Stone's film may not show all sides of the rock icon, but he does a fantastic job of capturing the heart of the music.
It's a mostly entertaining film that goes a little off the deep end. What saves it is what saved a lot of people in the Sixties: the music. The soundtrack is like a greatest hits collection:
"Riders on the Storm"
"Light My Fire"
"Moonlight Drive"
"Love Street"
"Break on Through"
"The Crystal Ship"
"The Movie"
"The End"
"Alabama Song"
"Strange Days"
"Love Me Two Times"
"My Wild Love"
"Not to Touch the Earth"
"The Soft Parade"
"Roadhouse Blues"
"End of the Night"
"Back Door Man"
"You're Lost Little Girl"
"People are Strange"
"Touch Me"
"When the Music's Over"
And when the music's over, turn out the lights, turn out the lights.
Video:
From what I can remember from seeing this in the theaters, it was always a little rough in spots, a little gauzy, a little grainy, a little hazy, as if to support the inner state of Morrison's mind. Same with the concert footage, which is a bit smoky (pun intended, given all the cops that stand on the stage like Easter Island monoliths). So Stone wanted to craft a film that had a raw look to it, supported by "downtime" sequences that have a look that's much closer to reality as we know it, with much more distinct edges and much more clarity. In 1080p (AVC/MPEG-4 transfer) "The Doors" looks probably as good as it's going to. There were two prints originally made, one in 35mm and the other in 70mm. This appears to be the 35mm print, which measures out at 2.35:1. There's a little noise in some scenes, and a few squiggles, but otherwise the transfer is artifact-free.
Audio:
Now, the audio is a nice tribute to Morrison and the band. The English 7.1 DTS HD Master Audio delivers a dynamic audio and makes full use of the channels, with the music spilling out of all of them in what seems, at times, to be equal measure. Other times we get ambient sound, with the music coming out of the FX speakers and dialogue coming out of the mains. The bass isn't quite resonant enough to blow anything out of the room, but it has a nice rich, full sound, and the treble isn't too bright or tinny. There's also a very good mix to keep the dialogue and music and ambient sounds in believable and comfortable balance. Subtitles are in English and Spanish.
Extras:
There are no Blu-ray exclusives, but there's still some nice stuff here. A good director's commentary can make you rethink a film and like it, in retrospect, much more than you did as a first-time (ignorant) viewer. That's happened to me before with Stone's "Heaven & Earth" commentary, which blew me away and made me feel like a student sitting at the feet of the master. Here, Stone is probably as low-key and matter-of-fact as I've heard him. I don't detect a single hint of passion in his voice. It's as if the music really is over for him, and he's moved so much beyond it. And yet, when you see him on-camera in the other bonus features, that's clearly not the case at all. What this commentary mostly reveals is how Stone revels in the Dionysian aspect of the Morrison mystique, and how much more weight he gives the shaman thing than any of the books about Morrison.
There are a number of excellent bonus features, chief among them "Jim Morrison: An American Poet in Paris," a 50-minute show by Jacques Viallon put together presumably for French television and relying heavily on an American expatriate musician who had contact with Morrison. You get a virtual tour of the sites in Paris that Morrison frequented, and see how the French thought of this American superstar. It's pretty fascinating.
Fans of what's left on the cutting-room floor will enjoy 14 deleted/extended scenes that run roughly 40 minutes. Another nice feature is "The Road to Excess," which challenges many of Stone's takes on Morrison's life and the directions he took in the film. This 37-minute feature raises some interesting questions while also introducing some fun facts about Morrison's life that were left unreported. An "original featurette" is a throwaway bit of pre-release hype, but "The Doors in L.A." is interesting because you hear from the Three Dog Night keyboardist who partied with Morrison about the party and music scene in L.A. at the time, with everybody living in Laurel Canyon and basically house-hopping (no one kept their doors locked) to jam and party. Conspicuously absent is Manzarek, the Doors member who thought the movie was a bad idea and a film that didn't do a good job of depicting the way it was.
Then again, it was Stone's vision of The Doors, and he saw them through whatever he was smoking and dropping in Vietnam.
Bottom Line:
Ultimately, viewers will watch (and appreciate) "The Doors" as a musical indoctrination and a vicarious sense of what it would have been like to have been one of those worshippers at the temple of Morrison. But it's deeply flawed as a biopic. At his best, Morrison was a brilliant songwriter and performer; at his worst, he was a sometimes pretentious poet given to excess. Stone's film may not show all sides of the rock icon, but he does a fantastic job of capturing the heart of the music and a sense of one aspect of the period. If only so many of those psychedelic scenes weren't so unintentionally funny . . . .
"Riders on the Storm"
"Light My Fire"
"Moonlight Drive"
"Love Street"
"Break on Through"
"The Crystal Ship"
"The Movie"
"The End"
"Alabama Song"
"Strange Days"
"Love Me Two Times"
"My Wild Love"
"Not to Touch the Earth"
"The Soft Parade"
"Roadhouse Blues"
"End of the Night"
"Back Door Man"
"You're Lost Little Girl"
"People are Strange"
"Touch Me"
"When the Music's Over"
And when the music's over, turn out the lights, turn out the lights.
Video:
From what I can remember from seeing this in the theaters, it was always a little rough in spots, a little gauzy, a little grainy, a little hazy, as if to support the inner state of Morrison's mind. Same with the concert footage, which is a bit smoky (pun intended, given all the cops that stand on the stage like Easter Island monoliths). So Stone wanted to craft a film that had a raw look to it, supported by "downtime" sequences that have a look that's much closer to reality as we know it, with much more distinct edges and much more clarity. In 1080p (AVC/MPEG-4 transfer) "The Doors" looks probably as good as it's going to. There were two prints originally made, one in 35mm and the other in 70mm. This appears to be the 35mm print, which measures out at 2.35:1. There's a little noise in some scenes, and a few squiggles, but otherwise the transfer is artifact-free.
Audio:
Now, the audio is a nice tribute to Morrison and the band. The English 7.1 DTS HD Master Audio delivers a dynamic audio and makes full use of the channels, with the music spilling out of all of them in what seems, at times, to be equal measure. Other times we get ambient sound, with the music coming out of the FX speakers and dialogue coming out of the mains. The bass isn't quite resonant enough to blow anything out of the room, but it has a nice rich, full sound, and the treble isn't too bright or tinny. There's also a very good mix to keep the dialogue and music and ambient sounds in believable and comfortable balance. Subtitles are in English and Spanish.
Extras:
There are no Blu-ray exclusives, but there's still some nice stuff here. A good director's commentary can make you rethink a film and like it, in retrospect, much more than you did as a first-time (ignorant) viewer. That's happened to me before with Stone's "Heaven & Earth" commentary, which blew me away and made me feel like a student sitting at the feet of the master. Here, Stone is probably as low-key and matter-of-fact as I've heard him. I don't detect a single hint of passion in his voice. It's as if the music really is over for him, and he's moved so much beyond it. And yet, when you see him on-camera in the other bonus features, that's clearly not the case at all. What this commentary mostly reveals is how Stone revels in the Dionysian aspect of the Morrison mystique, and how much more weight he gives the shaman thing than any of the books about Morrison.
There are a number of excellent bonus features, chief among them "Jim Morrison: An American Poet in Paris," a 50-minute show by Jacques Viallon put together presumably for French television and relying heavily on an American expatriate musician who had contact with Morrison. You get a virtual tour of the sites in Paris that Morrison frequented, and see how the French thought of this American superstar. It's pretty fascinating.
Fans of what's left on the cutting-room floor will enjoy 14 deleted/extended scenes that run roughly 40 minutes. Another nice feature is "The Road to Excess," which challenges many of Stone's takes on Morrison's life and the directions he took in the film. This 37-minute feature raises some interesting questions while also introducing some fun facts about Morrison's life that were left unreported. An "original featurette" is a throwaway bit of pre-release hype, but "The Doors in L.A." is interesting because you hear from the Three Dog Night keyboardist who partied with Morrison about the party and music scene in L.A. at the time, with everybody living in Laurel Canyon and basically house-hopping (no one kept their doors locked) to jam and party. Conspicuously absent is Manzarek, the Doors member who thought the movie was a bad idea and a film that didn't do a good job of depicting the way it was.
Then again, it was Stone's vision of The Doors, and he saw them through whatever he was smoking and dropping in Vietnam.
Bottom Line:
Ultimately, viewers will watch (and appreciate) "The Doors" as a musical indoctrination and a vicarious sense of what it would have been like to have been one of those worshippers at the temple of Morrison. But it's deeply flawed as a biopic. At his best, Morrison was a brilliant songwriter and performer; at his worst, he was a sometimes pretentious poet given to excess. Stone's film may not show all sides of the rock icon, but he does a fantastic job of capturing the heart of the music and a sense of one aspect of the period. If only so many of those psychedelic scenes weren't so unintentionally funny . . . .
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[release]23832[/release]