The late Val Kilmer (1959-2025) was never better than he was in THE DOORS (1991), which as with REAL GENIUS (1985), TOP GUN (1986) and HEAT (1995), saw him paired with solid collaborators, in this case writer/director Oliver Stone and a top-flight cast and crew. THE DOORS (1991), which profiles the early years of the rock band The Doors and its late founder/lead singer Jim Morrison (1943-1971), isn’t Kilmer’s or Stone’s best work, but it is a standout, an auteur-driven big screen spectacular whose leanings were unabashedly counterculture. It’s a film about the late 1960s that looks and feels as if it could have emerged from that period.
Stone’s core thesis, that the Venice Beach, CA based Morrison served as a modern-day Dionysus, is articulated early on in THE DOORS. It has Morrison getting in touch with the collective unconscious of 1960s America via the spirit of a dying Native American shaman (Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman) encountered by Morrison’s childhood self (Sean Stone), which inspires a lifelong obsession with hallucinogens.
It’s under the influence of one such substance that The Doors, consisting of Morrison and his pals Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLachlan), Robby Krieger (Frank Whaley) and John Densmore (Kevin Dillon), form a bond in the desert. As their fame grows, in concerts deliberately staged to recall the Dionysia of ancient Athens (complete with bonfires, nekkidity and “gifts” in the form of joints thrown at the stage), so does Morrison’s predilection for “testing the bounds of reality to see how far I could go.” His excesses include screwing around on his wife Pamela (a game but miscast Meg Ryan), consorting with the Wicca priestess Patricia Kennealy (Kathleen Quinlan), acting up at a Thanksgiving dinner and exposing himself during a concert in Miami. Along the way he meets Andy Warhol (Crispin Glover), gets The Doors disinvited from Woodstock and is horrified by the images of war and civil unrest he sees on television.
Eventually Morrison and Pamela move to Paris, where he leads a much quieter, more contemplative existence and, at age 27, dies in a bathtub. The final shot is of Morrison’s graffiti-laden grave in the Paris based Père-Lachaise cemetery.
Stone’s treatment is overblown, self-indulgent and often insanely wrong-headed, meaning it fits the subject matter like a glove. The film could have stood to lose around a half hour of the druggy misbehavior indulged in by its protagonist, which tends to drag interminably; Stone filmed THE DOORS back-to-back with JFK (1991), which evidently diluted his focus. Again, though, such indulgence is entirely in keeping with Jim Morrison and The Doors.
Despite all the excess, the film is extremely focused in terms of structure and theme. Stone’s view of Jim Morrison as a nexus of the chaos of the late 1960s is well articulated, if a bit narrow-minded; none of Morrison’s bandmates are given much in the way of characterization (their major trait being a collective disapproval of Morrison’s antics) and nor is his wife Pamela. Outside Morrison, the only fully rounded character is Kathleen Quinlan’s Patricia Kennealy, whose real-life inspiration worked as a technical advisor on the film (but criticized it for being inaccurate).
Stone’s standard 1990s collaborators, including cinematographer Robert Richardson and editor David Brenner, were all in fine form, creating a slip-streamy atmosphere of absolute chaos and encroaching madness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the late sixties recreated with such mind-roasting vividness—at least until the 2009 release of ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD, which happens to have been worked on by several of THE DOORS’ crewmembers (including Richardson and productions designer Barbara Ling). The music, consisting of a succession of Doors tunes, is well utilized, ensuring that the film is always pleasant to listen to.
Of course, THE DOORS’ true driving force is Val Kilmer. His is an extremely commanding turn (when he’s onscreen I guarantee you won’t look anywhere else) that fully captures the impish charisma and demonic energy exuded by Jim Morrison. I will, however, question just how much Kilmer, who underwent some Jim Morrison-like excesses in his own life, was truly acting.
Vital Statistics
THE DOORS
Carolco Pictures/TriStar Pictures
Director: Oliver Stone
Producers: Bill Graham, Sasha Harari, A. Kitman Ho
Screenplay: J. Randal Johnson, Oliver Stone
Cinematography: Robert Richardson
Editing: David Brenner
Cast: Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kevin Dillon, Kyle MacLachlan, Frank Whaley, Michael Madsen, Billy Idol, Kathleen Quinlan, John Densmore, Gretchen Becker, Jerry Sturm, Sean Stone, Kendall Deichen, Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman, Rion Hunter, Wes Studi, Steve Reevis, Kelly Ann Hu, Josie Bisset, Bob LuPone, Debi Mazar, Deborah Falconer, Will Jordan, Sam Whipple, Lisa Edelstein, Mimi Rogers, Jennifer Rubin, Paul Williams, Kristina Fulton, Crispin Glover, Karina Lombard