Monday, March 16, 2020

Oliver Stone, Get Your Facts Straight

Oliver Stone, Get Your Facts Straight! Some have said that Oliver Stones The Doors was a realistic and accurate portrayal of Jim Morrisons life and The Doors musical escapades. Unfortunately, director Oliver Stone has a habit of putting his own beliefs and ideas into the mouths of his characters. This would not necessarily be bad if his characters were fictional. Jim Morrison and his fellow band members are real, and those who knew him best are still living. The first major mistake that Stone made took place when Jim and Ray Manzarek (Kyle Maclachlan) were attending UCLA film school. A recreation of Jims short student film is shown. In Stones version there is quite a bit of what seems to be Nazi propaganda. Scenes of Hitler and his troops shouting and holding up Nazi flags are shown with Kilmer reading Jims poetry in the background. The WWII footage in Jims original film was grossly misrepresented. It was a funny, light scene with a large German girl dancing on a T.V. to American rock music in the background. Stones version made Jim out to be a disciple of Adolf Hitler. In addition to all the anti-Semitism Stone placed in the film, he also had Kilmer misquoting Friedrich Nietzsche. The scene at Andy Warhols party was Stones next mistake. Stone manages to make the other members of The Doors into the bad guys. Jim stands alone. It is an emotional scene that has Jim asking the other Doors to stay at the party because he doesnt ...know what could happen tonight, maybe death. All the members of the band were friends, friends that dont desert each other when they are in need. In reality, the other members of The Doors did not leave Jim at the party, and he never verbalized a premonition of anything bad happing. Stone may have needed something to move his plot further, but did he really have to slander others to do this? Another mino...