1
Sasha Denisova
LIGHT MY FIRE
An abridged version of the script
Scene 1: Jim Morrison’s father, the Admiral, returns home, having bought no potatoes.
MISHA AS MORRISON:
I remember dad came after three months of absence… Bronzed and mustached… With presents… Chewing gum… Whenever he was coming back from his sailing voyages I knew he was part of some other world. I liked that world. Ships and all that… Dad served in Vladivostok and we lived in a village. Mom called it God-forsaken hole… I loved that hole. There were four big rocks and a lake… At home dad turned into a normal man. Mom kept telling him: “Don’t champ when you eat”. He was quite a hillbilly. And that made mom furious. Mom spent most of her time at home. She had nothing to do with big ships… They divorced… He married another woman and she bore him two kids…
Next time I saw him was many years later. I was studying acting in Leningrad. Dad came to visit. I saw him come off the train. He was nothing like the stylish man in a white scarf from my childhood. The man who took me into his arms as I was yelling: “Daddy..! Daddy..!” I saw a flabby bearded bespectacled man and I thought to myself: “Is this my dad?!”
Scene 2: Jim’s parents talk about making Jim give up excessive passion for Indians.
JIM’S MOTHER:
I barely managed to put him to bed. He kept going: “Wow! Wow!” I say: “What’s up?” And he says: “There’re Indians out there”…
JIM’S FATHER:
Last time I took him to the pictures it was about the Indians…
JIM’S MOTHER:
He painted tattoos all over his body… There’re feathers flying all about the house. And he’s eating lizards… He’s hunting me with a bow. I’m bruised all over… I have a heavy heart…
JIM’S FATHER:
We gonna fight fire with fire… (Into the phone) Sorry I’m calling so late… It’s about a boy… A boy of eight…
SCENE 3: Animators put on an accident scene with Indians.
ILYAS:
All right, we work… An Indian girl and an Indian boy… You just lie down… Don’t tell me how to do my job! Down! Down..!Not dramatic enough… Now sit! Don’t tell me how to do my job..! Now blood…
ILYAS AS MORRISON:
In short dad left us when I was 12 or 13… He and mom had a nasty argument and he left… He came to Brighton Beach, N.Y., with 20 bucks in his pocket… 13 years later he was naturalized… In New Orleans he got an Indian friend and eventually became a shaman. He sent me a picture of him holding a staff… Now one day grandmother calls and says: “He’s coming. Go and meet him at the airport. It’s an order!”… Now I go to the airport and I see the guy with a plait down his ass, in pants made of T-shirts and his face is painted in henna… That was the kind of daddy I met… Dad bought a plot of land outside New Orleans not far from Indian reservations and was growing pumpkins, carrots, tomatoes, peaches and all that shit… It was all washed off by Catherine… Luckily dad was taken off the roof of his cottage before the roof was washed off too… Now dad comes back home. I ask him: “Dad, why the fuck did you come back?” And he says: “You know people here have souls”.
SCENE 4: Teacher abuses the class and criticizes Jim’s essay.
LYOSHA AS TEACHER:
… I’ll soon turn grey with you and your parents will pay for dying my hair… Where do you think you are? Nibbling sunflower seeds in front of your house..? Who’s on duty today?
ANNA/MISHA/ARINA:
Morrison!
LYOSHA AS TEACHER:
Now about your essays… Horrible! And your handwriting is like chicken scratches…
MORRISON (enters):
Sorry. May I?
LYOSHA AS TEACHER:
What happened to you this time?
MORRISON:
My sister was kidnapped by Gypsies…
LYOSHA AS TEACHER:
Very funny! I’m speechless… What was the subject of the essay?
TALGAT:
“How I spent this summer”.
LYOSHA AS TEACHER:
… Your notebook! I can’t even take it. Did you wrap fish in it or what..? So you spent this summer in the slum district of Moscow. Your window is overlooking a waste incineration plant where you’re most likely going to work after you leave school for you’re good for nothing better… And you were in Uzbekistan. Entertaining camels, huh..? Now you… I know how you spent this summer for unluckily I live nearby and could see you occupy the kindergarten courtyard smoking cigarettes and drinking beer… Now Jim… I really don’t know what to say. What happened? Are you sick? Problems with the family..?
MORRISON:
My sister was kidnapped by Gypsies.
LYOSHA AS TEACHER:
So you like to write fairy tales? Fairyland and goddamn goblins! Now again, what was the subject of the essay?
TALGAT/ARINA/MISHA/ANNA:
“How I spent this summer”.
LYOSHA AS TEACHER:
And here’s what Morrison wrote. Title: “Month of the Dead Sun”. It’s not funny!
MORRISON:
My brother has a brain tumor. I must go now.
LYOSHA AS TEACHER:
The lesson is over…
SCENE 5: JANIS PREPARES FOR THE SCHOOL BEAUTY CONTEST.
LYOSHA:
… next participant from Texas JanIs JoplIn!
ANNA AS JANIS:
It’s JAnis fucking JOplin!
As JANIS walks off stage
ALL:
Gosh! Damn monster! Get the hell out!
ANNA AS JANIS:
Fucking freaks! Now I’m gonna sing!
ALL:
And we shall dance…
SCENE 6: Classmates jeer at Janis.
ANNA AS JANIS:
After the fourth grade I was transferred to another school. It was cool and everyone there was cool. I had two cousins and one sister. So I was the fourth in line to wear clothes… When they saw me in this red hat, green leggings and blue dress they gave me hell. This hell continued till graduation. I thought being hated was normal… They called me monster… At the studio things were different. No one was pretty or ugly. We were just busy. Amazing..!
… At school a guy said I had no tits… I thought that was my problem and that when I grow my tits everything’s gonna be all right…
… One day a neighbor came with her two daughters. They brought plenty of fancy clothes… They wanted me to put them on so they could choose what to wear for their graduation ball… I put on a dress and they just went:
Oh!
SCENE 7: Jimmy Hendrix meets aliens.
Little Jimmy Hendrix is reading a book about aliens
ALIEN:
… Don’t turn round – you’ll be shocked at what you’ll see… We can travel both in space and time… In the near future we saw you perform American anthem in Woodstock. To us it sounded like the SOS… Our spaceship took a little damage and we need to send the SOS signal across the universe… Here’s your guitar. In fact it is a spaceship. Nanotechnology… You can play it or burn it but don’t forget – Woodstock, American anthem… Behave yourself…
SCENE 8: DISCUSSION OF MORRISON’S MOVIE PROJECT.
LYOSHA:
It’s late. Let’s begin…
ARINA:
I’m sorry… Can I say a word..? Or can I ask a question..? We kind of lost bearings… Perhaps the author could give us some cue… So we can discuss what we’ve just seen… Can I start now? You know once I start I can’t stop… I’ll try to be brief and polite… I didn’t quite understand the final scene… I’m not quite sure about the protagonist… I think it could be the woman but I’m not sure… I’d recommend the author to give up making films… Like a friend of my said after seeing The Three Sisters: “If I’d known it’s so sad I wouldn’t have gone to see it”… Will somebody stop me for I can’t stop myself..?
MISHA (stuttering):
…Just a couple of words… If it’s about self-determination of creative personality… (Mutters something illegibly) Just a couple of words…
ANNA:
I’m sorry Jim but why all this foul language..? People swore in Chekhov’s times… Some foul language is tasty. Yours is not…
ILYAS:
Jim, right? An interesting name you’ve got… To look at you you are an interesting person…A war movie in the age of the internet… The veterans will get us wrong… We won’t have an audience Jim…
LYOSHA:
We’ll miss the train… What we really need is a guardian angel…
ILYAS:
Or a psychoanalyst… Why don’t you try and go beyond Jim? To outer space and farther on…
As all are talking at the same time Jim exits.
ARINA:
Why don’t we ask the author..? Where’s the author..? We’ve lost the author…
SCENE 9: Jim is hanging around and meets Pamela.
MORRISON:
“Hello, I love you, won’t you tell me your name..?” What are you reading…?
“And I made a rural pen,
And I stain’d the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear…”
William Blake, the great English poet and artist… How ‘bout a joint?
PAMELA
Sounds good...
They smoke.
PAMELA:
I’ll go now…
MORRISON
Sure…
PAMELA:
Bye…
MORRISON:
Hey…
Morrison reads his poem.
PAMELA:
What was it?
MORRISON:
… And we’ll dive into the moonlight… I’ll show the way… It’s simple – I love you… Love you now as you’re sliding through the night and vanishing in the rainy forests…
PAMELA:
What was it?
MORRISON:
Poetry…
SCENE 10: JIM IS HANGING AROUND AND MEETS MANZAREK.
MANZAREK:
… Heard they kicked you out from Film College…
MORRISON:
They fucking did.
MANZAREK:
What are you gonna do now?
MORRISON
Write poetry…
MANZAREK:
Will you read it to me?
JIM recites what sounds like total gibberish.
MANZAREK:
What language is this?
MORRISON:
Uzbek…
MANZAREK:
Did you ever try to sing this..? You have a guitar..? I have a guitarist. We can record your stuff right now and make a million…
SCENE 11: JANIS MISBEHAVES DURING RENDEZVOUS.
JANIS:
Cuckoo! I’m Janis… Where’re my flowers..? It’s a joke… Stop keeping low profile… You had a drop in today? I hadn’t. It’s a joke. I had… It’s cool here… Romances and all that shit… You heard me sing..? Hey! Where’re you going..?
SCENE 12: JANIS AND HER FIANCE J.P. COME TO VISIT JANIS’ MOTHER AND TELL HER THEY ARE GOING TO MARRY.
J.P.:
Will you marry me?
JANIS:
Sure… Are you serious..?
J.P.:
No bridal veils, no rings, none of this corny shit…
JANIS:
Hi Mom…
J.P.:
Why don’t you sit down Missis..?
MOM:
Don’t tell me what to do in my own house.
J.P.:
The point is I’m gonna propose marriage to your little girl…
MOM:
You know how old she is? How old are you? How are you going to make a living?
J.P.:
I’m an artist. Everybody knows me in the ArbatStreet.
MOM:
A bum from the Arbat! I made the same mistake in my time…
J.P.:
The point is that we are…
JANIS:
… Free people… We are not going to have formal marriage…
MOM:
So you gonna bear an illegitimate child?
JANIS/J.P.:
We’re free people. We’re children of the flowers!
MOM:
Stop clowning! I’m gonna have a hypertensive crisis…
J.P.:
Ask your mom for a fiver and let’s get the hell out of here.
JANIS:
Thanks mom…
J.P.:
Let’s fly away honey.
SCENE 13: JANIS PESTERS FRIENDS SHE’S STAYING WITH.
JANIS:
… My friends are artists, poets, musicians… No Mom, nobody’s making passes on me… They’re not loafers. They’re creative personalities… No, I’m not coming tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, or in a week. I just can’t leave them… I can’t talk now… Bye…
LYOSHA:
I was going to ask you where you’re going to stay. We’re moving out… And what are you going to do?
JANIS (sings):
“You’ve been waiting for me a long, long time…”
MISHA:
No singing please…
JANIS (sings):
“I can’t hold on to happiness… My guilt keeps me awake as silence is singing outside the window…”
LYOSHA:
You surely have a talent for singing. Why didn’t you sing for us before?”
JANIS:
You really liked it?
LYOSHA:
Here you’re just wasting your gift… Why don’t you go to New York? You’ll be recorded and win the Grammy…
MISHA:
Sounds like a good idea…
JANIS:
I’ll sing and you’ll bring me flowers…
LYOSHA:
You’d hardly remember who we are.
MISHA:
You must go right now. Your things are all packed.
MISHA:
Don’t be afraid.
LYOSHA:
Don’t come back. It’s a bad sign… Misha will see you off…
SCENE 14: JANIS DECIDES TO GO BACK HOME TO HER MOM.
JANIS enters with a suitcase.
MOTHER:
Jesus… You’ll bring me to my grave. You could have called… Look at yourself. You’re shaming your mother… Haven’t heard from you six months… Jesus you’re smelled up by tobacco… Shadows under your eyes… Are you pregnant..? Where’s this artists of yours? No need to answer. I’ve guessed… I knew… Didn’t I tell you? Don’t you know mom always wishes you well..? Anyway it’s good you came back. Big cities are big rubbish dumps. I watch TV so I know… You may live here but you’ll have tolive by the rules. No more sleeping till noon… Look at me. I’ve nearly killed myself walking on my sick feet from the store to the market, from the market to the railway station… Standing in lines, arguing with gooks… It’s tough Janis, very tough… Janis…
SCENE 15: JIM MORRISON VANISHES FROM STAGE WHILE SINGING “LIGHT MY FIRE”.
TALGAT:
(a monologue about Uzbek rock-n-roll)
I was a schoolboy when I and my musician friend created a band… We called them rehearsals but actually they were drunken feasts… However occasionally we played music…
My friend Vitaly was the front-man and the vocalist. He also played solo and acoustic guitar. A very gifted fellow he was… Our other guitarist Eugeny worked in a woodworking factory. He made the guitars and we fitted them out with electric gear. It was simple… We tried many names for our band and ended up with the most moronic one – “The Sound Trajectory”…
We gave our first performance at a school. Many people came including a few criminals. They wanted us to sing thieves’ cants…Basically they were quite friendly… At the concert one of them said: “I ain’t gonna stand up like some fookin’ dude. Make us seats…” We arranged seats for them so they were sitting there flashing golden tooth caps and counting beads… The school authorities were on the alert but somehow guys managed to smuggle bottles of port and everybody got pissed… After that concert, I was firmly convinced: if anything’s worth living it’s rock-n-roll..!
SCENE 16: JIM GIVES AN INTERVIEW FOR TV CHANNEL “MORNING”.
HOST:
Our today’s guest is singer, poet and composer Jim Morrison. My first question, Jim, is whatinspires you?
ALEXI AS MORRISON:
… I realized it’s hard to be a child. What’s a kindergarten? Getting up early to walk across the town and meet a bunch of unfriendly strangers… The crucial thing was not to think ahead. I’d kicked the bucket just at the thought that this gonna last for no less than a week…
After the drama school I worked with three theatres… Each time I got fired. That was my way of quitting… A young actor looking for some good role is always a whipping boy… You dream of hitting the big time and they cast you as one of the extras… You want to act and they want you to dance… I saw people who’d been doing this for decades and if they had a chance to speak just one line they thought they’d started making a career in theatre… Horrible..!
So I started to skiprehearsals and eventually got fired… It was a physical kind of thing. My mind said, get up and go, but my body refused…
Afterwards I worked for a TV news program… The best thing about that job was the bar outside the newsroom. After writing whatever we had to write we all went there for a quick one. After 50 quick ones of Scotch the world stopped treating me bad…
Besides I liked my assignments… Attending all these glam hangouts… Foods and drinks and all them the big-timers… Some of them were blacklisted though as gasbags… Once I bumped into an actor friend. He saw me carrying a camera tripod and said: “Shit buddy, you could’ve been an actor”. And I thought: “What the fuck?!”
Then bad times came… Many guys were dismissed on grounds of redundancy. Surprisingly I wasn’t. They said to me: “Now that you’ve got more free time why don’t you think of making a mini-film of your own..?” That was my death sentence. Freedom is a job-killer. I kept hanging around for a month or so waiting for a flash of inspiration and that was it…
I tried myself as a showman, got an offer to play in a 100-episode serial… And every time it was a fuckup…
I kept asking myself why..? I had some good looks… I had friends including some showbiz bigwigs… But it never worked. A girl I knew said to me once: “You look like a hunk. Girls see you and want to get laid. But a hunk means a blockhead whereas you’re a smart ass who likes to talk. One doesn’t fit with the other…” My problem is that I don’t look like a down-an-out guy or a guy who’s hit the bottle…