“Who was that jerk?”: Why Ray Manzarak hated The Doors’ movie
Dealing with an artist’s entire life to put into a movie is never the easiest thing to do. Even though you’re almost contractually obligated to provide the most flattering version of their story, there’s also the problem of either leaving out certain parts of their lives or becoming too gratuitous in what you actually do show. Though Oliver Stone was more than up to the task of making a movie about The Doors, Ray Manzarak was not happy with how the band turned out in the final movie.
If there were to be an actual authentic movie on the psychedelic rock legends, chances are it would need to be X-rated. The band were never known to be the most kid-friendly of bands, and Jim Morrison’s life as a beer-swigging psychedelic poet was not going to endear him to the crowd that wanted to hear The Beach Boys on the radio.
Once Stone got a handle on what the band’s story really was, he was committed to making a tale of true rock and roll debauchery. Following Val Kilmer’s portrayal of Morrison throughout the 1960s up until his mysterious death, half of the movie paints Morrison more as a punk kid rather than the soft-spoken poet who turned into ‘The Lizard King’ onstage.
Upon first viewing, Manzarak was absolutely appalled by what he saw, telling The Los Angeles Times, “The film portrays Jim as a violent, drunken fool. That wasn’t Jim. When I walked out of the movie, I thought, ‘Geez, who was that jerk?’ … The film isn’t based on love. It’s based on madness and chaos.”
Outside of Morrison’s depiction in the film, it’s borderline criminal that the rest of the band gets pushed into the background so much. For all of the great melodies that Morrison may have thought of for the band, Manzarek’s jazzy piano flourishes and Robbie Krieger’s fingerstyle guitar playing was instrumental to their sound, only for them to be left on the side as Morrison’s glorified backing band.
That’s before you even get into their creative process. Half of the appeal of these movies is about watching the band in action as they start putting together individual masterpieces, so why is it only limited to dealing with Morrison’s drunken antics in the studio and just a slight nod when they hear a track coming together in the studio?
That being said, it’s not like the movie isn’t devoid of any kind of realistic depictions. The rebellious spirit of Morrison singing the line “Girl we couldn’t get much higher” on The Ed Sullivan Show is kept true to history, and for all of the direction he was given, Kilmer had Morrison’s mannerisms down to a tee, including some vocal takes that made many wonder whether it was a recording of Morrison used in the film.
The movie definitely isn’t the most accurate way to depict The Doors as a creative entity, but at the same time, that might not have been what Stone was going for. Handling just as much of the political and social strife from the time, The Doors feels more like Stone telling the story of the counterculture, with Jim Morrison serving as his stand-in for the psychedelic movement. Manzarak may not have approved, but Kilmer’s version of Morrison is a pure encapsulation of one of his lines from ‘The End’: “Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain/And all the children are insane”.
