Beware, the doors are opening – Newspaper Kommersant No. 152 (7353) dated 08/22/2022

More than thirty years after the official world premiere, Russian cinemas are showing Oliver Stone’s film The Doors, which until now has only been available in our country on VHS and DVD. The premiere screenings took place last weekend, and on August 25 the film will appear in the official box office on 200 screens. About the fate of this atypical musical biopic from all points of view – Boris Barabanov.

By 1991, 45-year-old Oliver Stone was a living classic of social cinema. He already had Oscars for “Platoon” and “Born on July 4th”, as well as high-profile tapes “El Salvador” and “Wall Street”. Even for his cameo in The Doors, he chose the role of a film school teacher, a man who knows everything about cinema.

In the same 1991, by and large, two Stone films about the nature of the American myth were released at once: “JFK” about the investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy and “The Doors” about the group of the same name and its leader Jim Morrison. If the first is a historical detective story, then the second is a psychedelic biopic, a 140-minute meditation much closer to arthouse than to a spectator movie produced by Mario Cassar’s company Carolco Pictures.

The Doors was Stone’s only collaboration with the producer, who during his career has had three Rambos, five Terminators, as well as Angel Heart, Red Heat, Total Recall, Main instinct”, “Universal Soldier”, “Cliffhanger”, “Stargate” … and not a single “Oscar”. Carolco Pictures seemed to make films specifically for Soviet and post-Soviet video pirates. Without knowing it, Mario Kassar and his companions brought up the local mass film taste. The company’s logo opened films that domestic video lovers watched to the holes, it was for them the same sign of quality as the name of their favorite actor on the end of a VHS cassette.

In other words, the leftist Stone, who portrays the chronic ailments of American society, was brought into the company by a producer who discovered the formula for a universal box office film. And the film “The Doors”, respectively, got on the radars of our video lovers just for the company with “Terminator-2” and other hits by Carolco.

It is unlikely that many would then watch “The Doors” outside of this context. The popularity of The Doors in the USSR was incomparable with The Beatles, Deep Purple or Pink Floyd. If not for the collection “Light a Fire in Me”, released in 1988 by Melodiya in the “Popular Music Archive” series, The Doors would have remained a name from a rock encyclopedia for a mass domestic audience, as happened with Bob Dylan.

Jim Morrison was not part of the rock iconostasis here. But music lovers knew the group. After the film was pirated on video, the popularity of her songs began to grow. The growing interest in mind-expanding substances also played an important role. The experiences of the musicians described in the film rhymed with the appearance on the shelves of books by Carlos Castaneda and Terence McKenna.

On compact cassettes, the soundtrack with songs from the film was well sold. True, it did not include the versions recorded for the film with the voice of the leading actor Val Kilmer. At the same time, the choice of Kilmer for the main role is one of Stone’s main successes. Initially, Morrison was supposed to play the lead singer of The Cult, Ian Astbury. In fact, years later, he took Morrison’s place on tour with a cover band that included members of The Doors. However, Kilmer got used to the character so much, including vocally, that subsequently the director could no longer remember where Morrison’s original voice sounds in the film, and where are Kilmer’s tracks superimposed on the accompaniment of The Doors members.

The only time “The Doors” was shown here on the big screen was during the Moscow International Film Festival. On cassettes, he existed with pirated voice acting. Remastered by Oliver Stone in 2019, the version will hit theaters with subtitles and original audio. “I wanted the effect of presence while watching this film to be as strong as at the concerts of The Doors in the sixties,” the director said, re-released the tape on the screens.

“The Doors” was not the first musical biopic, before it came out, for example, Clint Eastwood’s film about Charlie Parker “Bird” and the film biography of Jerry Lee Lewis “Great Balls Of Fire” directed by Jim McBride. The Doors brought together the talent of one of the most in-demand directors of the time, the scale of a producer who thought only in terms of blockbusters, and outstanding source material – the figure of one of the most significant rock icons.

Of course, the film “The Doors” can hardly be considered a direct predecessor of biopics of the latest wave – “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Rocketman” and even more so “Elvis” with its rapid clip editing. The slow pace and psychedelic aura of “The Doors” would most likely not have been approved by today’s producers, and the film would not have passed a single “focus group” audience. All the more valuable is Stone’s picture in today’s feverishly superficial world. However, the shamanic vibe of The Doors live performances, filmed using the most advanced technology at that time, still takes your breath away today. And in today’s Russia, where the free rock and roll spirit is in short supply, the film, by the strength of the sensations it evokes, may well replace the concert of your favorite band.