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The Doors
The story of the famous and influential 1960s rock band and its lead singer and composer, Jim Morrison.
1991 · Directed by Oliver Stone · 140 min · Music · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 9 frames
Tagline
The ceremony is about to begin.
Plot
In 1949, young Jim Morrison and his family are traveling on a desert highway in New Mexico where they encounter an auto wreck and see an elderly Native American dying by the roadside. In 1965, Jim arrives in California and is assimilated into the Venice Beach culture. During his tenure studying at UCLA, he meets Pamela Courson and they fall in love, becoming a couple. He also meets Ray Manzarek for the first time, as well as Robby Krieger and John Densmore, who form the Doors with Morrison.
Jim convinces his bandmates to travel to Death Valley and experience the effects of psychedelic drugs. Returning to Los Angeles, they play several shows at the famous Whisky a Go Go nightclub and develop a rabid fanbase. Jim's onstage antics and lewd performance of the group's song "The End" upset the club's owners, and the band is ejected from the venue. After the show, they are approached by producer Paul A. Rothchild and Jac Holzman of Elektra Records and are offered a deal to record their first album. The Doors are soon invited to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, only to be told by one of the producers that they must change the lyric "girl we couldn't get much higher" in the song "Light My Fire", due to a reference to drugs. Despite this, Morrison performs the original lyric during the live broadcast and the band is not allowed to perform on the show again.
As the Doors' success continues, Jim becomes increasingly infatuated with his own image as "The Lizard King" and develops an addiction to alcohol and drugs. Jim becomes intimate with rock journalist Patricia Kennealy, who involves him in her witchcraft activities, participating in a mystical handfasting ceremony. Meanwhile, an elder spirit watches these events.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Oliver Stone, Randall Jahnson
- Cinematography: Robert Richardson
- Edited by: David Brenner, Joe Hutshing
- Music: Olivia Barash, Carl Orff
- Production design: Barbara Ling
- Produced by: Sasha Harari, A. Kitman Ho, Bill Graham
Cast
- Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison
- Meg Ryan as Pamela Courson
- Kyle MacLachlan as Ray Manzarek
- Frank Whaley as Robby Krieger
- Kevin Dillon as John Densmore
- Michael Wincott as Paul Rothchild
- Michael Madsen as Tom Baker
- Josh Evans as Bill Siddons
- Dennis Burkley as Dog
- Billy Idol as Cat
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Carolco Pictures, Bill Graham Films, Imagine Entertainment, Ixtlan Productions
- Budget: $38,000,000
- Box office: $34,416,893
- Themes: rock 'n' roll, airplane, hippie, joint, poetry, lsd, hallucination, wilderness, addicted, organ
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