The Doors (film)
The Doors is an American film directed by Oliver Stone from the year 1991 .
The film focuses on the history of the music group The Doors and above all the career of the singer Jim Morrison , portrayed by Val Kilmer . Morrison is portrayed as an icon of 1960s rock culture and the contemporary hippie lifestyle, whose life was heavily influenced by a web of alcohol consumption, use of hallucinogenic substances, esotericism and an obsession with death.
The collaboration of Doors members Robby Krieger and John Densmore contributed to the detailed representation of the band, their surroundings and especially the concert scenes . Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek and numerous companions criticized the film for its lack of authenticity and the unrealistic portrayal of Jim Morrison. The soundtrack contains numerous pieces by the Doors . The main actor Val Kilmer impressed the critics with his singing, which could be set in the film over the original instrumental recordings of the Doors .
action
The film fictionally shows the life story of Jim Morrison, beginning with memories of his childhood and his family, with whom he drives on a desert road in 1949, where he sees an elderly Indian die on the side of the road. He comes to California in 1965 and is fascinated by alternative culture and beach life. While studying at UCLA film school, he meets his future girlfriend Pamela Courson and has the first encounter with Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger and John Densmore, who later became The Doors .
Jim travels to Death Valley with his bandmates to experience the effects of psychedelic drugs. Back in Los Angeles, they play in the famous Whiskey a Go Go nightclub , become more and more popular and soon have a wild "fan base".
With increasing success, Jim isolates himself more and more and degenerates into alcoholism and drugs. Jim meets Patricia Kennealy, a rock journalist with a penchant for witchcraft, and participates with her in mystical ceremonies, including a pagan wedding ceremony.
Jim's unreliability, missed recording dates and absences from concerts are becoming more and more of a burden for the band. When he showed his bare bum to the audience after whistling after being late in Miami, it was a low point in the band's popularity. Criminal charges, cancellations of concerts, breakdowns in Jim's personal relationships and growing distance from the other band members follow.
In 1970 Jim was sentenced to prison but was allowed to remain at liberty until the verdict became final. Patricia tells him she is pregnant, but Jim persuades her to have an abortion. Jim visits his band mates one last time, and at Ray's party, he wishes the band good luck for the future. In the front yard he meets children playing and recognizes his own childhood. Jim comments, "This is the strangest life I've ever known."
In 1971, Pam finds Jim dead in a bathtub in Paris. The final scenes of the film show Jim's grave in the cemetery Pere Lachaise , while A Feast of Friends playing in the background, then a white screen and the text: "Jim Morrison said to have died of a heart attack, he was 27. Pam followed three years later . "
Reactions from band members
Ray Manzarek didn't like the film at all. For him, the story focused too much on the drug addict Jim Morrison and neglected other facets of his personality: “Oliver Stone should be ashamed of himself. Too sensational. Too crazy. The whole time Jim with a bottle in hand. It is ridiculous. It's a film about an alcoholic. ... It wasn't about Jim Morrison. It was about Jimbo Morrison, the drunkard. God, where was the sensitive poet and the funny person? The guy I knew wasn't on screen. That wasn't my friend. "
The guitarist Robby Krieger also saw weaknesses in the film, but was overall satisfied with the result: “I think the film turned out quite well for a rock'n'roll film, which is pretty difficult to make. … Val Kilmer was great. You left out a lot. Some things were exaggerated, but a lot was done very well, I think. "
Reviews
“A subjectively exaggerated portrait of Jim Morrison, the lead singer of the legendary rock group 'The Doors', who died in 1971, depicting the rock poet as a person driven by demons who tries to fathom the depths of his soul through drug and alcohol excesses and unbridled sex experiences . A film full of visual feats of strength, which undoubtedly tries to surprise the viewer with its excellent design and equipment. Although he does not do justice to the person of Morrison, his fascination cannot be denied, which is also triggered by the meritorious efforts to capture the zeitgeist of the era between Woodstock , the Vietnam War and the youth rebellion. "
“Directors like Francis Ford Coppola , Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma tore over the material. But who could have filmed it with more passion than Oliver Stone, the three-time Oscar winner, who designed his kaleidoscope of the 1960s with ' Platoon ', ' Born on July 4th ' or ' JFK '? James Douglas Morrison, born on December 8, 1943 in Florida, was a real rebel unlike many other rock stars. Even at school he fell out of line with defiant behavior and obscene speeches. The youth in reactionary Nixon America were more than open to someone like him, who not only spoke and sang against conventions, but really lived the slogan 'Sex and Drugs and Rock' n 'Roll'. In the middle of the atmosphere stirred up by the Vietnam War and flower power , he was the new messiah in the garb of Lucifer. Val Kilmer looks like a mirror image in Morrison's standard outfit: leather pants and a white shirt. Even the stage scenes in which Kilmer sings with his own voice between the original sounds of the Doors sound frighteningly real. "
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for The Doors . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , May 2014 (PDF; test number: 65 715-b K).
- ↑ "He should be ashamed of himself. Too sensationalistic. Too jivey. Jim with a bottle all the time. It was ridiculous. It was like a movie about an alcoholic. […] It was not about Jim Morrison. It was about Jimbo Morrison, the drunk. God, where was the sensitive poet and the funny guy. The guy that I knew was not on that screen. That was not my friend. " Interview with Ray Manzarek on Classic Bands
- ↑ "Anyway, I thought that it turned out pretty good, as far as a rock 'n roll movie, which is really hard to make. […] I thought Val Kilmer was great. They left a lot of stuff out. Some of the stuff was overblown, but a lot of the stuff was very well done, I thought. " Interview with Robby Krieger on Classic Bands
- ^ The Doors. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 17, 2016 .
- ↑ TV feature film
Web links
- The Doors in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Doors atRotten Tomatoes(English)