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The Doors (1991)   
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Director:
Oliver Stone |
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COUNTRY
USA |
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Genre
Biopic/Music |
NORWEGIAN
TITLE
The
Doors |
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RUNNING
TIME
141
minutes |
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Producer:
Bill Graham
Sasha Harari
Mario Kassar
A. Kitman Ho |
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Screenwriter:
J. Randal
Johnson
Oliver Stone |
Review
In Oliver Stone's vision of
1960s California – the time and scene which fostered Jim Morrison and his
band The Doors – every image and sensibility you would associate with it
are amplified and embellished almost to the point of mockery. Still,
there is nothing satirical in Stone's angle, which is all about nostalgia and
idealism, as if Morrison was dead right: drugging, boozing, philandering
and rebellion was and is the way to live. And maybe it is. The problem with
The Doors, in many ways a complete and engrossing biopic, is that
it doesn't offer an alternative view. We never actually get to know the
person behind the myth. Instead we get an uninhibited celebration and
hyperbole of the myth. Stone's visionary approach also has its
advantages, however, and one of them is that it connects his images
closer to The Doors' music and Morrison's lyrics. For large portions of
its running time, the film is like a continual music video, with a
thematic line from a certain childhood experience of Morrison's. There
are abundances of snakes and moons and death, and if we don't get to know the everyday
man that Morrison also must have been, we certainly get to know some of
the demons which eventually led to his demise. And we get to know, or
rather revisit, some brilliant pieces of music and a couple of legendary
live acts, most notably The Doors' famous performance of "The End" from
the Whisky a Go Go nightclub. Val Kilmer gives an invested, close to
complete performance as Morrison – a performance which could also have been moving had
Stone given him more real emotion to work with.
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