Johann
04-25-2005, 11:53 AM
Jim Morrison of The Doors was a film student at UCLA before he was a member of that legendary band.
He loved Godard, Sternberg, Stroheim, Welles, Lang and Kurosawa. Not to mention Antonioni, who The Doors met in 1969 after Michaelangelo expressed interest in them doing the soundtrack for Zabriskie Point. Jim presented him with the song "L'America", which M. turned down. (He ultimately picked Pink Floyd and Jerry Garcia for his music).
The Doors were never in a movie, but their whole image screams cinema. Ray Manzarek and Jim especially are the driving force behind the image. They are devout cinephiles: Ray has an original framed poster of Eisenstein's October in his home & has expounded on his love of film in his book Light My Fire: My Life With The Doors. He knows his stuff when it comes to cinema.
Jim was always looking to see a Kurosawa film somewhere, and he went to see a lot of films: True Grit, Butch Cassidy, THX-1138, and the last film he ever saw in Paris was Raoul Walsh's Pursued.
Jim set up a film production company in an office on La Cienega Blvd in L.A. in 1968 with Paul Ferrara (his cameraman).
He wanted to make a film about a hitchhiker who becomes a serial killer. Almost all shots were done in one take, with music and sound effects added at the production office. Money and time were an issue, and the film was never completed. It's final title,
HWY: An American Pastoral sums up it's core: a non-linear film about a guy on a highway, meandering ultimately into the city, where it ends abruptly, leaving the viewer with a feeling of desolation, disconnected emptiness yet having profound poetic undertones.
It's not available on VHS or DVD and never has been.
It's only available in bootleg form (for now) and it's a film seekers of the avant-garde/underground film should chase with abandon.
It doesn't hurt to be a Doors fan either.
I would describe the scenes in detail, but someone beat me to it and did a better job: www.subcin.com
P.S. you need the discipline of a French Foreign Legionnaire in order to embrace and digest the pace. It will test your patience with fierce filmic concentration.
He loved Godard, Sternberg, Stroheim, Welles, Lang and Kurosawa. Not to mention Antonioni, who The Doors met in 1969 after Michaelangelo expressed interest in them doing the soundtrack for Zabriskie Point. Jim presented him with the song "L'America", which M. turned down. (He ultimately picked Pink Floyd and Jerry Garcia for his music).
The Doors were never in a movie, but their whole image screams cinema. Ray Manzarek and Jim especially are the driving force behind the image. They are devout cinephiles: Ray has an original framed poster of Eisenstein's October in his home & has expounded on his love of film in his book Light My Fire: My Life With The Doors. He knows his stuff when it comes to cinema.
Jim was always looking to see a Kurosawa film somewhere, and he went to see a lot of films: True Grit, Butch Cassidy, THX-1138, and the last film he ever saw in Paris was Raoul Walsh's Pursued.
Jim set up a film production company in an office on La Cienega Blvd in L.A. in 1968 with Paul Ferrara (his cameraman).
He wanted to make a film about a hitchhiker who becomes a serial killer. Almost all shots were done in one take, with music and sound effects added at the production office. Money and time were an issue, and the film was never completed. It's final title,
HWY: An American Pastoral sums up it's core: a non-linear film about a guy on a highway, meandering ultimately into the city, where it ends abruptly, leaving the viewer with a feeling of desolation, disconnected emptiness yet having profound poetic undertones.
It's not available on VHS or DVD and never has been.
It's only available in bootleg form (for now) and it's a film seekers of the avant-garde/underground film should chase with abandon.
It doesn't hurt to be a Doors fan either.
I would describe the scenes in detail, but someone beat me to it and did a better job: www.subcin.com
P.S. you need the discipline of a French Foreign Legionnaire in order to embrace and digest the pace. It will test your patience with fierce filmic concentration.