James Douglas Morrison, dit Jim Morrison [ d͡ʒɪm ˈmɔɹɪsən], né le 8 décembre 1943 à Melbourne et mort le 3 juillet 1971 à Paris, est un chanteur et poète américain, cofondateur du groupe de rock américain The Doors, dont il fut membre de 1965 à sa mort.
Sex-symbol provocant au comportement volontairement excessif, devenu une véritable idole du rock, mais aussi intellectuel engagé dans le mouvement du protest song, en particulier contre la guerre du Viêt Nam, il ne revendique toutefois aucune idée politique. Attiré par le chamanisme, on lui attribue une réputation de « poète maudit » que sa mort prématurée, à Paris, dans des circonstances mal élucidées, transforme en légende, notamment fondatrice de ce qui est connu sous le nom de Club des 27.
Le culte que lui vouent ses fans éclipse cependant une œuvre poétique d'une grande richesse[réf. souhaitée] que Morrison lui-même a pu considérer comme sa principale activité, au moins à partir de l'été 1968.
Wikipedia
“Les films sont des collections d'images mortes auxquelles on donne une insémination artificielle.”
Films are collections of pictures which are given articial insemination.
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Les Seigneurs : Notes sur la vision (), 1969
Cinema derives not from painting, literature, sculpture, theater, but from ancient popular wizardry. It is a contemporary manifestation of an evolving history of shadows, a delight in pictures that move, a belief in magic. Its lineage is entwined from the earliest beginning with Priests and sorcery, a summoning of phantomas. With, at first, only slight aid ofthe mirror and fire, men called up dark and secret visits from regions in the buried mind. In these seances, shades are spirits which ward off devil.
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Les Seigneurs : Notes sur la vision (), 1969
“Tout jeu contient l'idée de mort.”
All games contain the idea of death.
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Les Seigneurs : Notes sur la vision (), 1969
Cinema is the most totalitarian of the arts. All energy and sensation is sucked up into the skull, a cerebral erection, skull bloated with blood.
Caligula wished a single neck for all his subjects that he could behead a kingdom with one blow. Cinema is this transforming agent. The body exists for the sake of the eyes; it becomes a dry stalk to support these two soft insatiable jewels.
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Les Seigneurs : Notes sur la vision (The Lords : Notes on Vision), 1969
It is wrong to assume that art needs the spectator in order to be. The film runs on whithout any eyes. The spectator cannot exist whithout it. It insures his existence.
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Les Seigneurs : Notes sur la vision (), 1969
You can enjoy the life from afar. You may look at things but not taste them. You may caress the mother only with the eyes.
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Les Seigneurs : Notes sur la vision (), 1969
“L'attrait du cinéma se trouve dans la peur de la mort.”
The appeal of cinema lies in the fear of death.
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Les Seigneurs : Notes sur la vision (), 1969
“La division des hommes en acteurs et spectateurs est le fait central de notre temps.”
The cleavage of men into actor and spectators is the central fact of our time.
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Les Seigneurs : Notes sur la vision (), 1969
Each film depends upon all others and drives you on to others. Cinema was a novelty, a scientific toy, until a sufficient body of works has been amassed, enough to create an intermittent other world, a powerful, inifite mythology to be dipped into at will.
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Les Seigneurs : Notes sur la vision (), 1969
“I'll never wake up in a good mood again.
I'm tired of these stinky boots”
Source: An American Prayer
“No one thought up being. He who thinks he has, step forward.”
Source: Wilderness: The Lost Writings, Vol. 1
“There's a killer on the road
His brain is squirming like a toad.”
"Riders on the Storm" from the album L.A. Woman (1971).
Variante: Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.
“There are things known
and there are things unknown
and in between are the doors.”
Aldous Huxley, using the term "the doors of perception" which originated with William Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. It is sometimes credited to Morrison because he cited it in interviews as the inspiration for the name The Doors and without always crediting Huxley as the source.
Misattributed
Variante: There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.
Source: Letters from Joe
The Lords and the New Creatures: Poems (1969), The New Creatures
As quoted in Jim Morrison: Ten Years Gone (1981) by Lizzie James writing for Creem Magazine http://archives.waiting-forthe-sun.net/Pages/Interviews/JimInterviews/TenYearsGone.html
Contexte: People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.
“Now listen to this…
Ill tell you about texas radio and the big beat”
An American Prayer (1978)
Contexte: Now listen to this...
Ill tell you about texas radio and the big beat
Soft driven, slow and mad Like some new language
Reaching your head with the cold, sudden fury of a divine messenger
Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god
Wandering, wandering in hopeless night
Out here in the perimeter there are no stars...
Out here we is stoned...
Immaculate.
The Lords and the New Creatures: Poems (1969), The Lords: Notes on Vision
Contexte: Few would defend a small view of Alchemy as "Mother of Chemistry", and confuse its true goal with those external metal arts. Alchemy is an erotic science, involved in buried aspects of reality, aimed at purifying and transforming all being and matter. Not to suggest that material operations are ever abandoned. The adept holds to both the mystical and physical work.
“Don't worry, the operation won't take long and you'll feel much better in the morning.”
Onstage introduction to The Celebration of the Lizard
Contexte: Alright listen man, we got a special treat for you now. This is a little tour-de-force that we've only done a couple times in front of strangers, and it starts off kinda quiet, so if everybody just kinda relax, take a few deep breaths, think about your eventual end and what's gonna happen tonight; and we'll try and do something good to your head, right man?
I don't know if you're aware of it, but this whole evening is being taped for eternity and beyond that too. And so listen man, if you want to be represented in eternity with some uncouth language then I hope you'll stand up on the top of your seat and shout it out very clearly or we're not going to get it on tape.
Don't worry, the operation won't take long and you'll feel much better in the morning.
The Lords and the New Creatures: Poems (1969), The Lords: Notes on Vision
Contexte: The Lords. Events take place beyond our knowledge or control. Our lives are lived for us. We can only try to enslave others. But gradually, special perceptions are being developed. The idea of the "Lords" is beginning to form in some minds. We should enlist them into bands of perceivers to tour the labyrinth during their mysterious nocturnal appearances. The Lords have secret entrances and they know disguises. But they give themselves away in minor ways. Too much glint of light in the eye. A wrong gesture. Too long and curious a glance.
“Death makes angels of us all
and gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven's
claws”
An American Prayer (1978)
Variante: Death makes angels of us all
and gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth a raven´s claws…
“I'll tell you this —
No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.”
"The Wasp (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)" on the albums L. A. Woman (1971) and An American Prayer (1978)
Variante: No heavenly power will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.
“This is the strangest life I’ve ever known.”
"Waiting for the Sun" on the album Morrison Hotel (1970)
