiskey bottle over his head.”
Things look up for the Doors during a tour in Europe. “They’re a big hit, even after Jim swallows a chunk of hash in Amsterdam and collapses, unconscious, on stage.”
There is straight-ahead praise as well. “Morrison was both innocent and profane. He was a rock ‘n’ roll poet. Dangerous and highly intelligent,” Mr. Depp intones. If you believe all that after watching this film, then you’re strange.
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Spike TV’s “Deadliest Warrior” (Tuesdays, 10-11 p.m.) needs a warning label. It only simulates combat between disparate groups of fighters, so no one actually dies. But real weapons are tested on humanoid dummies and real animal carcasses, causing many guts to spill and much blood to spurt. Meanwhile, the hosts groan with excited horror at each cut and thrust: Uhnnnnn! Ohhhhhhh! Agggghhhhh!
It will be hard to top last season’s simulated matchup between the Taliban and the IRA. Some good stuff is coming, though. This week’s slashfest pits a 16th century Aztec “Jaguar” fighter against a central African Zande warrior of the 1860s, before science “proves” which one would have won in a battle to the death. Future fights include “Somali Pirate vs. Medellin Cartel”; “Vlad the Impaler vs. Sun Tzu”; “Comanche vs. Mongol”; and “Ming Warrior vs. Musketeer.”
Then there’s the contest no sane person could easily resist: “Nazi SS vs. Viet Cong.”
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Also of interest this week is the Smithsonian Channel’s “The Real Story,” (Sundays, 8-9 p.m.) a series that looks at the factual background to well-known movies. Future episodes will examine Cold War truths behind the “The Bourne Identity” and “The Hunt for Red October.”
This Sunday, though, it’s the true story of “Casino,” including the real names and even film of the mobsters who inspired Martin Scorsese’s 1995 movie. More importantly, we get to meet the men “Casino” never showed us: the FBI agents and Vegas police who ran the mob out of town, supposedly for good.
Nancy Dewolfe Smith, Wall Street Journal
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Full article and photo: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704370704575228171209852214.html
