I think at the time the film was made -- filmed in '90 for a '91 release, Stone was coming off his Platoon Oscar wins at the hip filmmaker at the moment, so he felt comfortable liberally imagining Morrison's life and putting his Stone cinematic sheen on it all for new audiences. I have no doubt that he would have made the film differently today. I also think he was having quite a lot of fun with the myth. When he sings "Break On Through", for example, Morrison's mic cable was theoretically over a thousand feet long as he prances through the crowd -- obviously impossible. The casting was also suspect: Billy Idol was supposed to have a much larger role, but had a motorbike accident before filming started and Meg Ryan certainly wouldn't/shouldn't have been cast.
It really is a film of its time -- Morrison for then new audiences who didn't know much about the 60s, gussied up by Stone's bag of tricks which also seemed cool then.
Another interesting note is that Sugarman's book was co-written by Jerry Hopkins, a former Rolling Stone writer who chucked it all in and went to live in Thailand for the rest of his life -- even falling in love with a tranny at one point. He died a few years ago.
Can't really argue with any of that except your chronology is wrong. Platoon was '86 and after that came Wall Street (1987), Talk Radio (1988), Born on the 4th of July (1989). The Doors came out at the beginning of 1991 and then JFK came out just before the end of the same year. Stone was definitely prolific back then. FWIW Wikipedia says that Tarantino, Scorsese, Friedkin, De Palma all thought about making a Doors bio-pic at some point. I think any of them might have done a better job of it than Stone did. Scorsese - he's done more than his share of music films, no fictional music film set in that period, he would have done it right. Tarantino - Morrison wouldn't have died, he would have gone disco in the 70's and then had a creative resurgence in the 90's. Friedkin - great car chase sequences with Morrison always behind the wheel drunk and late for gigs. De Palma - "say hello to my little friend" would have taken on a whole new meaning!
Ha...momentarily forgot about his post-Platoon-pre-Doors repertoire--and I've only seen Wall Street a zillion times.
Scorsese would have made an interesting Doors film...
Your comments on The Doors movie are interesting.
I think at the time the film was made -- filmed in '90 for a '91 release, Stone was coming off his Platoon Oscar wins at the hip filmmaker at the moment, so he felt comfortable liberally imagining Morrison's life and putting his Stone cinematic sheen on it all for new audiences. I have no doubt that he would have made the film differently today. I also think he was having quite a lot of fun with the myth. When he sings "Break On Through", for example, Morrison's mic cable was theoretically over a thousand feet long as he prances through the crowd -- obviously impossible. The casting was also suspect: Billy Idol was supposed to have a much larger role, but had a motorbike accident before filming started and Meg Ryan certainly wouldn't/shouldn't have been cast.
It really is a film of its time -- Morrison for then new audiences who didn't know much about the 60s, gussied up by Stone's bag of tricks which also seemed cool then.
Another interesting note is that Sugarman's book was co-written by Jerry Hopkins, a former Rolling Stone writer who chucked it all in and went to live in Thailand for the rest of his life -- even falling in love with a tranny at one point. He died a few years ago.
Can't really argue with any of that except your chronology is wrong. Platoon was '86 and after that came Wall Street (1987), Talk Radio (1988), Born on the 4th of July (1989). The Doors came out at the beginning of 1991 and then JFK came out just before the end of the same year. Stone was definitely prolific back then. FWIW Wikipedia says that Tarantino, Scorsese, Friedkin, De Palma all thought about making a Doors bio-pic at some point. I think any of them might have done a better job of it than Stone did. Scorsese - he's done more than his share of music films, no fictional music film set in that period, he would have done it right. Tarantino - Morrison wouldn't have died, he would have gone disco in the 70's and then had a creative resurgence in the 90's. Friedkin - great car chase sequences with Morrison always behind the wheel drunk and late for gigs. De Palma - "say hello to my little friend" would have taken on a whole new meaning!