A Coarse Crowd Numb to Stone’s ‘The Doors’

I wish Oliver Stone could have been with me the other night.

It’s not that I have a particular desire for his company. I remember seeing him on last year’s Academy Awards show accepting an award for “Born on the Fourth of July,” and he struck me as a focused and forceful man with whom I’d have little in common, though God bless him for the way he is, because if nothing else, it allows him to get very big movies made. This particular night was the opening of his new film, “The Doors,” and I was there at the late show in a theater within the city of Chicago.

Mr. Stone was recently quoted in an interview as saying that he hopes this film will inspire a generation to action, though the article I read was unclear on what actions he had in mind. At this particular late show filled with people mostly between the ages of 17 and 25, his film drew all sorts of action.

Before the show, the person sitting behind me, and I use the word person sadly, sneezed repeatedly and visibly into the hair of the people in our row. He, of course, showed no recognition of the filthy action.

At this theater, all films begin after a short admonition--more like a plea--to the crowd to please refrain from talking. Right. Fortunately, technology has evolved hand in hand with human coarseness, so hundreds of watts of THX Dolby sound were able to drown out much of the talking in an instance of our technology saving us from ourselves.

However, during the film--especially the drug references and flashes of nudity--gleeful shouts and unintelligible and, unintelligent, comments erupted from various pockets of the crowd. All of this was punctuated by the sound of beer bottles dropping on the floor and rolling through the aisles and under the seats.

I am compelled to write about this not as a criticism of the film or nudity or depictions of drug use. Each has its place, and the nation’s film critics will debate whether each was used appropriately in the film. Rather, these events forced me to think about and be saddened by the growing numbness and coarseness of ourselves.

The Doors always stuck me as an original and literate band whose music flew in the face of all sorts of conventions, not the least of which were the conventions of rock music. Even before the movie, there have been certain lines from Doors’ songs which I carry inside and which are, to me, profoundly affecting. I choose not to think that the death of Jim Morrison was a necessary outgrowth of this. If anything, the film of the self-destruction of such a man is a tragedy.

One would hope that the younger people watching such a film would be moved to think and read and apply themselves in whatever they do in new and original ways and to break on through to the other side and let us all benefit from it. One would also hope that the vivid example of Morrison in the film would warn them of the heavy bear that walks with and inside each of us, to borrow from a poem that I had to read in school when I was about their age.

That sadly did not seem to be the case. It was just another visual and aural distraction in their MTV world, just another diversion for a Friday night whose real purpose was to cop a few beers and let it all hang out because, of course, restraint and civility in any context is so, so old and unheard of. If that meant sneezing on the head of the person in front of them, if they were even aware that they were doing it, well, you know, whatever.

Morrison? Yeah, he’s the one who sang some pretty excellent tunes and, man, how great is it to live without any cares or responsibility, get what you want when you want it, and be surrounded by a continuing parade of some pretty decent-looking, wanton chicks.

Before going to the movie, I was switching around channels on my TV. We have cable now, and that’s the way you watch TV in the ‘90s--we’ve completely eliminated the need for an attention span. On my particular system there were four different channels playing nothing but music videos.

I guess it’s now unrealistic to expect a world raised on that to react to a story with music as anything different. There are groups on the video channels with genuine talent and wit and ideas to share, but the whole thing is just too big and too pervasive and too incessant and loud to expect the viewers’ powers of discrimination to remain healthy or even intact for very long.

“The Doors” was just another video. If Mr. Stone expects or even hopes that his film of the Doors would encourage its viewers to fight for their freedoms as Morrison had to do at the end of his life, or that it would encourage its viewers to think and read and apply themselves, with respect to a certain crowd at a Chicago theater on a rainy Friday night, he was wrong.

To the person who sneezed, I forgot to say something, so I’ll say it now: God bless you.