Big Picture Big Sound

I promise you I'll be with you until the end of time…

The Film

It's a surreal dreamscape that follows Jim Morrison from his time at UCLA's film school through his turbulent years fronting one of the most controversial bands of the 1960's -- the West Coast's answer to The Velvet Underground -- and to his ultimate and untimely death at the young age of 27 in France. Oliver Stone shrugs off historical accuracy for his impressionistic trip and uses the music of The Doors to take us back into the era of free love, sex, drugs and rock and roll. "Five to one, baby, one in five; no one here gets out alive". No one here gets out alive. Val Kilmer dazzles as he is Jim Morrison -- he is the lizard king, he can do anything.

Watch and listen as Kilmer morphs into Morrison taking on the actual singing duties during the film's live performances; so dead-on even the surviving members of The Doors couldn't tell his vocals apart from the real Morrison. Oliver Stone's mind-trip of a film impresses with special effects, soft light, psychedelia and the music; the music is the thing. The music is alive and drives the film. The co-dependent relationship of Pamela Courson (Meg Ryan) and Morrison is at the center as both self-destruct hurtling toward their ultimate doom, and the music is alive.

The concert performances are electrifying, the dream sequences ask you to throw off your preconceptions and open your mind to an impressionistic drawing in full motion. The artist in turmoil, the genius at odds with the world, with fame and success -- that was and always will be Jim Morrison. The music of The Doors shall live forever; Jim will be forever young. When the music's over, turn out the lights, and watch Oliver Stone's The Doors for a brilliant artistic vision and great acting on the part of Val Kilmer.

Some may quibble overt he inaccuracies of Stone's film; the way he plays up all of Morrison's vices, his playing with the timeline, failure to mention important figures such as Bruce Botnick or completely fabricating certain stories, but tha's not what The Doors is about. The Doors is historical fiction, not a documentary. To paraphrase William Blake from whom the band took their name, cleanse your doors of perception and enjoy The Doors for what it is -- a work of art that stands on its own -- and your pleasure shall be infinite.

The Picture

Oliver Stone's artistic vision of The Doors is one purposely dreamlike, ethereal, and surreal. Heavily filtered and oversaturated, the look of The Doors has nothing to do with reality. There are soft, diffuse light, warm glowing mid-tones, almost orange flesh tones and blooming contrasts. The film's patina is rendered flawlessly by this AVC/MPEG-4 encoding in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Free from any obvious compression artifacts, Stone's vision is finally captured the way it should be on a home video format. Although the heavy processing leaves the picture looking softer than what most people think of as high quality high definition, this is The Doors rendered the best it has ever looked.

There are some minor flaws in the source that can be seen from time to time, but that is to be expected. Blacks are deep, shadow delineation superb and detail is as good as it can get given the visual aspects of the film. Even with the softening effects, there is still a consistent level of grain apparent that never detracts or overwhelms. This BD is film-like, true to the director's vision and without question the best version available today.

The Sound

The Doors BD offers an English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 lossless soundtrack with an optional Dolby 2.0 French dub. The 7.1 mix is wonderfully spacious and dynamic when it needs to be. During the film's concert performance sequences the sound is big, placing the listener in a live performance space with The Doors through ample amounts of reverberation in the surrounds and good bass in the LFE. During the more "trippy" psychedelic dream sequences things remain spacious, but become more discrete as sound effects are panned into the rear channels. When things settle down to more dialogue-driven situations, the dialogue is clear and well balanced in the center channel with a decent if somewhat low amount of ambience in the surrounds. In effect, the mix is used as an extension of the film's visual aesthetic and narrative, helping to move the drama forward and it works well.

The Extras

Lionsgate, to their credit, likes to load their BD releases with many extras and this release is no exception. Unfortunately, quantity does not equate to quality and the supplemental materials on The Doors BD should all just titled "filler". It is redundant and, after a while, quite tiresome to sit through. The most compelling of the extras proffered here are the deleted scenes clocking in at over an hour that are actually entertaining and may have made for an even better film had many of them been kept in the final cut. The rest of bonus materials all tread the same ground over and over, ad infinitum, telling the story of The Doors and Jim Morrison's troubled life and untimely death.

The extras provided on this release are:

• Audio Commentary with Director Oliver Stone -- An amazingly dull audio commentary that is directly at odds with the wildly visionary, artistic vision that is this film. Stone dryly goes through the details of how he set up certain scenes and all sorts of other mintutia.
• The Doors in L.A. (1.78:1/standard definition) -- In this featurette, Oliver Stone talks about The Doors, The Doors talk about Jim Morrison and everybody discusses the 60s and Vietnam. Brace yourself, because if you sit through the rest of the extras on here, you'll here the story more times than is necessary.
• Jim Morrison A Poet in Paris (1.78:1/standard definition) -- A French documentary (with English subtitles) that examines the life and demise of Jim Morrison and death in Paris.
• The Road to Excess -- (4:3:1/standard definition) -- More discussion on the life of Jim, his girlfriends, and The Doors.
• Original Featurette (4:3/standard definition) -- This is supposed to be a behind-the-scenes making-of, but what is really is, is a self-congratulatory promotional spot; there's no need to watch this whatsoever.
• Deleted Scenes (4:3/standard definition) -- Over an hour's worth of deleted scenes with a brief introduction by Oliver Stone where he actually laments removing much of the material from the final cut of the film.
• Theatrical Trailer (4:3/standard definition) -- The original trailer
• TV Spots (4:3/standard definition) -- Five original TV spots for The Doors.

Final Thoughts

Oliver Stone's history of The Doors may be less than accurate, but Val Kilmer's brilliant performance and the director's artistic dream world combine for what is truly a breath taking experience. Lionsgate's Blu-ray release offers a grand lossless 7.1 mix and a video encoding that captures the nuances of Stone's vision flawlessly.

Where to Buy

• The Doors on Blu-ray Disc (Amazon.com)

Product Details

• Actors: Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kyle MacLachlan, Kevin Dillon, Frank Whaley, Kathleen Quinlan
• Director: Oliver Stone
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Audio/Languages: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, French Dolby 2.0
• Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Region: ABC (All Regions)
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R
• Studio: Lions Gate
• Blu-ray Disc Release Date: August 12, 2008
• Run Time: 138 minutes
• List Price: $29.99
• Extras:
  • Audio Commentary with Director Oliver Stone
  • "Jim Morrison: An American in Poet in Paris" Featurette
  • Deleted Scenes
  • The Doors in L.A.
  • Theatrical Trailer