When You're Strange

The documentary covers six years of a band formed in Los Angeles in 1965: The Doors. Everything up to Jim Morrison's death in 1971 is here, the concerts, the studio, the arrests, the Miami case and the tension inside the group. Its rule is strict: not one reenactment, not one talking head, not a single frame shot afterwards. Tom DiCillo decided to use only original footage of the period, much of it never seen before. The passages of Morrison driving and wandering in the desert are not invented either; they come from HWY, the film he made himself. Tom DiCillo wrote and directed. Johnny Depp narrates. It runs ninety minutes. The strangest opening comes out of that same material: Morrison is cut so that he appears to be hearing the news of his own death on a car radio, and that footage is HWY too. The documentary won the Grammy for best music film. Who it is for: anyone who likes The Doors and music documentaries built from archive. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a critical view. The telling stays close to the band's own legend, Morrison's behaviour is largely excused, and little room is left for the other three.