Jim Morrison

Roadhouse Blues came on and Rosaura and I began talking about Jim Morrison. I said he could not be replaced or copied. She thought Val Kilmer did a good job in the movie. I insisted he couldn't have touched Jim Morrison. He didn't portray Jim's inherent anger, shock value and creative spirit or his driving need to express his demons. What are your thoughts?

My dad used to go to a bar that Jim Morrison frequented and was not impressed with the real life person. Sweaty, greasy, wreaked of alcohol, usually belligerent. I guess that's no real surprise. I love The Doors. Thought Val Kilmer did an awesome portrayal, then again Jim Morrison was before my time and I didn't get to see when he was all over the media - or alive. Kilmer at least looked a lot like him, no?

I saw him live several times & concur with your dad's description. Yet he was honest in his anti-social demeanor. The last thing anyone would say of him was that he was a nice guy. It fits his music: look at the Oedipal stanzas in the End (https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tnrfj3rbehieabchjweeef5nuyy?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics) and then listen to his guttural primal scream of those lyrics.

I have all the Doors albums and have No One Here Gets Out Alive - an excellent read which provides real insight into a brilliant and troubled man

It's really too bad he died so young, wonder what could have been if he got clean.

I visited his graveside...just because I could I guess...

Jim Morrison was before my time but he was a great writer and I don't think Val Kilmer did a good portrayal.

Some fun trivia from IMDB:

The surviving members of "The Doors" claim that Val Kilmer did such a good job playing Jim Morrison and singing as Jim Morrison that they could not distinguish his voice from the real Morrison's.

Prior to production, Val Kilmer lived and breathed Morrison for nearly a year, dressing in his clothes and hanging around at his old haunts on Sunset Strip. Jim Morrison biographer Jerry Hopkins says that he saw him one day when meeting Oliver Stone for lunch, using a payphone in the restaurant, and was so convinced by the believable image he cut that the first thought that entered his head was, "I'd forgotten how tall Jim was."

Ray Manzarek turned down Stone's many requests to help in the movie. Manzarek has since said that the movie is a horrible account of the history of the band.

Jim Morrison's real grave is shown at the end of the movie, filmed at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France. The headstone has since been changed, and the graffiti was removed from the surrounding graves at the request of Jim's parents. The bust of Jim was stolen sometime in 1988. The grave is also surrounded with a steel fence to prevent further vandalism to the tomb, as pieces of the stone had been chipped off and stolen over the years.

The bar that Jim and his buddies frequented in the movie is Barney's Beanery, a popular spot in W. Hollywood, California. It was the last place Janis Joplin visited before she died at a nearby hotel later that night.

The Doors' music was constantly played on the set during filming.

In the scenes where Morrison was stoned, Kilmer wore special contact lenses that made his pupils seem dilated.

Because the film was shot out of sequence, Val Kilmer had to carefully gain weight for Morrison's fatter, later years so that the flab was only noticeable on his belly and could be concealed when he played Morrison as a younger man.

Prior to the audition, Val Kilmer memorized the lyrics to all songs written by Jim Morrison. He also sent director Oliver Stone a video of him performing a few Doors songs, which Stone claimed hurt Kilmer's image as Morrison.

The film kicked around for nearly twenty years before production started. Actors considered for the role included Tom Cruise, Jason Patric, John Travolta, Ian Astbury, Keanu Reeves, Michael Hutchence, Bill Paxton, Richard Gere, Johnny Depp and Bono.