Review of The Doors (1991) by Spangle — 24 Jan 2017

The Doors is hardly a biopic of Jim Morrison or The Doors. Instead, it is a gateway drug in the form a feature film. Through the life of Morrison, director Oliver Stone finds cinematic peyote and injects it into the veins of the audience and leaves us with an oddly spiritual experience. Hypnotic, indulgent, and excessive, Stone discards the story of Jim Morrison and The Doors in order to tell a more compelling tale through the atmosphere of the film. In essence, he turns an otherwise cliche biopic into an experience that transcends its cliched trappings within the musician biopic subgenre. Adorning his film with the sexual escapades of Morrison, the making of songs, and a soundtrack complete with the greatest hits by the band, Stone's film is a transcendent biopic that feels eminently rich and entertaining.

This power and atmosphere of the film is defined very early on. Eschewing most of his childhood and just dropping him in college, the film briefly runs through the forming of the band in order to dump them in the desert. Having the band take peyote and trip together in order to get ideas for the film, it is here that Stone conjures the psychedelic feeling of the film of simulates an acid trip through his film. Shot throughout with an orange filtered haze, the film is hypnotic and continuously unexpected. It is also in this desert that Stone really finds his hero: Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer). Tossing aside most life details in favor of this aesthetic and atmosphere, Stone needed a man to carry it on their shoulders and Kilmer does exactly that. He disappears into the role and I had to constantly remind myself that this was Ice-Man from Top Gun. He is phenomenal to an unexpected degree and really embodies Morrison, but more importantly, embodies the feeling that Stone is trying to conjure. It is a match made in heaven between director and lead and the film benefits tremendously from their on-screen chemistry.

Yet, the clearest Stone comes to showing the audience that he could care less about the story is the San Francisco concert sequence. Opening with The Doors performing at an outdoor concert in the Bay Area, Stone keeps the music playing, but cuts through a very unique montage. Containing images of Jim participating in a witchcraft ritual to be united with some weird girl, people dancing nude around a fire at the festival, Jim catching Pam (Meg Ryan) cheating on him and taking heroin, Jim lighting his house on fire, and Native American spirits dancing with him on stage, the film is odd at this point. Yet, it is equally as gorgeous. Stone does not strike a balance between the aesthetic drug trips and Jim's reality. Instead, he goes full bore into the former. Those expecting a traditionally told biopic will come away disappointed because that was never Stone's intent. Instead, he wanted to drop his audience into the mind of Morrison and to see the world from his point of view. It is honestly the only way to sympathize with him and once we feel the drugs and negative influences in his life, it becomes obvious how this man died at 27.

It is this style that saves the film. While Stone makes the concert scenes powerful and epic, as they should be, the stylish storytelling and orange filtering cover up a largely run-of-the-mill tale. Stone takes no risks in the story itself, which becomes more noticeable after the hypnotic opening half hour. The indulgence in the sexual temptations experienced by Morrison is an unfortunate detour, but continues to show that his life was certainly done by the seat of his pants. Unfortunately, the rise and fall of his life is written in a pretty cliche manner, it is only once Stone gets his hands on the material that it truly soars and becomes an oddly beautiful biopic and a behemoth of one at that.

The Doors is an experience. Their music most certainly is, as the lyrics are hardly special. Rather, it is the feeling that it creates within you where the music finds its power. Oliver Stone knows this and seeks to create the same feeling from his film. He is certainly successful with the film transporting the viewer to an alternate dimension where Jim Morrison was possessed by Natives and that is hardly the weirdest thing the film convinces its audience of. It is indulgent, excessive, and off-the-wall. But, above all else, it is thoroughly engrossing, atmospheric, and completely epic. It story is cliche, but its storytelling transcends the stale and repetitive musician biopic subgenre.