ROCK-N-ROLL: THE DOORS, THE COMMITMENTS
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One of the enduring myths of rock-n-roll is that it's either the devil's music, or that it's inevitably tied in to self-destruction. And this viewpoint doesn't always come from rock haters like the Moral Majority, either: the famous story of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil to make good music, and Jerry Lee Lewis' tirade while recording "Great Balls of Fire" about rock being the devil's music live on because rock's proponents either embrace these myths wholeheartedly, or are uncomfortable with the ramifications of them. Jim Morrison, it seems, fully lived out, if not the myth of rock being the devil's music, the myth of rock leading to self-destruction.
After a brief prologue of the young Jim Morrison with his parents in a car, where they witness an accident, and Jim sees a shaman (Floyd Red Crow Westerman) who supposedly haunted him for the rest of his life, we cut to 1960's L.A. There, Morrison (Val Kilmer) is going to UCLA film school (though the class boos his first effort, after which he walks out), and basically living hand to mouth. One day, while on the beach, he meets Ray Manzarek (Kyle MachLachlan), a keyboardist who was in Morrison's class. Morrison reads some poetry he's written (some of which turns out to be the lyrics of the song "Break on Through," which became one of the Doors' biggest hits), and Manzarek suggests they start a band. They're later joined by guitarist Robbie Krieger (Frank Whaley) and drummer John Densmore (Kevin Dillon), and become the Doors. With Morrison's lyrics, voice, and stage presence in the spotlight, the Doors quickly rose to fame on the strength of songs like "Light My Fire," "People are Strange," "L.A. Woman," and "The End."
But Morrison, who became the focal point of the group, grew depressed with his fame, and self-destructed in many ways. Though he was involved with Pamela Courson (Meg Ryan), whom he meets early in the film (he follows her to a party, and climbs up to the balcony to see her), he became involved with several other woman, particularly Patricia Kenneally (Kathleen Quinlan), a journalist who shared Morrison' passion for the dark side. He also found himself arrested on many occasions for lewd behavior, most notably in Miami in 1969, when he exposed himself to the crowd (why is still unclear, though many opine he did it just to get a reaction). After going through various losing appeals, instead of going to jail, he skipped his bail to go to Paris with Pamela, and died there of a heart attack (which may or may not have been drug or alcohol related) in 1971, at the age of 27.
Clearly, Morrison lived fast and died young (though he didn't leave a good-looking corpse, apparently). But is that what rock-n-roll is really all about? You're never sure of the answer with Stone (who co-wrote with J. Randal Johnson, and cameos as Morrison's film professor). In real-life, Manzarek (who refused to cooperate with the making of the movie; Densmore and Krieger both did, and have small roles) claims Stone went entirely with Morrison's dark side (though the movie is called THE DOORS, it's mostly about Morrison), and missed the light side both Morrison and the music had. On the other hand, listening to the Doors' songs in the movie (and in this respect, the movie hits all the high spots), it's clear from Morrison's lyrics that the "other side" he talked about was dark and bacchanal (one of Morrison's idols was Rimbaud, and it showed). So Stone can't be accused of ignoring Morrison's dark side. The danger, however, is Stone often falls into the same trap as Alex Cox did in his biopic of Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious SID AND NANCY - romanticizing that dark side. Morrison took drugs, drank to excess, and fooled around, but was it because those were his ways of escaping from the fame he was uncomfortable with, or were those inexorably part of the same impulse that produced his music? Stone, known for living a rather Dionysian lifestyle himself, often suggests the latter as much as the former, and you wonder if Stone is trying to live vicariously through Morrison's screwed-up life.
Having said that, I have to admit I was never a big fan of the Doors until I saw this movie. I found the psychedlia they embraced incredibly self-indulgent, and while I had a grudging respect for a few songs ("People are Strange"), they mostly turned me off (particularly "Light My Fire"). But Stone stages the numbers with such gusto (alternating between Kilmer's vocals and Morrison's) that I have to admit the power of the music, and even the poetry of Morrison's lyrics, grew on me. I still don't believe you have to utterly live the blues to write them, but the Doors do make some magic out of misery. And all of Stone's strengths (the use of music, the visual sense, the evocation of the time) come through in this movie. Whatever you think of this movie, it's certainly not cynical.
A lot of why the movie is watchable comes from Kilmer as Morrison. He's Morrison down to his every move (when we see Morrison and a photographer (Mimi Rogers) creating one of Morrison's iconic poses (his arms out wide), it feels not like a Xerox copy, but the real thing) and nuance. And the vocals Kilmer does resemble Morrison enough that Stone switches back betwen them seamlessly. The rest of the actors are merely there to support Kilmer, and are varied in quality. Crispin Glover overdoes it in a brief cameo as Andy Warhol, while rocker Billy Idol is merely adequate as one of Morrison's friends (other cameos include Bill Graham as a promoter, William Kunstler as a lawyer defending Morrison, rocker Fiona as a groupie, Animals' lead singer Eric Burdon as a backstage manager, and songwriter/actor Paul Williams as Warhol's PR man). And while Ryan is appropriately 60's in her look and demeanor, she really doesn't have much to do (to be fair, I don't know if this is how Morrison treated Pamela, or Stone treats her). The best impressions are made by MacLachlan, who does an uncanny impersonation of Manzarek, and Quinlan, who captures her dark side quite well. Ultimately, THE DOORS falls in the category of Stone films like WALL STREET and BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY; the talent doesn't quite match the passion, but there's enough there to make it compelling viewing.
No spark of originality as Doors fail to light any fires
FIONA SHEPHERD
THE DOORS OF THE 21st CENTURY **
SECC, GLASGOW
IF NOTHING else, this tour by The Doors of the 21st Century (as original Doors drummer and non-participant John Densmore has legally ensured they be called) demonstrated that rock fans will flirt with nostalgia at any price. Having witnessed this sorry spectacle, it is easier to sympathise with the litigious Densmore in his bitter battle with Ray Manzarek, keyboard player and self-imposed guardian of Jim Morrison’s memory.
Manzarek is the chief architect of this opportunistic enterprise. Original guitarist Robby Krieger just looked like a gentle, bemused old hippie. But the real problem was Ian Astbury, ghosting for the long-expired Morrison. As the snake-hipped lead singer of The Cult, he was always a Jim Morrison derivative, but the gulf between the two singers was painfully manifest. Where Morrison had a silky subtlety which just about tempered the Doors’ most bloated musical excesses, Astbury just let his throaty bark hang out like a pasty beer belly.
Pub-rock prototype Roadhouse Blues was a lumbering opener, but it was more disheartening to hear how better songs such as Break On Through, LA Woman and the epic When the Music’s Over were poorly served by Manzarek’s weedy keyboard sound. Their version of Weill’s stomping Whisky Song was just, well, vile.
Of their anti-Vietnam numbers, Five To One, dedicated scathingly to George Bush, was a stodgy anachronism, while The Unknown Soldier could lead a reasonable reviewer to take up arms against such rock ’n’ roll travesty.
Scrabbling for positives, Not to Touch the Earth retained some of the original’s disorientating momentum, Peace Frog stayed on its funky track and Riders on the Storm, although never coming close to the sublime original, was infused with a subtlety absent from the rest of the set.
They ended, as they must, on a thoroughly indulgent Light My Fire, with Astbury affecting Morrison’s pose in the iconic TV footage of the time. With contact lenses out and ears stuffed with cotton wool, it could almost be the Lizard King up there.
At least that’s what The Doors of the 21st Century were clearly hoping for.
Grave outlook at celebrity cemetery
JOELLE DIDERICH IN PARIS
The former Doors singer, who died aged 27 in 1971, is the main draw at the Père Lachaise in Paris, eclipsing other denizens such as the Irish writer Oscar Wilde, the Polish-born composer Frédéric Chopin and the French singer Edith Piaf.
For Christian Charlet, the historian responsible for the upkeep of the graveyard’s 70,000 tombs, the crowds who come to commune with their deceased idol are nothing but an expensive headache.
"We would like to kick out Morrison because we don’t want him. He causes too many problems," said Mr Charlet. "If we could get rid of him we would do it straight away, but unfortunately the Americans don’t want him back."
On a sunny spring afternoon, visitors of all ages milled around Morrison’s simple marker, watched by a security guard.
It seems that even in death, the rocker has been a magnet for trouble.
Before the guard was appointed, fans would converge at the grave to drink beer and smoke joints or, even worse, have sex among the tombstones in a macabre communion.
"People come here not to worship the dead but think they can do what they want as if it was a rave party," said Mr Charlet. "Tourists have no respect for anything."
As it prepares to celebrate its 200th anniversary this month, the Père Lachaise is more popular than ever. The necropolis draws two million visitors each year, a third of the number who throng to the city’s Eiffel Tower.
A vast park filled with spectacular sculptures, the cemetery is an oasis of tranquillity on the edge of town. It is also a fully functioning graveyard, with 100 staff in charge of burying the dead, restoring graves and pruning the 6,000 trees spread over a 110-acre hillside in north-east Paris.
That fact is sometimes lost on the crowds of tourists, who treat the place like an open-air shrine and litter tombstones with mementoes - when they are not trying to break off stone fingers and other "souvenirs" to take home.
"It’s a shame that all the old tombstones have names scratched into them," said Daniel Koestlin, 31, from Germany, as he walked down a quiet alley searching for the grave of Chopin.
"I can’t get close to these people when they’re alive," said Marie-Christine Nanniot, a day-tripper from Reims, explaining the lure of the famous.
Wilde’s towering memorial, featuring a winged male deity by the sculptor Jacob Epstein, is covered in purple lipstick marks. The statue’s penis has been snapped off, presumably by a collector.
Even non-celebrities can attain cult status. The statue of Victor Noir, a dashing young journalist killed in 1870, has become a fertility symbol, its crotch rubbed to a brassy shine by women seeking to increase their chances of conceiving.
When it opened in 1804, the cemetery was shunned by Parisians accustomed to being tossed into common graves.
The government of Louis XVIII tried to drum up interest by transferring the mortal remains of the doomed Medieval lovers Abelard and Heloise to the site in 1817, alongside those of Molière, the playwright, and Jean de La Fontaine, the poet. But it was only after Honoré de Balzac featured the Père Lachaise in a key scene of his 1835 novel Le Père Goriot that it became fashionable to buy a plot.
Memorials of every shape and size bear witness to the cultural diversity of the cemetery, which took in Catholics, Protestants and Jews alike, breaking the Catholic church’s monopoly on mass burial sites.
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