The Doors (Review)
Wednesday, 27th April 2011, 10:05

Page 1 Page 2

The Disc

Extra Features

I'm not quite sure if this is limited to just the check discs but, rather confusingly, when the disc loads up it takes you to a menu screen where you pick your locality and the United Kingdom is completely absent. In order to ensure an English language menu screen, I had to choose Australia which seemed to work just fine. In terms of supplementary material, the disc isn't exactly replete as there are only two selections from which to choose.

Jim Morrison: A Poet in Paris (52:09, SD) is a French featurette (unsurprising as this is a Studio Canal release) and delivered almost entirely in French with English subtitles. If one of Oliver Stone's film's faults is that it doesn't quite get under the skin of the band and explain exactly the dynamics between the band members and who Jim Morrison was, this more than compensates. It begins with Morrison's death and a statement by Pamela (read by a French actress) before moving on to a brief explanation of the other band members and why they worked so well together before moving to Morrison's obsession with Dionysus and his literary background which, it is claimed, is much more European than American. This explores various things such as why his life in Paris was a different chapter in his life than as the lead singer of The Doors (now a taboo subject) how he communicated without speaking much French and why the flat in which he lived was in such an important location to him.

As someone who isn't particularly familiar with Jim Morrison or The Doors’ lyrics, some of this analysing of him as a poet and Morrison's literary influences left me a little cold and I occasionally felt that some the lyrics, song and album titles were being over analysed. Maybe I'm wrong and he was a lyricist with a remarkable literary background, bringing in myriad influences from authors both contemporary and ancient, but that's probably more for devoted fans than someone like me who doesn't mind listening to their music.

Back to the Roots (55:54, HD) features interviews with various people such as Kyle MacLaughlan, The Stranglers’ bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel and a moustachioed Oliver Stone as well as journalists, photographers and people who knew Jim Morrison, from America, France and Britain. They speak about The Doors’ musical influences, their importance to rock music and how the recording sessions worked. This is probably more accessible to someone with a casual (rather than obsessive) influence in the band and their music and it's the sort of thing that will make you want to go and buy a fuel of The Doors’ albums to listen closely to the lyrics.

The Picture

When the film began, I feared the worst as the Columbia Tri-Star logo, with the white horse, galloping on from the left-hand side, looked extremely grainy and with a great deal of picture wobble. As soon as that was over and the film began in earnest, it was evident that a great deal of time and effort had gone into the restoration process as the colours, definition and contrast levels are absolutely superb although some scenes hints at a slight over use of DNR so the picture looks a little too smooth.

The period design is extremely good so the costumes, hairstyles and other elements of the mise en scène converge to create something that is utterly convincing and it helps that Val Kilmer does have a physical resemblance to Jim Morrison. Most of the concert and performance re-creations are extremely convincing with big crowds, the music blaring and the four actors, particularly Val Kilmer, essaying the real performances and musicians extremely well.

The Sound

The only English option is a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track which is, quite frankly, how just about every Blu-ray with a surround sound master should be presented (either that or a Dolby TrueHD or LPCM 7.1 option). I didn't consider The Doors would be the sort of film that necessitated a 7.1 option but was surprised at just how effective the encoding was as there are many scenes where you have the main dialogue from the front and background chatter and music from the front, rear and side surrounds. The subwoofer is also driven a fairly hefty work out with the live performances having quite a bit of bass (surprising considering The Doors didn't have a bassist) and really pushing the volume up, just as it should.

There is an excellent selection of music in the film, not just from The Doors who are well represented, but from contemporaries of theirs such as The Velvet Underground and The Chambers Brothers.

Strangely, there aren't any subtitle options available either in English or any other language. However, the disc does cater for people in other countries as there are soundtrack options in Italian, Spanish and Castilian, all DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo.

Final Thoughts

I can see why many people love this film and are massive fans of it and equally why others are so dismissive (Mark Kermode frequently uses the invented tagline 'You'll never make it out awake') -- I'm somewhere in the middle. I can appreciate and enjoy the excellent construction, decent script and excellent central performance by Val Kilmer but there are several scenes that bore me and it is a film that could be cut down by 20 minutes without losing anything of substance. I do feel the film loses some of its authenticity as a whole thing was denounced as a travesty by Ray Manzarek, who thought it misrepresented the history of the band. Robby Krieger, however, took part in the film because he was a big fan of Oliver Stone's earlier film, Salvador.

If you are a fan and own this on DVD, it is worth upgrading for the quite superb AV quality as, if you have a 7.1 speaker setup, you can crank up the volume and enjoy the music whilst watching the film with its extremely good HD picture. The extra features (nearly 2 hours in total) cater for devoted Doors fans and newcomers to their music alike, making this an extremely attractive purchase for people who love the film and those who are merely curious.

Previous Page