The Doors - William Oliver Stone (1991)

I make my films like you're going to die if you miss the next minute. You better not go get popcorn. – Oliver Stone

More than anything else, this is about Jim Morrison - the lead singer of The Doors, a poet, and a visual artist. Someone who influenced the entire pop/rock culture, deeply impacted a generation (the craziest one so far in history), lived in utmost freedom, and died exactly as he would have wanted, and at the right time to become an idol... Then he offered Oliver Stone the chance for a unique project, for which the director had to wait 20 years...

Jim Morrison is the archetypal iconoclastic image of the rebellious teenager who, like Che Guevara, carries the banner of a manifest of impossible aspirations in his charisma... At the same time, he is a character destined to remain controversial in all of his endeavors, including the one in which he had to leave the grand stage of life at only 27 years old (in the absence of an autopsy, the cause of death has given rise to numerous speculations). To write or tell the story of such a significant symbol is, was, and will always be a courageous and risky attempt alike.

In cinema, memorial evocations have taken the path of documentary films from the very beginning, leaving the tools of parody, romanticism, and/or introspective speculation converted for feature films. Very few productions have faithfully portrayed the events in the life of a personality, and among those that have taken the initiative, even fewer have succeeded... This is one of those films...

A student of Professor Martin Scorsese, William Oliver Stone fought in Vietnam... in fact, he interrupted his studies and volunteered, earning several decorations for the military actions he participated in (including a Purple Heart with an Oak Leaf Cluster), and accumulating even more wounds (an experience that would later serve him in the making of his three remarkable films dedicated to the war: Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and Heaven & Earth).

As a student, combatant, and graduate of an art-focused institution, Stone experienced his times at the highest levels of intensity, providing the optimal environment for the germination of Jim Morrison's revolutionary message, and this can be seen, but most importantly felt, in every frame of The Doors, a true cinematic poem declaimed in the rhythm of an era that turned its face towards nature and humanity, believed in the power of the flower, and chose "Make Love, Not War" as its imperative motto. Oliver Stone doesn't give the viewer a moment of rest, this is one of the distinctive features of his unmistakable style. Significant events are succinctly packed or merely suggested, in fast-paced and brisk editing, as if time exerts a continuous and suffocating pressure; as if the 140 minutes of projection need to compress narratives that would occupy ten times that duration... as if someone were waiting with a stopwatch for a precise time limit until silence. The film follows this treatment, even in moments of alcoholic or hallucinogenic reverie, where it benefits from an unnatural and strange crowding that produces an astonishing effect.

The opening of the film contains several highly interesting elements for the discerning audience, among which the moment at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) seems both profound and subtly nuanced, perhaps escaping the attention of critics, although the markers were evident. Morrison is presented to us as a student, watching with his colleagues the screening of the final images of his own film. The end of the screening is followed by comments, and Oliver Stone himself appears as the cinema professor leading the discussions... Moreover, the way the course is organized, the place where it is held, and the educational method used (OpenClass) were not part of UCLA's curriculum or practices at that time, but instead strikingly resemble the techniques used by the Sundance Institute of Film (a promoter of the indie genre, free from any school constraints) founded about 15 years after the events portrayed in the plot... Morrison's obsessions about death, redemption, and endings are presented in the most objective way possible and perfectly complement the character portrayed by Val Kilmer, who did not attempt to compose a character here but rather to transform into him. For two years prior to filming, Kilmer immersed himself in behaving exactly like Morrison, wearing the same clothes, memorizing his poems and songs, emulating his style, vocal inflections, and attitude... and the successful resemblance is so striking that the concert scenes did not even need to be dubbed, as the original members of The Doors themselves were stunned by the accuracy of the portrayal.

An idol rises, falls, finds himself again, and departs...