Introduction
A dozen years in the making, the cryptic tagline for Before the End: Searching for Jim Morrison encapsulates its investigative approach: “One Man. Countless Myths. And in between lies the truth.” Z-Machine founder, Jeff Finn’s extraordinary work breaks the decades-long hermetic seal on the traumatic formative years that forged the brief and hellacious life of The Doors frontman, Jim Morrison.
From Morrison’s controversial career as the lead singer of the legendary 1960s rock band to his reported 1971 death by “heart failure” in Paris at age 27, Morrison’s ostensible demise, technically an unsolved cold case, formed a rabbit hole of reasonable doubt, which inspired Finn to consult with private investigators and forensic analysts.
Before the End: Searching for Jim Morrison transcends “rock docs” in the same sense that Jim Morrison was more than a rock star. Featuring unprecedented content, from shocking corroboration about Morrison’s early life to harrowing revelations about his stardom, and fresh evidence that contradicts his professed death, Before the End: Searching for Jim Morrison is proudly unauthorized because it “seeks the unvarnished truth.”
Among those interviewed and/or featured are Morrison’s cousins, lovers, friends, Elektra Records founder, The Doors booking agent, The Doors roadie, rock critics, UCLA classmates, and exclusives via Jim’s brother, Andy Morrison, and “Mr. X,” a mind-blowing anonymous source. Z-Machine is a truly independent production company helmed by writer and filmmaker, Jeff Finn, whose tie-in book, 127 Fascination: Jim Morrison Decoded, is forthcoming.
Interview
Cinema Scholars’ own Glen Dower sat down with Jeff Finn, writer/director of the engrossing new three-part documentary Before the End: Searching for Jim Morrison. They discussed Jeff’s twelve-year odyssey to bring his story to life, how Jeff has compelling evidence that Morrison didn’t die in Paris in 1971 and that Jeff is hopeful that this project will give people a deeper understanding of Jim Morrison as a person, as opposed to a rock legend, among other topics.
(Edited for content and clarity)
Glen Dower:
Mr. Finn, how are you, Sir?
Jeff Finn:
Good. Nice to meet you and thank you for having me, I appreciate it. How are you doing?
Glen Dower:
I’m great, thank you. So we’re talking about your life’s work, essentially – this new ‘docu-mystery’ genre you’ve created. I love it so much. Tell us about your journey from Jim Morrison and The Doors fan to documentary maker to detective in a hunt for Jim Morrison’s true fate.
Jeff Finn:
Jim Morrison has been part of my personal trajectory my whole life. I’ll be 58 years old in a few weeks in February, and The Doors’ music is some of the earliest, as I say, in the documentary, I recall absorbing as a young kid, along with The Beatles’ more psychedelic offerings. I remember hearing these songs as millions of people did when I was just a young kid growing up in Downers Grove, Illinois, shout out and a suburb of Chicago.
And I just found it haunting, and as a young kid around the age of five, you know, I didn’t know Jim Morrison or The Doors. I think I knew who The Beatles were by name. But I just remember hearing those songs, which sounded like what I called ‘Halloween Music’. And it was just haunting. And to this day, I still get the same goosebumps. And I think my detective skills might have been taking root even then.
Glen Dower:
And obviously, this has been such a passion project for such a long time. And I love the way throughout the series, you never say ‘Jim Morrison’s death’. You say ‘alleged’, ‘purported’, ‘reported’. You weren’t going to let that go! Is that an important point you want to make consistently?
Jeff Finn:
Exactly. There is a book I read about the case, which I discuss in the documentary. I read this book in one sitting when I was 18 years old in October of 85. And I remember closing the book and saying under my breath, “No fucking way”. There’s no way Morrison died when they say he died. It just didn’t track for me. It didn’t, the puzzle pieces didn’t add up then in 1985. And they sure as hell don’t add up now almost 39 years later.
But I’ve never set out to have this become my life’s work. But clearly, that was the case. And I’m grateful for that. With my docu-mystery, as I call it, I’m trying to bring a deeper understanding to Jim Morrison as a person, as opposed to the persona we have all absorbed; the rock star, the rock god. I’m asking people to, as Jim said, wake up and look deeper.
Glen Dower:
As you say in the first episode of the documentary you’ve made this documentary series to ‘offer opinions’ and you want the viewers to ‘draw their conclusions’. But you believe Jim Morrison did not die that day in Paris. I mean, nothing indicates that he did. Just the idea that he was reported dead in the press. Then you detail those little mystery nuggets that appear in so many mysteries, like the locked casket, and the doctor’s reports of the doctor who didn’t exist, and the list goes on. I was thinking to myself, why is this not more well-known? Why is this not clearer to people?
Jeff Finn:
100%. I thought to myself for years, for decades, even, throughout those years of my research, going back to 1985, you know, I call it my DIY JDM research, you know, for do-it-yourself James Douglas Morrison. And I thought all along why the hell has no one stepped up to the plate and questioned this controlled narrative, you know? And it’s, I find it honestly, really sad that the mainstream media, the masses, by and large, they took Bill Syden’s narrative that he put in place upon his return from Paris in 1971, as you said, claiming the sealed coffin and that Jim was dead. And everyone just took it at face value, like, ‘okay’, and no one questioned it.
And so to this day, I get people saying ‘he’s dead, let it go’, and I say, prove it, with all due respect, if that’s what you believe, great, but I don’t. And where’s the definitive proof? I’ve had, as I’ve pointed out, two attorneys, a former judge and a forensic expert who was with the FBI, tell me that the evidence, such as it is, would never hold up in a court of law. So, you know, it’s a cold case! It’s technically a cold-case mystery that has yet to be solved.
Glen Dower:
I want to talk about the mystique of Jim Morrison because he is one of those rock stars. And while we’ll talk about music today in a moment, to think of him joining ‘The 27 Club’, along with Kurt Cobain, for example, Amy Winehouse, of course, who’s the latest member, tragic, who had her own biopic last year, of course, Back to Black. Do you think he was left, the scenario was left to add to the mystique of the rock star. He had the hair, he had the pants, he had an amazing persona on stage, he was arrested on stage, and he was a poet. Do you think the public was happy to let him die and become a legend?
Jeff Finn:
That’s a great question! I believe so. Again, by and large, I think there’s a comfort level there. It’s a tricky road, you know. I want to respect people’s take on it, of course. But after 53 years, again, we go back to this controlled narrative. And I think people have a difficult time reconciling what they have been told and informed all these years with the notion that, holy shit, maybe he did fake his death!
Stranger things certainly have happened. And I’ve learned, shockingly, in my research that people fake their deaths far more often than one would ever fathom! It’s just not reported all the time. But there have been books written about it. I’ve read them. And it’s for any number of reasons, why someone would choose to do this. And clearly, Jim had every motive. Just based on the Miami trial, and the verdict alone, waiting for appeal, he was living as a fugitive in Paris, you know?
Glen Dower:
You have plenty of ‘oh shit’ moments for sure. The Frank X interview, the social security number becoming active again, and so on. What for you, on your research journey, were the biggest ‘oh shit’ moments?
Jeff Finn:
I mean, it’s just been one protracted, oh shit moment! Honestly, I mean, it just raises the hair on the back of my neck, I get goosebumps on my arms, you know, to this day. I’m learning more all the time, which is fascinating. As you know, it’s in the trailer, where a private investigator that I hired and worked with for the documentary, Cheryl Bombaugh, is vital to the process. And she went with me in my attempts to meet Mr. X, I shall say tactfully.
And again, as in the trailer, she discovered that Jim Morrison’s social security number was still active just a few years ago when we shot that portion of the docuseries. And what’s uncanny is that the social security number for Morrison was active in Rochester, New York, which is in the vicinity, shall we say, of where Mr. X has been known to dwell. So you can’t make this stuff up. It’s incredible to me, still.
Glen Dower:
Definitely. And also want to ask you, from a production point of view, if you’ve been working on this documentary, for decades, you traveled all over America, back and forth, back and forth, interviewing hundreds of people close to Morrison in the industry. But when was the decision made that it would be a series as opposed to a one-off feature, say 90 minutes or 100 minutes long? What was the process to make that happen?
Jeff Finn:
Well, that’s ironic, because I am the production company. I’m a one-man operation. In the old-school sense of true independent filmmaking, you know, I don’t have a crew. That’s, by and large, why it took me so damn long to make the project, you know, I’m one man working with hired freelancers. So, you know, but yeah, early on, early on in the process, I broke ground on it in July 2012, which was like 100 years ago. And initially, yeah, I had planned for it to be, you know, just a traditional standalone, 90-minute, or maybe two-hour documentary.
And over time, it morphed and evolved and grew. At one point, it was a six-part talk. And as I’ve said many times, if I were to release all the footage, all the interviews, and all the B roll, I mean, the thing could be a 24-hour documentary. And there is talk of doing a possible limited edition DVD box set, as you know, the director’s cut to get all that stuff out there to the fans. And I would love to do that. So we’ll see how, how that plays out.
Glen Dower:
Well, that’d be awesome. And I also wanted to ask if were there any thoughts of recreating live-action moments or even a full version.
Jeff Finn:
I never really entertained the notion of reenactments. Although I will say that in the last 10 years or so, I’ve personally noticed that they’ve really stepped that up; I think the bar has been raised for reenactments. And my favorite instance of that is one of my favorite documentaries personally, which is Wormwood by Errol Morris. I highly recommend that documentary. And that was a huge inspiration to me during the making of my project.
Glen Dower:
And some of the psychedelic aspects of the music also fed through to the production design as well. Was that also a conscious effort to build a tone?
Jeff Finn:
Yeah, exactly. With respect to the traditional format of the documentary, they’re known as talking head documentaries, not to be confused with the brilliant band Talking Heads, where you get just people one after the other having their say. And I think that’s brilliant. I mean, that was the original format. But with respect to Jim, in particular, and his times, the late 1960s, and early 70s, in general, I wanted to imbue the doc and enliven it with color, not necessarily psychedelic, but just to give it that sense of a vivid palette and tribute to Jim and the universal mind, as he called it.
Glen Dower:
It worked really well, just as a reminder to the audience. What do you think of The Doors movie itself, with Val Kilmer as Morrison?
Jeff Finn:
I’m on the record, and I’ve said many times going back years, I think Oliver Stone is a brilliant filmmaker. I just don’t feel that that brilliance was on display in The Doors 1991 biopic. I think Kilmer did a great job with what he had to work with. I interviewed Randall Johnson in my documentary, who was the original screenwriter. It’s been written that he and Stone collaborated on that screenplay, but that wasn’t really the case. Stone came along after Randall had already done all the research and written the screenplay, and then he sort of, you know, morphed it.
And that’s to his credit. You know, he was the director and that’s his prerogative. You know, he can take poetic license and create what he wanted, but I just felt it was one-dimensional, as I know many people do. It just focused on nothing but the dark side. And frankly, just made Jim look like a real asshole! And there was so much more to him than that. And his sister told me as much. So, you know, each to their own.
Glen Dower:
And do we have any rock stars left? And that question makes me sad. I mean I recently read somewhere where Taylor Swift was described as a rock star, and elsewhere Ed Sheeran was described as a rock star. I’m thinking, no…no they’re not. But do we have any rock stars left? I only listen to podcasts now but turn on the radio or whatever and you hear this pointless bubblegum pop that we’re subjected to. What’s your opinion on music today?
Jeff Finn:
You know, at the risk of sounding like an old dude, which I am, there are a couple of things here and there that I enjoy. But this goes way back before I even began my project, where I knew Jim was a one in a million, but many of his peers pushed the envelope back then. From Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Iggy Pop, Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, on and on. And where are those people today? And given the calamitous state of the world, now more than ever, where are the people in their 20s stepping up to protest, you know, via art, via music, and surely they must be out there. Maybe I’m not aware of them. But, yeah, I’m with you!
Glen Dower:
And finally, I just want to ask you as well, here at Cinema Scholars we have many readers who are aspiring filmmakers. As you said, you’re a one-man band, you’re a production company, you’re out there, you’re a cameraman, you’re an interviewer, I’m guessing editor, sound designer, all those things. And someone like myself who wants to get into filmmaking, what advice can you give just straight off the bat? I get the pleasure of talking to many documentary filmmakers, and the previous one said, it’s like a marriage, prepare to marry the material, nurture it, and hopefully, by the end, you’ve got a beautiful child. But what would be your advice if someone wants to go to make a documentary film?
Jeff Finn:
I love that analogy, by the way! Hopefully, you don’t want a divorce. Honestly, I might be the last person to give that advice, because I went about everything…I don’t want to say backward or inside out. But it was a strange turn of events for me personally. Back at that time, when I first read No One Here Gets Out Alive in 1985, I was 18. And I was, you know, a bit lost, as many 18-year-old kids are like, what the hell am I going to do with my life?
I knew I wanted to write, I knew that much, I’ve always been a writer. But I entertained the notion of attending Columbia College in Chicago, which is a great, you know, liberal arts college. It didn’t happen for one reason or the other. I think I was just too intimidated, as I recall. But I was interested in documentary films even then. But it took me a long, strange journey to get to this point. And honestly, I just dove in. I just dove in, kind of like Tarantino, I guess, in that sense, not to put myself on his level in terms of talent. And obviously, he doesn’t do documentaries.
But the way he just dove in, he just did it, you know, almost like punk rock. Just do it. Don’t be afraid as Jim said himself, back in the 60s, regarding film, there really are no experts, and that could be argued now, 50-some years later. My advice would be just be fearless, just dive in, and know you’re going to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. There are always silver linings to mistakes if you have the patience and the drive to look for them.
Glen Dower:
There we go. A perfect way to close. I really enjoyed the documentary. And I definitely, am on your side, I think Mr. Morrison is out there somewhere. But I think leave him alone if you find him. But we’ll see. So I’ll be sharing the good word on your documentary. Mr. Finn, thank you so much for your time. Happy New Year. Have a great one.
Jeff Finn:
Thank you, Glen. Thank you so much for having me and Happy New Year to you too!
Before the End: Searching for Jim Morrison, the 3-part docu-mystery series will make its global TVOD/Digital release on January 13, 2025, on all the major platforms including Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, and YouTube TV, with more to follow.
