Films centered around music are nothing new for the Sundance and Slamdance Film Festivals, but this year many of the films have themes of both the struggles between and the commonality of generations.

The highest-profile Sundance music film is "It Might Get Loud," a documentary about guitars that brings together musical icons from three generations: Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, The Edge of U2, and Jack White of the White Stripes and Raconteurs.

In addition, veteran feature-filmmaker Tom DiCillo's first documentary, "When You're Strange," documents the revolutionary Los Angeles band The Doors, while the younger filmmaker Adam Bhala Lough focuses on another revolutionary figure of the modern age in "The Carter," about the dazzling and influential rapper Lil Wayne.

That's not all. First-time filmmaker Lee Storey brings "Smile Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story" to Slamdance, chronicling the origins of the group that created a generational divide in the late 1960s that continues to this day.

Filmmakers are drawn to music because of the emotions and crackling energy that both art forms generate, they say.

"I've always, always been turned on by music, and by film," said DiCillo. "The Doors' music is extremely cinematic. Their music is very dense and highly emotional. It deals a lot with character, and blood, murder and a lot of crazy things."

Ray Manzarek, legendary keyboardist for The Doors, agreed with the director that the band was inspired and influenced by cinema. After all, both Jim Morrison and Manzarek came out of the UCLA film school. "That's where we became friends," the musician said. "We're definitely cinematic."

Both he and Morrison took film classes taught by the Austrian director Josef von Sternberg, who influenced the film noir movement and was best known for his dark, moody collaborations with Marlene Dietrich. Von Sternberg inspired many of The Doors lyrics regarding moral ambiguity and dark eroticism, Manzarek said.

Lough found Lil Wayne, perhaps the most popular rapper alive, to be a cinematic subject, and as engrossing as DiCillo found The Doors. Lough, who had his fictional film "Weapons" screened at Sundance in 2007, followed Lil Wayne from March to November 2008. His documentary "The Carter" is being screened as part of the Park City at Midnight series.

"Music has always played a big role in my movies," Lough said, claiming that even the rapper was inspired by being filmed for the documentary, and Lil Wayne wound up composing more than six new songs that are heard for the first time in the film.

Storey, a lawyer who wrote and directed the documentary about Up With People, was inspired to make the film after finding out her husband -- who she had been married to for 15 years -- revealed that he was an early member of Up With People, the 1960s collective of young musicians who sang folk songs about peace and harmony, known as the counter to the counter-culture. The organization continues to this day, but Storey said she wanted to explore "the other side of the movement and how it was utilized by Nixon and corporate America."

dburger@sltrib.com