1991: The Doors

The Doors (1991, Stone) 2/10

I am the Lizard King. And I can do anything (Jim Morrison)

"Jim Morrison is a drunken buffoon posing as a poet" (Lester Bangs in Almost Famous)

There are many theories as to when "The Sixties" as a socio-cultural phenomenon ended. Some scholars attest to the murder of actress Sharon Tate by the Manson Family in August, 1969; others point to the violent demise of Meredith Hunter: a spectator who was stabbed to death at the Rolling Stones free concert at Altamont by a member of the concert's Hells Angels-led security crew on December 6, 1969.

The aura of violent intrigue and darkness which surrounds these two events was shocking in its context, but certainly not anomalous in 1960's culture. After all, violence was threaded throughout Western culture in the late Sixties as seen through student protests in Europe and the United States, the Vietnam War and the assassinations of prominent politicians and civil rights leaders such as Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

The artistic sub-cultures of the late '60s also became darker. Undernearth the memorialized collective spectre of "innocence," there lay a rotting core of vice and sin. The drugs and philosophies of love designed to expand human potential soon began to stifle its creative possibilities. The frivolous intakes of "mind-expanding" narcotics soon gave way to harder substances and corresponding habits. As a result the music became bleaker and darker as performers accelerated the throttle of their dependencies. Songs entitled "Heroin" and "Communication Breakdown" encapsulated this culture of destruction and dissolution.

Unsurprisingly, by the end of the decade, a slew of its most iconic musicians all perished under grim circumstances. Between 1969-1970 alone, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, and Tammi Terrell all passed away. Yet, one of the most notable deaths of a Sixties icon would occur in 1971, when Doors frontman was found dead in his Paris apartment due to an apparent overdose.

Influenced by Nietzschean philosophy, Brechtian theatre and the writing of Rimbaud and the Beats, Morrison represented the socio-musical shift from breezy projections of "flower power" to edgier sounds and lyrics focusing on themes of violence, sex and death. Coupled with his metaphysical lyrics, his lewd onstage performances and off-stage antics, Morrison created an aura doused in myth and mystery.

It is through this public spectre of Morrison as counter-cultural icon that director Oliver Stone tries to capitalize on in his 1991 film The Doors: a film less about the band itself and more a MacGuffin to explore the intricacies of Morrison himself. The film can be described as a series of intertwined vignettes about the evolution of The Doors from a cohesive neo-psychedelic West Coast quartet to a blues band splintered by an increasingly notorious and unreliable lead singer.

Beginning in idyllic sun-soaked mid-Sixties, the film captures a young Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer) who basks in the glow of the Sixties. As a student of UCLA's Film School, Morrison is privy to the expansion of the university system in the United States as the "baby boomers" entered college. But instead of preparing for a life of endless opportunities, we see a disgruntled figure alienating himself from the world through avant-garde cinema and poetry. Thus, Stone tries to position Morrison as one of the millions of disaffected youth in mid-Sixties America who would begin to clamour for social and cultural change.

But in the case of Morrison this never occurs. At least not in The Doors. Morrison's desires for expansive consciousness are not altruistic, but instead self-serving and ultimately nihilistic. His democratic approach to decision-making becomes anarchic as his reliability decreases along with his ability to perform. Bandmates are intimidated, threatened and abused for standing in his way, while long-time girlfriends like the overly sunny Pamela Courson (a woefully miscast Meg Ryan) become objectified safehouses: metaphysical places to return to when problems deepen.

The cryptic poems-cum-lyrics which inspire Morrison's classmate Ray Manzarek (Kyle McLachlan) to form the band along with drummer John Densmore (Kevin Dillon) and guitarist Robbie Krieger (Frank Whaley) are viewed as enigmatic as Morrison himself. Yet, for all his philosophical mutterings and pretensions as a poet, it has been argued by musical scholars that the majority of Morrison's best lyrics were often homages to his favourite poets and writers such as Blake and Rimbaud. Moreoever, once Morrison's initial poetry books were exhausted, his ability to compose lyrics of real flavour and intent were drowned in a sea of hard liquor and drugs.

Throughout his career, Oliver Stone has faced critcism for his often interpretative methodology: earning the ire of an impish Quentin Tarantino with Natural Born Killers and the entire nation of Greece for his revisionist portrayal of Alexander the Great. The Doors is no different. The surviving members of The Doors, and keyboardist Ray Manzarek in particular, have labelled Stone's film as misintepretation of the Morrison legend and the dynamics within the band. Manzarek went so far to even proclaim the picture as a "white powder film."

The Doors is a film of aesthetic vulgarity: an excuse for blatant fictionalism, extended trips, extraneous nudity and visual excess. Entering into the contours of creative myopia, Stone uses the film as a forum to dispatch stereotypes of the decade's attachment with carnality. Yet, Stone never develops the possibilities within the material. The Doors becomes less a document of the fall of Sixties culture and more an elevation of cliched narratives about rock n' roll behaviour.

The Doors is a rare film that simultaneously feels too long and too short as Stone spends too much time focusing on Morrison's exploits, and too little in examining their consequences. Once the film enters Andy Warhol's Factory, the concept of The Doors as a musical unit is discarded. Thus, Stone never rounds his film. There are no insights into the effects as to how Morrison's actions affected the band. Yes, we see him drunkly meander into studios, but the band still produce records. In light of his star status, it is probable that his bandmates would have feared for their careers in a post-Morrison group, yet Morrison never enters into the inner workings of characters.

Even, Kilmer's eerie portrayal of Morrison is limited by Stone's lack of psychological intrigue. Only via a whispered sub-Freudian relationship with his Navy Admiral Father is their a possible source for Morrison's design for life. But even Stone's overly repetitive attention to Morrison's claim of soul transference with a deceased Native American does not offer any insight into how a wandering Florida army brat could become at once a tender would-be-poet only to become an obnoxious miscreant.

And while Stone's thesis attempts to sanctify Morrison as the ultimate troubled youth and elevate him to the status of a poetic genius, the film's overall approach fails to justify such claims. Instead of a lyrical heir to Rimbaud, Stone enshrouds his savage protagonist in waves of creative impotency. And while Stone's use of Native American imagery and death attempts to give Morrison a clairvoyant mystique, the director conciously neglects the singer's self-destructiveness; which is neither tragic, nor supernatural, but symptomatic of his reckless behaviour.

Thus, The Doors becomes a dirge to excess, waste and hedonism. Stone's film rightly exposes the sinister underbelly of the 60's myth, but it also elevates the myth from a sub-culture into a universal memory. Its disconnected abstract scenes of fiery concert tribalism and inner destruction are detached to the domesticated world of sugary romance and clunky tenderness Stone attempts to contrast them with. If the surviving members of The Doors are to be believed, Stone's film is also an alien representation of their band's ethos and surrounding counter-cultural values. Yet, in this messy pastiche of directorial debauchery one finds a figure whose influence seems based more on controversy than actual talent: a story of a drunken buffoon posing as a poet; and an immoderate director facading as an artist.

* The Doors is available on Artisan Home Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

1992: Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992) 7/10

"Are you gonna bark all day little doggy? Or are you gonna bite?" (Mr Blonde)

In 1992, when Reservoir Dogs the debut film of Quentin Tarantino hit the screen at Sundance, little did the audience know that fifteen years later, this modestly budgeted $1.2 million dollar heist flick would arguably be the most influential film of the 90's.

Although the film only received cult status on home video after the release of Pulp Fiction, the world would quickly come to know of the improbable rise of Quentin Tarantino: a ravenous cineophile formerly working in a L.A speciality video store; writing and peddling screenplays for future films directed by Hollywood heavyweights Tony Scott (True Romance)and Oliver Stone (Natural Born Killers).

By the time Tarantino had dropped his sophomore effort Pulp Fiction two years later, his transformation from video geek to auteur chic was complete. His penchant for non-linear genre films filled with irreverant pop culture based dialogue spawned the career of Guy Ritchie and an entire sub-genre of mostly forgotten Tarantino copycats like Two Days In The Valley, Killing Zoe and more recently Smokin' Aces and Lucky Number Slevin. The success of Pulp Fiction at the box office elevated Miramax from an artsy independent known for films such as Neil Jordan's The Crying Game to a major Hollywood player. It is no small feat that post- Pulp Fiction Miramax commonly became referred to as the "House That Quentin Built."

Taking its aesthetic approach from Asian cinema, Italian westerns and Hollywood noir, Reservoir Dogs successfully blended plot narratives, visual pyrotechnics and concepts found in films such as Ringo Lam's City On Fire, Stanley Kubrick's The Killing and Sergio Corbucci's Django: producing a work which felt simultaneously to be an original idea and a plagarized homage.

Focusing on a botched diamond heist at a Los Angeles jewellers, Tarantino's film examines the pre- and post-crime as the group of specialized thieves and career criminals return to their rendezvous point. One by one, the members assemble to discuss the fragmented and contradictory pieces of their existence. Here, accusations and threats fly in quick succession; to be followed later by gasoline-soaked interrogations and gun-toting displays of machismo.

The members of the heist represent a lifetime of networking and business relationships developed by aging dynamo Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) and his dense heir Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn). Determined to camouflage, the true identities of the participants, Cabot assigns them colour coded names: Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) and Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen). With their respective individual skills, the plan appears flawless, yet dangerous: robbing a busy jewelry store in broad daylight. But while the plan, Cabot constructs seems impeccable on paper; in reality it collapses due to the individual flaws of its participants: greed, mental instability, garrulousness, excess and so forth.

Tarantino's artistic decision to focus on the before and after the robbery, but not the event itself, is arguably the film's most interesting narrative construct: allowing for unrestrained human emotion to spill over onto Tarantino's bloody canvass. Augmented by Sally Menke's episodic editing, Tarantino creates an organized diametrical examination of the professional conduct before the crime and the chaotic response in its aftermath. Through this lens, Tarantino is able to selectively address the conflicts and weaknesses within the film's principal characters such as Mr. Orange, Mr. White and Mr. Blonde.

Like the Noir films which inspired it, Reservoir Dogs patiently reveals the darkness of human nature through acts of selfishness, greed, cruelty and betrayal. No-one is spared from man's ability to administer contempt and destruction. Using a Noir framework, Tarantino includes an archetypal "fall guy" and (in this case) a homme fetale in the form of Harvey Keitel's Mr. White and Tim Roth's Mr. Orange. Focusing on Hawskian themes of masculine honour, Tarantino examines the concept of honour among theives; coming to similar negative conclusions to those realized by French crime auteur Jean-Pierre Melville and Western director Sam Peckinpah.

As the criminal act descends into madness, the codes of professionalism and honour which Cabot's cadre professes, disintegrate at the single pull of a trigger. The appetite for revenge and blood overrides the criminal's concepts of morality. No longer the embodiment of cool, the trigger-happy Mr. Blonde reveals his true character as a sadistic beast. His bullet-strewn rampage causes the nervy Mr. Pink to repeatedly question the group's professionalism, while the veteran Mr. White loses respect and questions his own involvement in the heist.

The breakdown of honour results in the collapse of the group's loose conception of fraternity. In Tarantino's behind the scenes approach, the director reveals to the audience the personalities at work, rather than the methodology of the crime. Through their interactions with one another, we see the friendships and binding ties. Indebted to Cabot, we see former jailbird Mr. Blonde return to his employer's nest. In gratitude for Mr. Blonde's silence in prison, Cabot rewards his protege with financial benefits and steady employment.

But the loyalty, Cabot expects is replaced by betrayal as his team splinter into various factions based on intricate fraternal bonds: Mr. White sides with the wounded Mr. Orange; Nice Guy Eddie aloof to the events in question sides with his old chum Mr. Blonde; Mr. Pink sides with the only person he can trust, himself. Thus the group becomes individualized with only their colour-coded names unifying their relationship.

Operating with this collective are concepts of masculinity, which are entwined to concepts of honour, loyalty and sexuality. It is telling that other than a few extras, the principal cast of Reservoir Dogs is all male. In this malecentric gaze, Tarantino explores a world of ignorant, macho bigots, who indulge in childish games and traditional male feats of strength. Everyone in Cabot's group are openly sexist and racist in their language. Within the group, a white male micro-culture has been established which bars membership and recognition to "outsiders" based on their ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

Through sexual banter and tussles, the film's characters try to out do one another in open displays of their masculinity. Characters boast about heterosexual sexual conquests and fantasies, as a method to lessen the homoerotic nature of the group. When Nice Guy Eddie reunites with Mr. Blonde after the latter is released from prison, Eddie quizzes Mr. Blonde on his possible homosexual encounters behind bars. Disguised in humourous vocabulary, Eddie's language and tone reinforces a contradictory perception of masculinity displayed in Reservoir Dogs.

On the one hand, Mr. Blonde is the embodiment of a true man in his admiration for Lee Marvin and his disciplined loyalty to the Cabot crime syndicate. Eddie's interrogation of Mr. Blonde's sexual orientation and his fraternization with African-Americans in jail suggests an opposing interpretation of masculinity in which homosexuality and non-whiteness are viewed as being undesirable and less manly.

Coupled with their sexist and racist epithets, their opinion of homosexuals and other races suggests the members of the group are not only ignorant, but are also deeply threatened by these social groups within their space as evident by Mr. Pink's dismay at obtaining his name: rendering him impotent in his decision-making the rest of the film. This theme is also shown in Pulp Fiction in the homosexual police officer who rapes (and thus emasculates) Marcellus Wallace.

The homoerotic nature of their work amplifies the film's sub-text. However, it is interesting to note that the relationship between Nice Guy Eddie and Mr. Blonde suggests that the former perhaps is physically attracted toward his close friend Mr. Blonde. His repeated inquisitions into Mr. Blonde's sexual history and his enjoyment of physically touching Mr. Blonde through wrestling suggests his desire for Mr. Blonde to acknowledge and validate his feeling via reciprocation. Given the film's emphasis on characters disguising their identities through their allotted colour-coded names, it is perhaps possible that Nice Guy Eddie is attempting to disguise his own sexual orientation through boasts and immature physicality.

This notion of acting is another theme addressed in Reservoir Dogs. Through their adopted colours, the characters take on new roles in Cabot's operation: disguising their pasts and expanding upon their personas. With their own criminal speciality, each becomes an important actor in this ultimate criminal performance. The character of Mr. Blonde is able to mask his true psychopathic nature as a cold-blooded executor of torture and sadism; while Mr. Orange is able to become the ultimate actor in his ability to skillfully infiltrate Cabot's group.


* Reservoir Dogs is available on R1 DVD in countless editions from Artisan Home Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque