There was the music, the poetry and the dark, brooding attitude, but the Doors were also unique in their approach to celluloid. Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek had met at UCLA, both studying film, so it made perfect sense that even as the music took over, a visual, cinematic quality would ingrain itself into what the Doors were doing. Before they could venture into the world of combining their music with film, they had to pay their dues as an upcoming band by appearing in the films and television segments orchestrated by others. To get a sense of it all, R-Evolution on DVD, Blu-ray and digital formats, brings those early TV appearances together with the Doors’ own films to show how the band evolved into a creative and pioneering powerhouse — sonically and visually.
The disc lifts off with the captivating in-house Elektra Records film of the Doors performing “Break On Through” on a darkened set. The video, widely seen on MTV and released on multiple VHS and DVD collections, succinctly captures the excitement of the early Doors. The early TV appearances on shows like Shebang, American Bandstand and Malibu U are all a bit stiff, partly due to the band’s inexperience and their inability to properly lip sync their performances. It was part and parcel of being a rock band in the 1960s. More shows would follow — Murray The K In New York, The Jonathan Winters Show, and even an odd sequence around “Hello, I Love You” from German TV — and great live and semi-live performances have been preserved.
The clip of “Touch Me,” another previously released video of the Doors on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour is perhaps the best of the TV appearances here, with Morrison sounding together, singing live over the pre-recorded orchestration track. Conspicuously missing is the band’s infamous appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 17, 1969. Despite being banned from the show, the producers have no problem including the performance on their Rock & Roll Classics DVD releases. Squeezed in between is the short film behind “The Unknown Soldier,” in which Morrison is mock executed on the beach as footage from Vietnam is mixed in for dramatic effect. Far different from the TV shows.
Several music videos made from archival live film and additional footage shot, some with and by Ray Manzarek, Robby Kreiger and John Densmore, plus lots of candid cutaways of Jim Morrison. Many of these videos have been released on previous VHS and DVD collections, and shown on MTV. The 1984 video for “Strange Days” attempts to create a live action sequence of the album’s cover featuring sideshow circus performers and cameos of Manzarek. The Doors keyboardist’s directorial role is more apparent in the suave and fun video for “LA Woman,” which vividly captures the spirit of the City of Angels (maybe even better than Randy Newman), before it veers off into a tangent of strange bedfellows and weird hallucinations.
“Ghost Song,” the final video in the main section, is taken from An American Prayer, the 1978 album the surviving Doors cut, blending new music with tapes of spoken word poetry from Jim Morrison. It shows Manzarek, Kreiger and Densmore playing along with brief flashes of Morrison. The Bonus section is highlighted by the story behind that video and many of the others, as told by Krieger, Densmore, engineer Bruce Botnik and Elektra president Jac Holzman in the Breaking Through The Lens documentary. There’s also a performance of “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” from the Isle of Wight 1970 festival, and a rather off-track excursion in the form of a Ford Motors training film the Doors apparently did the soundtrack for. Strange days indeed. It would seem R-Evolution fills in every last nook and cranny of available Doors footage, but you never know what’s buried in the vault. Stand by for the next chapter.
~ Shawn Perry
