The Doors: Pretty Good, Pretty Neat

Rethinking the Rock Biopic
by M.A. Fedeli



The debate over what makes a good rock biopic is a raging one. This can mostly be attributed to the frequent ineptitude of the genre. It is a difficult subject to capture, as I discussed in detail in my review of Todd Hayne's I'm Not There. Despite being a fascinating rethinking of the genre, one well known yet oft overlooked biopic is Oliver Stone's The Doors. This film is essentially the story of Jim Morrison, and to be fair, it is far from perfect, exhibiting some of the usual biopic faults. This can largely be attributed to the inherent bouncing around of rock biopics and the well-known ground they must almost contractually agree to cover in between standard character development. Many times they must forgo traditional narratives in order to include enough reenactments of the musician's most famous events and mythological rock n' roll stories that the audience yearns to see.

The Doors probably requires the attention span of an above average Doors fan to sustain and the script labors a bit too much on the negatives of Morrison (his excesses, indulgences, and unsympathetic treatment of others). It tends to lean heavily on the legends and the infamous lore of the man, not having a balancing amount of the sympathetic dissection Stone would display in his operatic treatment of Richard Nixon. An excuse could be made that Stone wanted to challenge the audience to like this hero of theirs, asking them, "Would you really want to hang out with this son of a bitch?" Showing Morrison as the animal he could sometimes be was indeed a way to to show the dark underside of 60's rock super-stardom and hedonism.

I see it though, as a flaw in the performance of Val Kilmer, who has been lauded by fans for his uncanny portrayal of Morrison and his vocal stylings. However, he does not do what Anthony Hopkins did so wonderfully in Nixon, focusing more on the inner turmoil of the man and capturing his essence, rather than delivering an inspired impersonation. Nixon makes you stop searching in the film for the real man and immerses you in the film's own reality. Kilmer does an excellent and believable job, to be sure, but the performance lacks the heft to be transcendent. The negatives of The Doors pretty much end there.

Where most rock biopics fail is in there attempt to find a singular reason for the talent, the failures, and the behaviors of the subject. Even rock documentaries struggle when they try too hard to conveniently explain the artist's life and oeuvre. It is admirable to make an effort to draw a connection between the many aspects of the artist, but it is damning to give summation. This trap is what The Doors avoids. In typical Stone fashion, it invents scenarios that while never really occurred, do more to give insight into a character than the stupid trick of exploiting his troubled childhood. Take, for example, the trip the band takes to do acid in the desert. Whether or not this actually happened is besides the point. It shows us first about Morrison's drug use, second, his influence over, camaraderie with, and overall separation from his bandmates, and finally, the American Indian thread that runs throughout the film. Topping all of this is when the band, tripping and highly emotional, jams out on the spot the perfect strung-out-in-the-desert-with-bongos-sing-a-long "My Wild Love". One invented scene manages to capture 4 or 5 huge aspects of Morrison and The Doors, without any opinion or judgment.

Weaving the music (in various stages of its existence) into many scenes in the film is one of its great charms, and does much to lift Kilmer's decent performance. It is a tribute to Oliver Stone's ability that he is able to find deeper meaning in the songs by having them central to other actions in the plot. This method is much better than annoying visual interpretations of song's meanings. It also pays tribute to the music, rewarding the band's fans who love the music most of all. The film is littered with well and lesser known Doors and Morrison events framed around Stone's amazing song choices, which serve to better explain the scene and the song. Some of them include the discovery and writing of "Light My Fire", which feels completely real and gives a look at the vast stylistic differences between these musicians and how they melded them. There is the rookie performance of "Crystal Ship", where a shy Morrison is afraid to face the crowd. There is the Whiskey show with "The End", bringing the band infamy and fame at the same time. The hectic and disastrous recording of "Touch Me" which leads to a much-needed confrontation between strung-out singer and exasperated band. Near the finish, there is the band's last time together as a whole, mixing the rain effect on "Riders on the Storm" and discussing the future after the success of their latest album. Stone is also adept at lifting small portions of poems and songs from even obscure live recordings and bringing them into the film in totally complimentary ways, as seen in the New Haven and Miami concerts and the poetry recording sessions, among others.

My favorite, and what I consider to be the best use of a song inside the action is when Jim serenades Pam with a haunting version of "The Spy". We first get the conflict between the lovers, which sets up the song, which defuses the conflict in it's own special way. These are words that Morrison wrote, thoughts straight from his mind, a much more effective storytelling technique when it works than just an assumed and fabricated conversation. Stone is clever and intelligent enough to figure out how the songs can be used and where in the action they would be most useful. It is not without risk either, too much of it or in the wrong place and it's obnoxious and obvious overkill, a sore thumb. Allowing the songs to be such a central part of the film's narrative action threatens to detract slightly from the film's effectiveness in the sense that they could be considered distracting. But in reality, for a rock biopic, they are crucial tie-ins to the real-life artist, and Stone excels. These seamlessly injected realities are a strength of many of Oliver Stone's fact-based films, and something others struggle to pull off without parody or nausea.

As I said before, The Doors is not perfect. Few rock biopics that cover more than a couple days-in-the-life ever are. Too much is usually already known of the artist and expected of the film. When a director takes his own creative risks with the biopic, like the bald-headed spirit of death which haunts Morrison throughout the film, the idea almost dies on the vine, whether it makes sense or works in the film or not. People crave for biopics of their favorite artists, but what they really want is more invasive documentary footage and multiple angles of their favorite Zapruder Films. Given the relative low quality of rock biopics compared to rock documentaries, this may not be a bad thing. For a master's lesson on how to infuse music into a rock biopic, give The Doors the second look that it warrants, with an eye out mainly for Stone's ability as a screen writer, historian, and fan. For if it's anything, it's a great film for the fans of the band.