Gary James' Interview With The Writer / Director of
"When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors"
Tom DiCillo
Tom DiCillo wrote and directed When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors, that received rave reviews. First shown at the Sundance Film Festival, it went on to be nominated for an Emmy after an airing on PBS' American Masters series, and won a Grammy for Best Long Form Video.
We spoke with Tom DiCillo about the film on The Doors.
Q - Tom, where did you get all those film clips from? Some of the early footage I've never seen before.
A - The producers, Dick Wolf Productions, Jeffrey Jampol and Rhino Records had access to the entire Doors archive. The first thing they did was send me boxes of material from the Door's archive. It's unbelievable and fascinating footage. A lot of it was shot by a friend of Jim Morrison's, a guy named of Paul Ferrara. They went to U.C.L.A. Film School together and Paul accompanied them on almost all of their early tours. Ferrara also shot this 35 millimeter feature that Morrison made called HWY. It was a film that Morrison financed all by himself, hoping that it would get into festivals. Most of the new, unseen footage came from this film. Amazing as all the other footage is, this footage from Jim's film just struck me as, and the reason I tell you this is because it helped me conceive of a structure for the film. Most of it was all silent, no sound. At one point Morrison reached out and turned the dial on the radio, but there was no sound. But it struck me, what if he turns on that radio, and he hears the announcement of his own death? It struck me that I could use this as a central motif for telling the story; that this wandering Morrison was like his spirit who is lost and searching for the meaning of things. That's how the concept hit me. And the beauty is, at the last moment a mysterious figure stepped forward with the original 35 millimeter negative of Morrison's film. It was shot on the Kodachrome film in the 1970s. That had a really beautiful color quality to it, and so I put it in. And it looked so incredible some people thought I'd recreated it all. Some people even think the shots of Morrison, from his own film, were shot by me using a stunt double. Shots from his own film.
Q - Did The Doors' manager, Jeff Jampol have any say in the film?
A - Well, that's a good question, Gary. Jampol was pretty cool about the whole thing, but some of the other people liked to stick their fingers in the pie. Having come from my independent film background, where I was pretty much able to have final say on my films, it was a little hard sometimes to deal with some of the "suggestions" I got. There were some pressures, and in some ways ultimatums. But, essentially I would say this; 96% of the film is my cut. One ultimatum came with the use of the original negative of Jim's movie, HWY. You tell me, do you want to hear this story?
Q - Will this story get you in trouble or me in trouble?
A - No. It's actually sort of sad in a way. I say that because we're talking about human beings here. Everyone of course knows that Jim Morrison had a complex relationship with his wife Pam.
Q - Girlfriend. Maybe common law wife, but they weren't married.
A - When he died, the entire rights to Morrison's estate went to her. When she died, it went to her parents. The estate included the rights to his film HWY. So, her parents had a very understandable concern about how their daughter was portrayed in the film I was making. They said if I wanted to use the original negative from HWY that I could not mention the certain circumstances regarding how their daughter died.
Q - After Jim died, she was ushered out of Paris, moved into an apartment with friends and died of a heroin overdose herself.
A - That's right. I saw her autopsy report. The coroner wrote there were needle marks up and down both arms. But, if I wanted the original negative of Jim's movie HWY, her parents said I couldn't mention any of that. Ultimately, I decided the footage from Jim's film was more important to my film than how Pam died.
Q - How did Jim Morrison become Jim Morrison? I asked film director Jeff Finn about that and he said something happened to Jim around the time he entered Junior High School. Do you know what that something was?
A - I'm not aware of an exact incident. What I tried to suggest in the film was that Jim had a very intense relationship with his father, who was a Commander in the Navy. He was a very strict disciplinarian. Jim left home when he was 17 and never came back. And his father never acknowledged his musical career. That had a huge, impact on him. At one point Jim reached out to his father for some money to help get the band started. His father wrote him a letter which I showed in the film. The letter said, "I cannot send you any money based on the fact you have absolutely no talent in this musical direction what-so-ever." As far as anything that happened as a child, I don't know anything about that. I met his sister, Anne. She was very open and sweet. She spoke about Jim's difficulties with his father, but she never mentioned any specific incident.
Q - Did you ever meet Jim's brother, Andy?
A - No. Again, the film was focused more on the band, The Doors, all of them. I wanted to keep it there. Most films about The Doors always focus on Jim, as if he was the whole band. I wanted to spend as much time as possible with the other members of the band too.
Q - Did you ever talk to anyone who was in Paris that first week of July, 1971?
A - No. But, I read a lot about the different theories, and listened to some recordings of him in a recording studio with three French guys he met on the street. For me the fact that he had died was the only thing I could know for certain. I could've spent the whole movie trying to figure out how he died. I don't think it was glamorous. From everything I read about it, he was involved in shooting heroin. He drowned in the bathtub.
Q - You have in your film that he developed a persistent cough in Paris.
A - Right.
Q - The doctor told him to give up drinking. Would drinking cause a cough? Wouldn't it have been smoking?
A - They said just the amount of alcohol he was drinking was just so intense that it was pretty much destroying his body's ability to even function. So they said, let's take alcohol out of the equation and see what's going on with your lungs. The alcohol consumption was just enormous.
Q - When Jim and Pam went to Paris the plan was for Pam to open a clothing boutique and Jim to write poetry. Would there have been enough business in Paris for Pam to run a boutique?
A - I'm not sure.
Q - In your film, it's stated that Bill Siddons booked The Doors' 1969 tour. He was The Doors' manager, wasn't he?
A - Yes, he was.
Q - The Doors had as their agent, if I'm remembering this correctly, the Ashley Famous Agency, which later became I.C.M. (International Creative Management).
A - Yes.
Q - So, who booked that tour, Ashley Famous Agency or Bill Siddons?
A - Bill Siddons.
Q - Bill was doing double duty then.
A - Yes.
Q - I wonder if Ashley Famous Agency had dropped The Doors by then or not.
A - I honestly don't know, Gary.
Q - Were you and Johnny Depp both fans of The Doors?
A - Yes. The first album I bought on my own was their first album. My brother was a Beatle freak and so I guess I was too for a while. But then I heard "Light My Fire", the complete uncut version, and it blew my 14 year old mind. I was really drawn to the music. There's a kind of simplicity to it, the fact that they didn't really have a bass player for a long time. Ray Manzarek was playing the bass lines on his piano keyboard. They needed to be somewhat simple and repetitive so he could play the main melody lines with his right hand. It's a little bit like modern music in a way that's built upon simple loops and the band just jams off of it. But, I loved the lyrics and the sound. The music really spoke to me. Johnny Depp got involved towards the end of the film. I had originally done the narration myself but the producers had this idea of Johnny Depp doing it. Depp's stipulation was just, "Leave me alone." I think he was going to be on his boat with a tape recorder and he just wanted to do it by himself. I never even spoke with him. Thank God, what he recorded was a really great narration with different readings for different sections. So he actually enabled me to to choose things if I felt it suited the film better. But, the irony is some people who heard both versions could not tell the difference between his narration and mine. But he was a huge fan and I wrote him a letter afterwards, saying, "Listen, it's really great." He really brought a simple emotional reality to it. I know that's partly because he was a huge Doors fan.
Q - As a "live" act, The Doors weren't around very long. Do you have any idea of how many people saw them in concert?
A - No. I don't have that figure. Towards the end of the film I talk about the large number of albums they sold from that short period. It's funny, every now and then I run into someone who shows me the tickets for The Doors' concerts they went to. It's just amazing to consider, seeing them live. I never had the opportunity. I was too young to go.
Q - After doing this film, do you accept the fact that Jim Morrison died on July 3rd, 1971?
A - You know, honestly I don't have enough information to say yes or no to that question. All we know is he is no longer with us.
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