A Defense of Oliver Stone's Doors Movie

[jym]

I was writing this essay and I thought of this & that you guys would like to see it. It's only 1 paragraph of a larger rant let me what you think.

Which brings me to the much maligned Oliver Stone movie The Doors. In which Stone committed innumerable sins of factual inaccuracy including when the screenwriter ran out of dialogue or couldn't imagine what Morrison would have said simply inserted Doors lyrics. What Oliver Stone did do was create (maybe inadvertently) a trilogy of movies about different aspects of the 60's. Platoon about the Vietnam War experience sure it has it's allegorical moments but it also gives you the impressionistic experience of what it was like to be in Vietnam. JFK of course about the assassination and America's loss of innocence in the face of politics. And The Doors, ostensibly about The Doors and Jim Morrison's life and their history from film school until Morrison dies in that Paris bathtub, but it's also about the Dionysian, hedonistic experience of giving yourself to the music that so many did in the 60's and the experience that Stone himself missed because he was in Vietnam. But Jim Morrison also represents that spirit of music, that chaos, the Rock N' Roll everything goes attitude that anything is possible. The Doors never did a show twice the same way, Morrison was totally unpredictable on-stage from delivering the Oedipal section of The End that rocketed them to fame, grabbing a curtain as its rising, falling off the stage, getting arrested on-stage, or to the double entendre possibility of exposing oneself on-stage. Jim Morrison represents this spirit of music that is missing from music today and maybe that's what Oliver Stone's The Doors is trying to say to us we're missing that spirit in our lives.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The furore about the Stone movie has always had one driving force behind it and this is partly the reason why it is so demonised.........
Ray claims he walked off the set....Stone claimed he was escorted off the set.....who knows....who cares......
One famous argument between them went.

Stone: I won 3 Oscars
Ray: I have eight Gold Records.....

Ray claims a lot of things in the film did not happen (my God thats a shock....a Hollywood biopic that makes stuff up) but some of his claims were simply spite some were based on reality.
The Gold Telephone incident he claimed never took place did happen as did the advert for Buick (confirmed by Jac Holzman in Follow The Music)....the famous setting alight of the wardrobe was reported to Stone by Pam's neighbour who was confronted with a distraught Pam who told him the tale....unless Ray lived in Jim & Pam's cupboard I would go with Pam's neighbour as much in Jim's life happened without Ray Manzarek knowing about it.
Many of the incidents are simply ciphers to illustrate the kind of man Jim was ....we know he was a drunk and we know he was sometimes violent to women (probably as a result of the drink) ....Densmore witnessed that side of Jim and mentioned it many times.........but we also know Jim was generous to a fault a true artist striving to do justice to his art and a very funny very nice guy most of the time......
The film did not focus much on the nice aspects of Jim as it was a Hollywood movie designed to attract an audience and make a lot of money....can anyone truly say that what Ray Manzarek does today is any different to what Stone did in 1991.
Jim as Shaman and Dionysus all this mystical crap comes from Ray to sell a silly pastiche of the 60s for the 21st century.
Stone at least has one excuse ...he never met Jim nor was he Jim's pal......he was telling a story of a person he did not know to an audience who in the main did not know him......
His biggest critic who is as guilty as he was of selling a Myth cannot claim that as an excuse.......
The movie can be taken on various levels which will incite a response based on which level you choose.
Its a Hollywood biopic NOT a documentary and makes no claims to present the TRUE story of Jim Morrison. It was the singular biggest boost to Ray, Robby & Johns income in the last 25 years and created thousands and thousands of new Doors fans....some who just liked the music some who explored the band deeper and discovered the true Jim and The Doors.
I personally loved the movie and was enthralled on the night I saw it at Croydon ABC on its first night of release in 1991.
I did not come out of the cinema and revised what I knew about Jim and The Doors simply enjoyed the ride for what it was......I wrote a review in 2001 for Scorpywag in which I said 'Jim Morrison would have loved this movie'.....I stand by that comment today. I received a death threat and an internet hex from a witch (no NOT Patricia) for my comments....which show the passions that surround the movie..........
Its not gonna go away as #1 Detractor will never forgive Stone for not letting him have more involvement.......


Vote for The Doors Movie here
www.oscarworld.net/ostone/default.asp

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Of course the biggest argument against the film is that it did indeed influence the thinking of those who knew nothing of The Doors and Morrison who believed that the vision of Stones Movie was in fact exactly how it was.....
I submit this pile of uninformed shite as an example from 1991 when the movie came out...........so it is hard to argue for the movie in some respects as it produced rubbish from idiots like this who comment but do no research to find out if their comments are valid..........Jim Morrison for example did NOT 'carry a bottle with him everywhere, gulping big slugs of booze as if it were pop' nor was he mean spirited and obnoxious to the fans......he could be an arce when he wanted like any of us but in general he was usually polite and treated his fans and friends better than most Hollywood types today even going as far as calling fans who had written to him on the phone and chatting to them from The Doors Office.
But if the Movie is guilty of anything it is guilty of giving idiots an opportunity to spout shit about subjects they know fuck all about...........



The Doors


BY ROGER EBERT / March 1st 1991

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the problem with American lives is that they have no second act. The problem with Jim Morrison's life was that it had no first and third. His childhood was lost in a mist of denial - he never quite forgave his father for being an admiral - and his maturity was interrupted by an early death, caused by his relentless campaign against his own mind and body. What he left behind was a protracted adolescence, during which he recorded some great rock 'n' roll.

If we can trust Oliver Stone's new biographical film, "The Doors," life for Jim Morrison was like being trapped for months at a time in the party from hell. He wanders out of the sun's glare, a curly haired Southern California beach boy with a cute pout and a notebook full of poetry. He picks up a beer, he smokes a joint, and then life goes on fast-forward as he gobbles up drugs and booze with both hands, while betraying his friends and making life miserable for anyone who loves him. By the age of 27 he is dead. Watching the movie is like being stuck in a bar with an obnoxious drunk, when you're not drinking.

The songs he left behind, it is true, are wonderful. Many of them are on the soundtrack of "The Doors," which combines Morrison's original vocals and new vocals by Val Kilmer so seamlessly that there is never, not even for a moment, the sensation that Kilmer is not singing everything we hear. That illusion is strengthened by Kilmer's appearance. He looks so uncannily like Jim Morrison that we feel this is not a case of casting, but of possession.

The performance is the best thing in the movie - and since nearly every scene centers on Morrison, that is not small praise. Val Kilmer has always had a remarkable talent, which until now has been largely overlooked, but if you want to see why Stone thought he could be convincing as a rock star, look at "Top Secret!," the "Airplane!"-style spoof of spy movies in which Kilmer plays Elvis Presley. Because of Kilmer, and because of extraordinary location work with countless convincing extras, the concert scenes in "The Doors" play with the authenticity of a documentary.

If the songs are timeless and the concert footage is convincing, however, the scenes from life are more painful than in any other backstage movie I can remember. The typical showbiz biopic describes a sort of parabola, in which the talented kid wins early fame, begins to self-destruct, hits bottom, and then makes his big comeback and goes on, of course, to have a movie made about him. Jim Morrison becomes a star very quickly, and then self-destructs as quickly and efficiently as he can. It is not a pretty picture. He must have been one of those people with a constitutional inability to handle drugs or booze in any quantity. For him there is no moderation; he isn't seeking to get high, he's looking for oblivion.

He knows it. His poetry and lyrics - and a lot of the dialogue in the movie - glorify death. He's infatuated with it, mesmerized by death as the ultimate trip, and as the ultimate loyalty test: If you love him, you will die with and/or for him. He's like Edgar Allen Poe on acid, crawling along the ledges outside hotel windows, or begging his lovers to stab him in the heart. This kind of narcissism has its source, of course, in self-loathing, and the early scenes of Jim preening and posturing before the camera like a male pinup eventually segue into scenes where he hides behind a beard and dark glasses, hibernating in hotel rooms on long, lonely binges.

Oliver Stone, who as a young man once tried to pitch an early version of this screenplay to Morrison himself, has a natural feel for the Los Angeles beach and rock scene in the years when the Doors were first establishing themselves as "the band from Venice." Morrison materializes on the beach like a young god from the sea, falls in love with a hippie chick (Meg Ryan), and reads his poetry, which is sophomoric, but translates easily into haunting song lyrics, helped by the mournful quality of his voice. Whatever else you can say about Morrison and the Doors, there is no denying their sound; their records, especially "Light My Fire" and "L.A. Woman," have become a part of our shared consciousness.

Stone shows the band working out some early arrangements and playing early gigs at rock clubs on the Sunset Strip, and then, just as in life, Jim Morrison becomes a superstar at about the same time he becomes unreliable as a stage performer. He carries a bottle with him everywhere, gulping big slugs of booze as if it were pop. He uses drugs. They do not help his personality, and he becomes mean-spirited and autocratic to those who depend on him, and obnoxious to the public - except, of course, for those moments when lightning strikes and his underlying talent flashes out.

The band grows weary of him - of the missed dates, the no-shows, the late arrivals, and endless recording sessions in which a drunken or hungover Morrison indulges himself in expensive retakes.

Keyboardist Ray Manzarek (Kyle Maclachlan), who first told him he had potential as a singer, drifts into a kind of passive-aggressive trance, sitting stone-faced during Morrison's outbursts. Others threaten to quit. Listening to the final version of one of his best albums, Morrison tells the musicians, "That's not bad for a bunch of guys who weren't even talking to each other the day the album was recorded." Prancing and preening onstage as a sex god, Morrison is bedeviled by impotence in real life; the drugs have done their work.

In the movie's most extraordinary scene, he encounters an older rock journalist (Kathleen Quinlan) who is heavily into sadomasochism and the trappings of witchcraft, and who through heroic measures, including pain, ritual and the mutual drinking of blood, succeeds in stimulating Morrison to the point where he actually achieves potency - although, if the movie is to be trusted, it was his last hurrah.

Quinlan's character is almost the only one able to break through the fog of Morrison's indulgences to create a distinctive screen persona for herself (the character is miles different from anything she has played before, and brilliantly conceived and executed). The other principals in Morrison's life, even his wife as played by Ryan, are supporting characters who drift in and out of focus during his long, sad binge.

The experience of watching "The Doors" is not always very pleasant. There are the songs, of course, and some electrifying concert moments, but mostly there is the mournful, self-pitying descent of this young man into selfish and boring stupor. Having seen this movie, I am not sad to have missed the opportunity to meet Jim Morrison, and I can think of few fates more painful than being part of his support system. The last hour of the film, in particular, is a dirge of wretched excess, of drunken would-be orgies and obnoxious behavior, of concerts in which the audiences wait for hours for the spectacle of Morrison stumbling onstage to fake a few songs or, notoriously, to expose himself.

In the end, Stone leaves a large question unanswered: How was Morrison able to leave the country after being sentenced to a jail term for public indecency? But leave he did, to die of an "apparent heart attack" in Paris, where he lies buried to this day, his tomb a mecca for his fans, who have spray-painted all of the neighboring tombs with exhortations and obscenities. Even in death, Jim Morrison is no fun to be around.

[jym]

Alex thank for posting the Ebert review, it's been a long-long time since I read that. I never beforer heard that the arson scene was based on any anything that happened in Morrison's life. I heard that Stone said it sounded like something Morrison could have done. That's a bad paraphrase. Still early for me.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

jym said:

Alex thank for posting the Ebert review, it's been a long-long time since I read that. I never beforer heard that the arson scene was based on any anything that happened in Morrison's life. I heard that Stone said it sounded like something Morrison could have done. That's a bad paraphrase. Still early for me.

Stone makes a point of mentioning this in a couple of interviews from the time as well as on the DVD special features.....of course its easy to say he was not telling the truth and Ray was but Ray is a well known liar who says anything to further his agenda (the Doors/dork trial being a glorious example of how far Ray will go with his lies) whilst Stone has nothing to gain making that up as his film is attacked by Doors fans for many other things anyway.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

We have seen a lot of comment here (mostly by me) on the so called documentary When You're Strange but this is the film that DiCillo bases his stupid film on and 30 years on what do you folks think?

Time to cast a 21st century eye over this epic film.