Finally, the documentary film about the band around its charismatic frontman Jim Morrison was released in Italy on June 21^st 2011, pretty much exactly 40 years after the singer and songwriter’s tragic death in an apartment he had rented in Paris in 1971.

Italian fans of The Doors have been waiting for this moment for about a year now, since the US movie release in 2010.

‘When you’re strange’ is the title of this epic movie, which is called after one of The Doors’ most popular songs. “Strange” was probably the way most of Jim Morrison’s contemporaries used to consider him and the other band members Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger. But on the other hand, a whole generation realized how much innovation The Doors brought into rock music and so did countless generations after them, until our days.

With previously unreleased footage and interviews, Tom Dicillo’s documentary gives us an insight of who these incredibly talented and charismatic young men were and how Morrison became the iconic figure he is nowadays, 40 years after his premature death at age 27, which was presumably due to an overdose of heroin. There are still many theories around the circumstances that took away his life. Jim Morrison’s young age at the moment of death, the same as other great artists like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin who died in that year, probably created his myth, which still attracts thousands of young people and visitors to his grave in the Père Lachaise VIP-Cemetery in Paris.

As stated by the surviving band members, the film will give us a better portrait of Jim Morrison as a person. “This gives you a much better insight into how his mind worked, I think.” says Robby Krieger, the band’s guitarist, comparing ‘When you’re strange’ to Oliver Stone’s ‘The Doors’.