The Doors is a 1991 biopic about the 1960s-1970s
rock band of the same nameThe Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
which emphasizes the life of its lead singer,
Jim MorrisonJames Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...
. It was directed by
Oliver StoneWilliam Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
, and stars
Val KilmerVal Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...
as Morrison,
Meg RyanMargaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra , professionally known as Meg Ryan, is an American actress and producer. Raised in Bethel, Connecticut, Ryan began her acting career in 1981 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982...
as
Pamela CoursonPamela Susan Courson was the long-term companion of Jim Morrison, vocalist of The Doors. After the deaths of Morrison and Courson, her parents petitioned an out-of-state court to declare that the couple had a common-law marriage.-Early life and involvement with Morrison:Courson was born in Weed,...
(Morrison's companion),
Kyle MacLachlanKyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films Blue Velvet as Jeffrey Beaumont, Showgirls as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in Dune, and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film The Doors...
as
Ray ManzarekRaymond Daniel Manzarek, Jr., better known as Ray Manzarek , is an American musician, singer, producer, film director, writer, co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors from 1965 to 1973, Nite City from 1977–1978 and Manzarek-Krieger since 2001.Manzarek is listed #4 on Digital Dreamdoor's "100...
,
Frank WhaleyFrank Joseph Whaley is an American film and television actor known for his roles in independent films.-Personal life:Whaley was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Josephine and Robert W. Whaley, Sr. He is half-Irish and half-Sicilian and grew up in Syracuse. He has two sisters and an older...
as
Robby KriegerRobert Alan "Robby" Krieger is an American rock guitarist and songwriter. He was the guitarist in The Doors, and wrote some of the band's best known songs, including "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times," "Touch Me," and "Love Her Madly."...
,
Kevin DillonKevin Brady Dillon is an American actor best known as Johnny "Drama" Chase on the HBO dramedy Entourage. He has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for his performance on the show.- Early life :...
as
John DensmoreJohn Paul Densmore is an American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the drummer of the rock group The Doors.-Early life and The Doors:Born in Los Angeles, Densmore attended Santa Monica City College and Cal...
, and
Kathleen QuinlanKathleen Denise Quinlan is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated American actress, mostly seen on television and in motion pictures.-Personal life:...
as
Patricia KennealyPatricia Kennealy-Morrison is an American author and journalist. Her published works include rock criticism, a memoir, and a series of science fiction/fantasy and murder mystery novels...
.
The film portrays Morrison as the larger-than-life icon of 1960s
rock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
,
countercultureCounterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
, and the
drug-usingRecreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...
free loveThe term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
hippieThe hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
lifestyle. But the depiction goes beyond the iconic: his
alcoholismAlcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, interest in the spiritual plane and
hallucinogenic drugThis general group of pharmacological agents can be divided into three broad categories: psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants. These classes of psychoactive drugs have in common that they can cause subjective changes in perception, thought, emotion and consciousness...
s as
entheogenAn entheogen , in the strict sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts...
s, and, particularly, his growing obsession with
deathDeath is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
are threads which weave in and out of the film. The film's depiction of Morrison did not sit well with his close friends and family.
Plot
The film opens during the recording of Morrison's
An American PrayerAn American Prayer is the last studio album by The Doors. In 1978, seven years after lead singer Jim Morrison died and five years after the remaining members of the band broke up, Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore reunited and recorded backing tracks over Morrison's poetry...
and quickly moves to a childhood memory of his family driving along a desert highway. Young Jim sees an elderly native American dying by the roadside. The film picks up with Morrison's arrival in
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and his assimilation into the
Venice BeachVenice is a beachfront district on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, United States. It is known for its canals, beaches and circus-like Ocean Front Walk, a two-and-a-half mile pedestrian-only promenade that features performers, fortune-tellers, artists, and vendors...
culture, followed by his film school days studying at
UCLAThe University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
; his introduction to his girlfriend Pamela Courson, his first encounters with Ray Manzarek, and the origin of The Doors: Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore.
Morrison convinces his bandmates to travel to
Death ValleyDeath Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Badwater, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below...
and experience the effects of
psychedelic drugA psychedelic substance is a psychoactive drug whose primary action is to alter cognition and perception. Psychedelics are part of a wider class of psychoactive drugs known as hallucinogens, a class that also includes related substances such as dissociatives and deliriants...
s. Returning to
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, they play several shows at the famous
Whisky a Go GoThe Whisky a Go Go is a nightclub in West Hollywood, California, United States. It is located at 8901 Sunset Boulevard, on the Sunset Strip.-History:...
club and develop a rabid fanbase. Morrison's onstage antics and occasionally improvised lyrics raise the ire of club owners; however, the band's popularity continues to expand.
As The Doors become hugely successful, Morrison becomes increasingly infatuated with his own image as "The Lizard King" and degenerates into alcoholism and drug addiction. As he sinks deeper into an alcoholic haze he begins having several affairs, particularly
mysticalMysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
sexual encounters with
Patricia KennealyPatricia Kennealy-Morrison is an American author and journalist. Her published works include rock criticism, a memoir, and a series of science fiction/fantasy and murder mystery novels...
, a rock journalist involved in
witchcraftWitchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
. The rest of the band grows weary of Morrison's missed recording sessions and absences at concerts. Morrison is depicted arriving late to a Miami,
FloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
concert, becoming increasingly confrontational towards the audience and
exposing himselfIndecent exposure is the deliberate exposure in public or in view of the general public by a person of a portion or portions of his or her body, in circumstances where the exposure is contrary to local moral or other standards of appropriate behavior. Indecent exposure laws vary in different...
onstage. The incident is a low point for the band, resulting in resentment from the other band members and Morrison's trial for indecent exposure.
In 1971, Courson finds Jim Morrison dead in a bathtub in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
,
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, at the age of 27. Pamela Courson similarly dies three years later of a
drug overdoseThe term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...
, also at the age of 27. The final scenes of the film before the credits roll are of Morrison's gravesite in
Père Lachaise CemeteryPère Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
in Paris with a rock version of
Remo GiazottoRemo Giazotto was an Italian musicologist, music critic, and composer, mostly known through his systematic catalogue of the works of Tomaso Albinoni...
's
Adagio in G minorThe Adagio in G minor for violin, strings and organ continuo, is a neo-Baroque composition popularly attributed to the 18th-century Venetian master Tomaso Albinoni, but composed by the 20th-century musicologist and Albinoni biographer Remo Giazotto and based on the disputed discovery of a...
playing in the background as well as a voice over by Morrison. Just before the credits, the screen whites out and text appears saying "Jim Morrison is said to have died of heart failure. He was 27. Pam joined him three years later."
During the credits, the band is shown recording the song "
L.A. Woman"L.A. Woman" is a song by American rock band The Doors. The song is the title track on their 1971 album L.A. Woman, the final album with frontman Jim Morrison before his death.In the song's coda, Morrison repeats the phrase Mr...
" in the studio.
Cast
- Val Kilmer
Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...
(Sean Stone, young) as Jim MorrisonJames Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...
- Meg Ryan
Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra , professionally known as Meg Ryan, is an American actress and producer. Raised in Bethel, Connecticut, Ryan began her acting career in 1981 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982...
as Pamela CoursonPamela Susan Courson was the long-term companion of Jim Morrison, vocalist of The Doors. After the deaths of Morrison and Courson, her parents petitioned an out-of-state court to declare that the couple had a common-law marriage.-Early life and involvement with Morrison:Courson was born in Weed,...
- Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle Merritt MacLachlan is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films Blue Velvet as Jeffrey Beaumont, Showgirls as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in Dune, and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film The Doors...
as Ray ManzarekRaymond Daniel Manzarek, Jr., better known as Ray Manzarek , is an American musician, singer, producer, film director, writer, co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors from 1965 to 1973, Nite City from 1977–1978 and Manzarek-Krieger since 2001.Manzarek is listed #4 on Digital Dreamdoor's "100...
- Frank Whaley
Frank Joseph Whaley is an American film and television actor known for his roles in independent films.-Personal life:Whaley was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Josephine and Robert W. Whaley, Sr. He is half-Irish and half-Sicilian and grew up in Syracuse. He has two sisters and an older...
as Robby KriegerRobert Alan "Robby" Krieger is an American rock guitarist and songwriter. He was the guitarist in The Doors, and wrote some of the band's best known songs, including "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times," "Touch Me," and "Love Her Madly."...
- Kevin Dillon
Kevin Brady Dillon is an American actor best known as Johnny "Drama" Chase on the HBO dramedy Entourage. He has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for his performance on the show.- Early life :...
as John DensmoreJohn Paul Densmore is an American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the drummer of the rock group The Doors.-Early life and The Doors:Born in Los Angeles, Densmore attended Santa Monica City College and Cal...
- Kathleen Quinlan
Kathleen Denise Quinlan is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated American actress, mostly seen on television and in motion pictures.-Personal life:...
as Patricia KennealyPatricia Kennealy-Morrison is an American author and journalist. Her published works include rock criticism, a memoir, and a series of science fiction/fantasy and murder mystery novels...
- Billy Idol
William Michael Albert Broad , better known by his stage name Billy Idol, is an English rock musician. A member of the Bromley Contingent of Sex Pistols fans, Idol first achieved fame in the punk rock era as a member of the band Generation X...
as Cat
- Josh Evans
Josh Evans is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor.-Life and education:Evans was born in New York City, New York, the son of actress Ali MacGraw and producer Robert Evans. He is also the nephew of the late producer Charles Evans, stepson of Steve McQueen, and the stepbrother of actor and...
as Bill SiddonsBill Siddons is best known for managing The Doors from 1968 to 1972.After the death of The Doors' lead singer Jim Morrison he managed the remaining three members for two records. He was the one person in the United States Pamela Courson contacted from Paris after Morrison had died...
- Michael Wincott
Michael Anthony Claudio Wincott is a Canadian actor.Wincott was born in Toronto, Ontario and is renown for playing villainous roles-Filmography:*Title Shot - Robber*Wild Horse Hank - Charlie Connors...
as Paul Rothchild
- Michael Madsen
Michael Søren Madsen is an American actor, poet, and photographer. He has appeared in more than 150 films, most of them small independent films, though he has starred in central roles in such films as Reservoir Dogs, Free Willy, Donnie Brasco, and Kill Bill, in addition to a supporting role in Sin...
as Tom Baker
- Jerry Sturm
Jerry Gordon Sturm is a former American college and professional football player. A center, he played college football at the University of Illinois, and played professionally in the American Football League for the Denver Broncos from 1961 through 1966, and later for several National Football...
and Gretchen Becker as Mr. and Mrs. Morrison
- Kelly Ann Hu
Kelly Ann Hu is an American actress and former fashion model. She was Miss Teen USA 1985 and Miss Hawaii USA 1993.-Early life:Hu was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the daughter of Juanita, an engineering drafter for Honolulu, and Herbert Hu, a salesman and exotic bird breeder; the two divorced during...
as Dorothy
- Debbie Mazar
Deborah "Debi" Mazar is an American actress, perhaps best known for her Jersey Girl-type roles; as sharp-tongued women in independent films; and for her recurring role as press agent Shauna Roberts on the HBO series Entourage.-Early life:...
as Whiskey girl
- Lisa Edelstein
Lisa Edelstein is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the television drama House.-Early life and education:...
as Makeup artist
- Crispin Glover
Crispin Hellion Glover is an American film actor, director and screenwriter, recording artist, publisher, and author. Glover is known for portraying eccentric people on screen such as George McFly in Back to the Future, Layne in River's Edge, unfriendly recluse Rubin Farr in Rubin and Ed, the...
as Andy WarholAndrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
- Paul Williams
Paul Hamilton Williams, Jr. is an Academy Award-winning American composer, musician, songwriter, and actor. He is perhaps best known for popular songs performed by a number of acts in the 1970s including Three Dog Night's "An Old Fashioned Love Song", Helen Reddy's "You and Me Against the World",...
as Warhol PR
- Mimi Rogers
Mimi Rogers is an American movie actress and competitive poker player.-Early life:Rogers was born Miriam Spickler in Coral Gables, Florida, the daughter of Philip C...
as Magazine photographer
- Jennifer Rubin as Edie
- Costas Mandylor
Costas Mandylor is a Greek Australian actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as Kenny in Picket Fences, and for portraying Mark Hoffman in the Saw films.-Early life:...
as Italian Count
- Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
(uncredited) as UCLA Film Professor
- Jennifer Tilly
Jennifer Tilly is an American actress and poker player. She is an Academy Award nominee, and a World Series of Poker Ladies' Event bracelet winner. She is the older sister of actress Meg Tilly.-Early life:...
(uncredited) as Okie girl
- Eric Burdon
Eric Victor Burdon is an English singer-songwriter best known as a founding member and vocalist of rock band The Animals, and the funk rock band War and for his aggressive stage performance...
(uncredited) in a cameo appearance in the London Fog
- Paul Rothchild (uncredited) in a cameo appearance in the London Fog
Development
Directors like
Brian De PalmaBrian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
,
Martin ScorseseMartin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, and
William FriedkinWilliam Friedkin is an American film director, producer and screenwriter best known for directing The French Connection in 1971 and The Exorcist in 1973; for the former, he won the Academy Award for Best Director...
flirted with making a Doors biopic over the years. In 1985,
Columbia PicturesColumbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
acquired the rights from the Doors and the Morrison estate to make a film. Producer Sasha Harari wanted filmmaker Oliver Stone to write the screenplay but never heard back from his agent. After two unsatisfactory scripts were produced, Imagine Films replaced Columbia. Harari contacted Stone again and the director met with the surviving band members. He told them he wanted to keep a particularly wild scene from one of the early drafts. The group was offended and exercised their right of approval over the director and rejected Stone. By 1989, Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna, who owned
Carolco PicturesCarolco Pictures, Inc., Carolco International N.V., or Anabasis Investments was an American independent film production company that, within a decade, went from producing such blockbuster successes as Terminator 2: Judgment Day and the first three movies of the Rambo series to being bankrupted by...
, acquired the rights to the project and they wanted Stone to direct it. The Doors had seen
PlatoonPlatoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and stars Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen. It is the first of Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, followed by 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1993's Heaven & Earth....
and were impressed with what Stone had done. He agreed to make it after his next project,
EvitaEvita is the 1996 film adaptation of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical of the same name based on the life of Eva Perón. It was directed by Alan Parker and written by Parker and Oliver Stone. It starred Madonna, Antonio Banderas, and Jonathan Pryce...
. After spending years working on it and courting Madonna and
Meryl StreepMary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
to play the lead role, the film fell apart over salary negotiations with Streep. Stone quickly moved over to
The Doors and went into pre-production. Guitarist Robby Krieger had always opposed a Doors biopic until Stone signed on to direct. Historically, keyboardist Ray Manzarek had been the biggest advocate of immortalizing the band on film but opposed Stone's involvement. He was not happy with the direction that Stone was going to take with the film and refused to give his approval. According to actor Kyle MacLachlan, "I know that he and Oliver weren't speaking. I think it was hard for Ray, he being the keeper of the Doors myth for so long". According to Krieger, "when the Doors broke up Ray had his idea of how the band should be portrayed and John and I had ours". Manzarek claims that he was not asked to consult on the film and wanted it to be about all four band members equally rather than the focus being on Morrison. Stone claimed that he repeatedly tried to get Manzarek involved, but "all he did was rave and shout. He went on for three hours about his point of view ... I didn't want Ray to be dominant, but Ray thought he knew better than anybody else".
Screenplay
Stone first heard the Doors in 1967, when he was a 21-year-old soldier in
VietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. Before filming started, Stone and his producers had to negotiate with the three surviving band members and the parents of Morrison and his girlfriend Pamela Courson, and the band's label
Elektra RecordsElektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
. Morrison's parents would only allow themselves to be depicted in a dream-like flashback sequence at the beginning of the film. The Coursons wanted there to be no suggestion in any way that Pamela caused Morrison's death. Stone found the Coursons the most difficult to deal with because they wanted Pamela to be portrayed as "an angel". While researching the film, Stone read through transcripts of interviews with over 100 people. He then wrote his own script in the summer of 1989. Stone said, "
The Doors script was always problematic. Even when we shot, but the music helped fuse it together". Stone picked the songs he wanted to use and then wrote "each piece of the movie as a mood to fit that song". The Coursons did not like his script and tried to slow the production down by refusing to allow any of Morrison's later poetry to be used in the film. After he died, Pamela got the rights to his poetry and when she died, her parents got the rights.
Casting
For nearly ten years before the film was made, the project went through
development hellIn the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
after being considered by many studios and directors. Several actors including
Tom CruiseThomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
,
Johnny DeppJohn Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
,
John TravoltaJohn Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
, and
Richard GereRichard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...
were each considered for the role of Morrison when the project was still in development in the 1980s. Even the lead singers from
INXSINXS are an Australian rock band, formed as The Farriss Brothers in 1977 in Sydney, New South Wales. Mainstays are Garry Gary Beers on bass guitar, Andrew Farriss on guitar/keyboards, Jon Farriss on drums, Tim Farriss on lead guitar and Kirk Pengilly on guitar/sax...
and
U2U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
expressed an interest in the role. When Stone began talking about the project in 1986, he had Val Kilmer in mind to play Morrison after seeing him in the
Ron HowardRonald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
fantasy film
WillowWillow is a 1988 American fantasy film directed by Ron Howard and produced/co-written by George Lucas. Warwick Davis stars in the film, as well as Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Jean Marsh, and Patricia Hayes...
. Kilmer had the same kind of singing voice as Morrison and to convince Stone that he was right for the role, spent several thousand of his own dollars and made his own eight-minute video, singing and looking like Morrison at various stages of his life. To prepare for the role, Kilmer lost weight and spent six months rehearsing Doors songs every day. The actor learned 50 songs, 15 of which are actually performed in the film. Kilmer also spent hundreds of hours with Paul Rothchild, who told him, "anecdotes, stories, tragic moments, humorous moments, how Jim thought, what were my interpretation of Jim's lyrics," the music producer said. Rothchild also took Kilmer into the studio and helped him in "some pronunciations, idiomatic things that Jim would do that made the song sound like Jim". Kilmer also met with Krieger and Densmore but Manzarek refused to talk to him. When the Doors heard Kilmer singing they could not tell if it was him or Morrison's voice.
Stone auditioned approximately 60 actresses for the role of Pamela Courson. The part required nudity and the script featured some wild sex scenes which generated a fair amount of controversy. Casting director Risa Bramon felt that
Patricia ArquettePatricia T. Arquette is an American actress and director. She played the lead character in the supernatural drama series Medium for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series....
auditioned very well and should have gotten the part. To prepare for the role, Meg Ryan talked to the Coursons and people that knew Pamela. Before doing the film, she was not familiar with Morrison and "liked a few songs" and said, "I had to reexamine all my beliefs about it [the 1960s] in order to do this movie". In doing research, she encountered several conflicting views of Pamela.
Krieger acted as a technical adviser on the film and this mainly involved showing his cinematic alter ego,
Frank WhaleyFrank Joseph Whaley is an American film and television actor known for his roles in independent films.-Personal life:Whaley was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Josephine and Robert W. Whaley, Sr. He is half-Irish and half-Sicilian and grew up in Syracuse. He has two sisters and an older...
, where to put his fingers on the fretboard. Densmore also acted as a consultant on the film, tutoring
Kevin DillonKevin Brady Dillon is an American actor best known as Johnny "Drama" Chase on the HBO dramedy Entourage. He has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award for his performance on the show.- Early life :...
who played him in the film.
Principal photography
With a budget set at $32 million,
The Doors was filmed over 13 weeks predominantly in and around
Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
; Paris, France; New York City, New York and the
Mojave DesertThe Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
. Stone originally hired
Paula AbdulPaula Julie Abdul is an American singer-songwriter, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality.In the 1980s, Abdul rose from cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era before scoring a string of pop music-R&B hits...
to choreograph the film's concert scenes but she dropped out because she did not understand Morrison's on-stage actions and was not familiar with the time period. She recommended Bill and Jacqui Landrum. They watched hours of concert footage before working with Kilmer. The Landrums got him to dance exercises to loosen up his upper body and jumping routines to develop his stamina. During the concert scenes, Kilmer did the actual singing and Stone used the Doors' master tapes without Morrison's lead vocals to avoid lip-synching. Kilmer's endurance was put to the test during the concert sequences which took several days to film. Stone said, "his voice would start to deteriorate after two or three takes. We had to take that into consideration". One sequence, filmed inside the Whisky a Go Go, was harder than others due to all the smoke and sweat - a result of the body heat and intense camera lights. For five days, Kilmer performed "The End" and, after the 24th take Stone got what he wanted, his actor was completely exhausted.
Controversy arose during filming when a memo linked to Kilmer circulated among cast and crew members listing rules of how the actor was to be treated for the duration of principal photography. These included people being forbidden to approach him on the set without good reason, not to address him by his own name while he was in character, and no one could "stare" at him on the set. An upset Stone contacted Kilmer's agent and the actor claimed it was all a huge misunderstanding and that the memo was for his own people and not the film crew.
Soundtrack
The film's
soundtrackThe Doors: Original Soundtrack Recording is the soundtrack to Oliver Stone's 1991 film The Doors. It contains The Doors studio recordings, The Velvet Underground's "Heroin" as well as Carl Orff's Carmina Burana...
contains over two dozen of The Doors' songs; in the film, original recordings of the band are combined with vocal performances by Kilmer himself. In addition to the many themed Doors songs featured, two songs by
The Velvet UndergroundThe Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
are also heard throughout the film.
Historical accuracy
The film is based mostly on real people and actual events, but some parts are clearly Stone's vision and
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
tization of those people and events. For example, when Morrison is asked to change the infamous lyric in "
Light My Fire"Light My Fire" is a song by The Doors which was recorded in August 1966 and released the first week of January 1967 on the Doors' debut album. Released as a single in April, it spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and one week on the Cash Box Top 100, nearly a year after...
" for his appearance on
The Ed Sullivan ShowThe Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
, he is depicted as blatantly ignoring their request. The film depicts a defiant Morrison shouting the word "higher" into the TV camera, while, in fact, he highlighted "fire" during the performance (and sang the line "higher" more or less as he originally recorded it). In one version, Morrison insisted that it was an accident, that he meant to change the lyric but was so nervous about performing on live television that he forgot to change it when he was singing. In another version, Ray Manzarek says that The Doors pretended to agree to the change of words, and deliberately played the song as they always had, though, without any added emphasis on the offending word.
The film portrays Morrison's early period with
The DoorsThe Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
with all the original band members included.
Robby KriegerRobert Alan "Robby" Krieger is an American rock guitarist and songwriter. He was the guitarist in The Doors, and wrote some of the band's best known songs, including "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times," "Touch Me," and "Love Her Madly."...
did not join the band until later the same year as this particular period takes place.
When Jim is at the bar he asks the bartender for a Dos Equis but Dos Equis wasn't exported to the United States until 1973.
Jim and Patricia Kennealy are talking in the shower stall in the scene in New Haven, Connecticut. She inaccurately states that Jim attended the University of Florida, when Jim actually attended Florida State University.
Morrison is also depicted locking Courson in a closet and setting it on fire, which is said to have never happened. None of the above mentioned books tell this story either. Rhino Records photographer Bobby Klein claims to have had Courson come over to his house when this incident occurred, and to have taken care of her during some weeks after. Manzarek is quoted as stating firmly that this incident never happened in the record of a question and answer session he did on Universal Chat Network in 1997. However, in his book
Light My Fire, Manzarek is frank about Morrison's tendency to go into senseless rages. The book
The Doors quotes Densmore as saying of the couple, "They were like
Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
. They fought like hell, but they were meant to be together."
Dialogue that took place between Kennealy and Morrison is reassigned to Courson, and Courson is depicted as saying hostile things to Kennealy, when by all reports their interactions were polite. Densmore is also portrayed as hating Morrison as Morrison's personal and drug problems begin to dominate his behavior. In truth, as Densmore writes in
Riders on the Storm, he never directly confronted Morrison about his behavior.
Krieger, Densmore, and Kennealy are all credited as
technical advisorA technical advisor is an individual who is expert in a particular field of knowledge, hired to provide detailed information and advice to people working in that field...
s for the film; however, they have all commented that although they may have given advice, Stone often chose to ignore it in favor of his own vision of the story. The settings for the film, particularly the concert sequences, are depicted in mostly chronological order, although the crowd scenes contain many blatant exaggerations, such as portrayals of nudity that did not occur.
The surviving Doors members were all to one degree or another unhappy with the final product, and were said to have heavily criticized Stone's portrayal of Morrison as an "out of control
sociopathAntisocial personality disorder is described by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition , as an Axis II personality disorder characterized by "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood...
". In a 1991 interview with Gary James, Manzarek criticized Stone for exaggerating Morrison's alcohol consumption in the movie, saying, "Jim with a bottle all the time. It was ridiculous . . . 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 I knew was not on that screen." In the afterword of his book
Riders on the Storm, Densmore says that the movie is based on "the myth of Jim Morrison". In the same place, he criticizes the film for portraying Morrison's ideas as "muddled through the haze of the drink [alcohol]". In a 1994 interview, Krieger said that the film doesn't give the viewer "any kind of understanding of what made Jim Morrison tick." Krieger also commented about the film in the same interview: "They left a lot of stuff out. Some of it was overblown, but a lot of the stuff was very well done, I thought."
In the book
The Doors, Manzarek says, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In this book, Densmore says of the movie, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger joins Manzarek and Densmore in describing the movie as inaccurate, but also says, referring to the film's inaccuracy, "It could have been a lot worse."
As the credits point out and as Stone emphasizes on his
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
commentary, some characters, names, and incidents in the film are fictitious or amalgamations of real people. Stone states in particular in the
1997-Events:* The original Star Wars trilogy's Special Editions are released.* Production begins on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.* Titanic becomes the first film to gross US$1,000,000,000 at the box office making it the highest grossing film in history until Avatar broke the record in 2010.*...
documentaryDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
The Road of Excess that Quinlan's character, Patricia Kennealy, is a composite, and in retrospect should have been given a fictitious name. Kennealy in particular was hurt by her portrayal in the film. Ryan's character, Pam Courson, involves liberties of a different sort. The former Doors do not think the movie depiction of her is very accurate, as their book
The Doors describes the version of Courson in the movie as "a cartoon of a girlfriend". Courson's parents had inherited Morrison's poems when their daughter died, and Stone had to agree to restrictions about his portrayal of her in exchange for the rights to use the poetry. In particular, Stone agreed to avoid any suggestion that Courson may have been responsible for Morrison's death. However, Alain Ronay and Courson herself had both said that she was partially responsible. In
Riders on the Storm, Densmore says Courson said she felt terribly guilty because she had obtained drugs that she believed had either caused or contributed to Morrison's death.
However, Manzarek did not share the same enthusiasm of how Morrison was portrayed by Stone's interpretation. In Manzarek's biography of the Doors,
Light My Fire he often criticizes Stone and also includes myriad details that discredit Stone's account of Morrison. For example, in Stone's "re-creation" of Morrison's student film at UCLA, he has Morrison watching a D-Day sequence on TV and shouting profanities in
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, with a near-nude
GermanThe Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
exchange student dancing on top of the TV sporting a
swastikaThe swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
armband. According to Manzarek, the only similarity between Stone's version and Morrison's was that the girl in question was indeed German.
Critical reception
According to
Q, "few people emerged from seeing
having raised their opinions of that band and especially its singer Jim Morrison". The problem, as critic Keith CameronKeith Cameron is a New Zealand rugby union player who currently plays as a prop for Otago in the Air New Zealand Cup....
has put it, wasn't so much that "Stone dwelled upon Morrison the inebriate, the Philanderer, or the pretentious Lizard King... No, blame cliched Hollywood devices for sucking the wonder from the pioneering band: actors with fake hair saying silly things..." and "a self-important director's turgid attempts to make grand statements about America".
See also
- When You're Strange
When You're Strange is a 2009 documentary about the life of The Doors. It is written and directed by Tom DiCillo and for the first time makes material from Jim Morrison's 1969 film fragment HWY: An American Pastoral publicly available....
– a documentary film about The DoorsThe Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
External links
, a documentary of The Doors, included with the 2001 DVD