ARTS
1The Michigan Daily Monday, March 4, 1991
Oliver Stone lights his own fire
IN4
ePage 5
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The Doors
dir. Oliver Stone
by Annette Petruso
0 ecause Meg Ryan, who plays Jim
Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Cour-
son in Oliver Stone's dramatization
of the rise and fall of Morrison and
his band, the Doors, knew nothing
about the '60s, Stone made her do
background reading, which prompted
her to ask if the film is meant as a
cautionary tale. The Doors, beyond a
mere cautionary tale, is, in fact, a
revisionalist morality play, in which
Stone over-simplifies the legend and
the facts to comment on '60s (and in
turn '90s) attitudes and values.
Stone had to compress the story
to make it fit into a movie, but the
fashion in which he did so made
Morrison's rise and fall look too
easy, implying that fame, with help
from drugs and sex with a lot of
women, is destructive. Stone chose
his episodes carefully from Morri-
son's and the Doors' life - a few
scenes a year from '65 to '71 - and
nicely dated and placed them as done
in documentary films. This makes
the film slightly choppy, reinforced
by the fact that he rarely introduces
characters by name -- you have to
know something about the story be-
fore you come in, or suffer until the
end to figure out who some of the
characters are. These important
events collectively make Morrison
look like a corny victim of '60s
counter-culture ethics.
Val Kilmer as Morrison typifies
this. While Kilmer looks a helluva
lot like Morrison, and elegantly
moves with the requisite swagger,
especially in the uniformly excellent
concert scenes, he delivers his seem-
ingly serious poetic lines as if they
were totally cheesy - he can barely.
say them with a straight face. When
he complains to Courson that
"teenage girls want my dick, not my
words" or tries to tenderly proclaim,
"I am the poet and you are my
muse," Kilmer does not have enough
smart-ass in his voice for the lines
to work.
Worse than Kilmer for triteness
is Rya's Courson. In real life,
Courson was pretty distant from the
band, and was a fairly strong, inde-
Morrison gets dragged off by the Miami pigs in 1969 after an allegedly obscene performance. What is really
obscene about The Doors is the way Oliver Stone rapes this great legend in a self-centered way. Kind of like
the way Broward county (the county Miami is in) sheriffs used 2 Live Crew in 1990.
pendent person who died after years
of heroin addiction. In The Doors,
she wears pink lipstick and appears
in most of the scenes with the band.
She is weak, flighty, and acts like a
whiny dip-shit. Ryan also mocks her
lines. For example, she hardly seems
angry when she meets one of Morri-
son's other main women, Patricia
Kennealy (portrayed effectively by
Kathleen Quinlan), snivelling, "You
actually put your dick in this
woman?" Ryan's cuteness, and her
character's annoyingness, is the
worst thing in the film.
Stone's inattention to small de-
tails also weakens the film. The ob-
viously plastic/plastered wig on
Kyle Maclachlan's Ray Manzarek,
the band's organist, makes him look
like a late '60s Ken doll, and the use
of an '80s edition of a book in Mor-
rison's student film make Stone's
work less credible, just as the Viet-
nam veterans marching on the '76
convention in Reeboks - a brand of
casual shoe that did not exist at that
time - did to Born on the Fourth of
July. Stone also makes an obvious
continuity error in the scenes sur-
rounding a show in Miami in '69.
On the plane to the show, Morrison
shows his flabby abdomen; at the
concert, he tears off his shirt and is
as thin as in earlier scenes. And ev-
eryone, especially Kilmer and Ryan,
smile too much, appearing to not
take anything seriously.
Stone also hurts his film by con-
tinually repeating the image of an
old Native-American man (played by
Floyd Red Crow Westerman) as a
metaphor. He appears in too many
scenes as a guardian angel of sorts
who appears to Morrison, especially
when fucked up. What Stone men-
tions merely three times, and was
just as important as the Native
American to Morrison's psyche, was
the fact he felt very distant to, and
almost hated, his parents. He
claimed they were dead in a press
conference, but if you knew nothing
about Morrison, you wouldn't know
until a few scenes later that he
thought they didn't love him. This
attitude is important to his outra-
geous behavior.
What makes The Doors worth-
while is the music, especially the
concert scenes. Though the use of
songs to set moods for scenes is
sometimes too obvious, the perfor-
mance scenes are great. The actors
(including Kevin Dillon as drummer
John Densmore and Frank Whaley as
guitarist Robby Krieger) move as a
band well. The only weakness is the
use of Kilmer's real voice for the
song vocals, as he does not quite
have the strength to replace Morri-
son's rich baratonic originals.
Stone strongly sums up the
grandiousness of Morrison's after-
death in his morality play with the
best shot in The Doors. After the
audience sees Pamela discovering
that Morrison is dead, the film cuts
to an interesting, slithering, snake-
like camera in the graveyard Per6
Lachaise, through other famous vic-
tims of their time like Oscar Wilde
and Balzac, to Morrison's graffitti-
covered grave. Then a bloated Morri-
son reads his poetry from An Amer-
ican Prayer in a studio, saying at
one point, "Death makes angels of
us all." Or, more correctly, over-eu-
logized legends of a few.
THE DOORS is being shown at Fox
Village and Showcase.
ZZ tops 'em all
If you could combine the
theatrics of Laurie Anderson, the
blues of John Lee Hooker, the mim-
ing of Marcel Marceau, and the
wardrobe of a really hip Hasidic
rabbi, you would come up with
something similar to ZZ Top.
The band has quite an interesting
history; although they began as a
heavy-blues power trio, they some-
how developed into a technological
MTV band. Their latest album, Re-
cycler, is quite good, but has not
been nearly as successful as past
records. Even the songs they played
live on February 21 at the Palace
featured little improvisation and
plenty of pre-recorded synthesizer and
percussion noises. This is why I was
surprised that they were playing
three nights at the Palace, at least
until I found out about the multi-
media event that they had planned for
the fans, which is what was truly
impressive.
At one point during the show,
Billy Gibbons andbDusty Hill were
in the middle of a blues jam when a
large yellow crane they had onstage
lowered above their heads and
scooped them up. This apparatus
then moved about the stage, dump-
ing ZZ Top dummies into what was
meant to be a trash compactor,
which eventually spewed them out
inside crushed automobiles. They
soon busted out wearing pink suits,
as if the Joker came from Texas, and
kicked into "Sharp Dressed Man."
The band also had laser images of
naked women projected throughout
the arena and TV sets showing short
films and junked cars exploding pe-
riodically. Most of all, there was
their trademark synchronized swagger
(look for it in Atlanta, '96.)
One aspect of the night which I
found puzzling was the reaction of
the women in the audience to the
laser images, the wholesome (right!)
ladies dancing on stage, and the ZZ
Top lyrics. Everyone, including the
women, were singing along with, "I
know a girl who lives on the hill/
she won't do it but her sister will..."
There didn't seem to be much
objection to the red satin panties
with TUSH printed in large black
embroidery sold at the concession*
stands, either.
Maybe I'm giving ZZ Top too
much credit, but this is the Ameri-
can Dream. Nowhere else can a band
exist solely because people like to
see them in concert. Pressure from
any self-righteous, morally-virtuous
organization does nothing but ruin a
good time, and fortunately, none of
them bothered to see ZZ Top.
-Andrew J. Cahn
Eat Crowe[
The Black Crowes should suck.
As the newest purveyors of good o'
otherwise jamming live band that
were soooo good, man, at this awe-
some little place that served these
pitchers for like only three bucks!
(Sub-Pop has proven to be an excep-
tion to this in many cases, though.)
The perfect example of the dim
chance of success for these bands is
'70s hard arena rock (comparable to
the Rolling Stones, Humble Pie,
and Aerosmith) with a touch of
southern boogie (a la Lynyrd
Skynyrd), the music of their current
counterparts, who are recent facsini-
les of the aforementioned '70s bands,
basically eats it. Bonham doesn't
have a tad of the energy or creative-
ness of Led Zeppelin, and the same
goes for Whitesnake, Trixter, or any
of the other countless new hard
rock/heavy metal bands. Live, these
bands are even more boring than
they are on record.
Not the Crowes, though. They
have an excellent, unforgettable al-
bum with Shake Your Money
Maker, and their seven-song, 45-
minute set, opening for ZZ Top on
February 23 at the Palace, proved
that they have endless vitality and
real raw talent. Lead vocalist Chris
Robinson was the live focal point.
His voice sounded better in concert
than it does on record; you can hear'a
grainy, gritty edge that Money
Maker doesn't capture. His delivery
was superb, as he toyed with the
words, hesitating with some lines
and dropping them over the next bar
for a fantastic gospel effect.
Robinson's boundless stage ap-
tics, his toying with the mike stand,
his hand gestures, and his displaying
of his rock 'n' roll skinny body,
were fabulous; he knows how to
move. His stage demands of the au-
dience ("What kind of people go out
on a Saturday night to sit in chairs?
Get the fuck up," "You are not at
home watching your television set,"
and "This is a rock 'n' roll concert
and you can do whatever you want to
do") roused only the first couple of
rows on the main floor, but were de-
livered with an earnest yet funny
voice; I really wish more people had
heeded him.
The rest of the band moved well
enough to support but not interfere
with Robinson, but they didn't play
as well as he sang. The set got pro-
gressively more together, but during
the first few songs the rhythm was
wrong, a little slow, and the band
didn't gel. By the last song, "Jealous
Again," they had it together, but a
buzzing related to some instrument
- when it was just vocals, you
couldn't hear the sound - ruined
their best performed song.
If the Black Crowes had had more
time, or been in a club or some
other venue with more enthusiasm
to match their own, the show would
have been better. As it was, the
Black Crowes at least proved that
they can really sing, play, and enter-
tain, and not merely reproduce their
record.
- Annette Petruso
(was?) the Georgia Satellites. You
remember the 1986 hit "Tell me no
lies / and keep your hands to your-
self," don't you? Since then the
Satellites have released a couple
more albums and probably put in
their fair share of road miles, all just
See CRO0WES, Page 7
Exiled way out on Main Street
by Brian Jarvinen
W e rock critics spend plenty of
time decrying the incorporation of
rock 'n' roll, bitching as our favorite
independent, idealistic, underground
bands remain virtually unknown,
while in our heart of hearts we hope
they stay that way so we can enjoy
their concerts ir a less crowded,
cheaper, and hipper environments
than your average stadium show
filled with people who could just as
easily sing along with the radio and
cheer extraneous visual effects such
as fireworks, inflated plastic bimbos,
and scantily-clad live bimbos as
much as the audio that may or may
not be emanating from the stage.
Often these rags include plenty of
broadsides against the Great Satans
of the rock world, Major Labels. Of
course, this is to be expected (and
encouraged, if you ask me); after all,
the people responsible for packaging
up the excrement known as Bon
Jovi, Van Hagar (Dave & Eddie's
glory days notwithstanding: Sammy
Hagar once wrote "only time will
tell if we will stand the test of time"
as a song lyric, which is at least
marginally better than the rock-crit-
style plagiarism of one of Desmond
(drop the 's' and 'd' and you have an
excellent "What's In A Name?" entry
for SPY magazine) Child's lines in
the Kids In Satan's Service hit "Hide
Your Heart": "Johnny took a ride on
a streetcar named desire." An Artifi-
cial Intelligence program could write
better lyrics. And the way the public
eats up cliche-as-pop-lyric ("I'm on
my way! / I'm on my way! / Home /
Sweet / Home"), an AI computer
will probably soon be producing the
hits in their entireties, as cyber-
punker Norman Spinrad has pre-
dicted. But as I was saying, the Ma-
jor Labels responsible for packaging
up the excrement known as Bon
Jovi, Van Hagar) etc. deserve every
bit of the Criticism shoveled in their
direction.
Well, almost every bit. For while
we've been busy extolling Mud-
honey over the packaged "rebels" in
Poison, said Major Labels have been
trying to bring us some truly fine,
talented young bands from all over
this country. The problem is that the
Labels have certain priorities when it
comes to using their promotional
resources, and the guaranteed
profitable mega-sellers, like the
latest re-mastered special box edition
of yesterday, command a lot of these
resources. Throw in some confusion
on how to break young acts that just
might be a little plain-looking but
refuse to wear make-up, and you
have a system that's almost
guaranteed to keep most of these
bands from ever achieving lasting
popularity.
During my years here, I've heard
and reviewed numerous records from
young, traditional American Rock
'n' Roll Bands. Now while the indie
labels have produced some mighty
fine products along the lines I'm
eventually going to describe,
(Illinois' Lonely Trailer's Test and
Tennessee's Our Favorite Band's (aka
OFB, one of the most poorly-named
bands ever) Saturday Nights ... Sun-
day Mornings are among my fa-
vorite records, but their creators have
never made it past Total Obscurity
on the public awareness meter), the
Major Labels often do a better job
picking these bands. The reason for
this is that independent labels are all
too happy to overlook a tuneless
singer if they are connected to an
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