“Fact is the music is strange. It is music for the different, the uninvited; it carries the listener into the shadowy world of dreaming.” —When You’re Strange: A Film About The Doors
With a rising sun illuminating the sky red and charcoal clouds floating to the sound of an ethereal hum, When You’re Strange, the latest cinematic glimpse into the world of The Doors, opens like a hazy morning dream.
As the camera comes into focus, viewers see a totaled vintage cruiser with the windows busted out. The car is on its side and coated with sand — Jim Morrison climbs out of the wreckage, gazing around at the desert highway surrounding him.
With a fur-collared jacket flung over his shoulder and his tousled long hair blowing in the desert wind, Morrison hitches a ride. However, moments later — as if in a dream — Morrison becomes the driver; the viewer, his passenger in a 1967 Shelby GT Mustang; “Love Man” by Otis Redding plays eerily on the radio.
Suddenly, there is a news report and Morrison turns up the volume, “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special bulletin. Rock music fans all over the world are in mourning today. Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, was found dead in his Paris apartment this morning.” The screen flashes with a montage of footage yet to come in When You’re Strange, except everything is in a quick rewind mode, and the viewer realizes they are now at the beginning of a very surreal ride.
This article appears in Jul 29 – Aug 4, 2010.