The Doors

FADE IN:

INT. RECORDING STUDIO (LAST SESSION) - LA DEC 1970 - NIGHT

A dark silence hovers along the deserted, bunker-like studio.

MIKE stands and booms shadow a grand piano...

The ENGINEER waits in the booth, lit, alert man, bored,

fiddling...

ENGINEER:

Hey Jim, It's your birthday man,

whaddaya say we try this another

night...

Camera moving tentatively along the shadows, discovering the

sidelight on a Navy surplus pea jacket thrown on a chair;

moving to a candle's orange flutter on pages written with

verse... a hand breaking the seal of the bottle of Irish

Bushmill's whiskey.

VOICE:

(off)

Kill the lights a little more, will

ya John?

They might drop a bit more... Camera crawling past the FINGERS

weaving a new cigarette out of the Marlboro pack. An ashtray

full of butts... and an asthmatic horrid cough, filled with

phlegm... crawling up the slight paunch in the bright jersey

with #66 on it... stitched on the sleeve is the team mascot --

an American Indian in full headdress.

ENGINEER:

(off)

Hey man, how come the Doors aren't

in on this?

Camera revealing JAMES DOUGLAS MORRISON, -- 27, poet, buried

in the shadows, curls of cigarette smoke about his haunted

sensuous eyes, meditative lips scragged with beard and long

greasy hair, not a pretty sight, yet a man full and bold and

struggling for survival through his words... beneath the

Bushmill moon, he takes the tambourine and shakes it violently

in our face

JIM:

No music, No Doors. Let's roll... Is

everybody in?... Is Everybody in?...

Is everybody in? The ceremony is

about to begin...

He shakes a TAMBOURINE at the mike and one of his sudden

giant Indian YELLS rock through the studio.

JIM:

WAKE UP!!!! HAS THIS DREAM STOPPED!!!!

Music riffs from "American Prayer". AUDIENCE SOUNDS ghostly

on the track. The ENGINEER reeling backwards from the sudden

shift in sound, cursing silent.

JIM VOICE:

Let me tell you about the heartache

and the loss of God Wandering

wandering in hopeless night Indian's

scattered on dawn's highway bleeding

ghosts crowd the young childs fragile

eggshell mind...

(wind sounds)

The GRIN on Jim's face magnesium flares out to:

EXT. ARIZONA DESERT - DAY (1940'S)

The blinding YELLOWNESS of the desert, so barren, so hot it

stings to look at. An OLD CHEVROLET winds through the yellow-

orange landscape beneath a brooding blue SKY crackling with

ELECTRICITY -- the storm coming in in the distance as the

MUSIC writhes out at us like a reptile from under a rock --

the beat of RIDERS ON THE STORM.

DOORS SONG:

Riders on the storm (2)

Into this house we're born

Into this world we're thrown

Like a dog without a bone

An actor out on loan

Riders on the storm

CREDITS ROLL, OVER THIS DREAMSCAPE

JIM VOICE:

(continues over imagery)

...me and my mother and father and

grandmother and grandfather were

driving through the desert at dawn

and a truckload of Indian workers

had either hit another car or just --

I don't know what happened... Indians

were scattered all over the highway

bleeding to death.

INT. CAR - DAY

MOM, DAD, the youngest BABY in the front seat -- pointing at

the storm.

GRANDMA & GRANDAD in the back with JIM, about 4 and his

SISTER, 3 asleep.

Mom's a beauty and Dad's an austere handsome military man in

civilian clothes, mouthing words -- look, wake them up, a

desert storm... but we barely hear

A LIGHTNING BOLT shreds the blue sky with a thunderous sound,

frightening dawn of creation...

Grandma nudging Jim awake. His eyes open --

Just as the car turns the bend -- revealing

An overturned TRUCK lying in the road -- dead and wounded

INDIANS everywhere... A cop car, ambulance. A terrible

accident...

The first thing Jim sees...

An old INDIAN FACE staring at him...

The car pulling alongside, Dad rolling his window down...

asking if he can help (SOUNDLESS) A line of wailing INDIAN

WOMEN, CHILDREN

Mom's scared face...

JIM VOICE:

...but it was the first time I tasted

fear. I musta been about four, like

a child is just like a flower, his

head is floating in the breeze.

Grandma trying to hide Jim's face but he looks back...

THE COP WAVING THEM THROUGH

The kid looking back through the rear window, terrified --

his first view of death. The bodies, the sense of doom

overlaying the land -- a child's worst nightmare.

MOM:

It's just a dream, Jimmy, just a

dream

SONG:

(continues)

There's a killer on the road

His brain is squirming like a toad

Take a long holiday

Let your children play

If you give this man a ride

Sweet family will die

There's a killer on the road

The boy's eyes going back to the Indian MAN looking at him...

then to the dying opened body bleeding out its guts on the

asphalt... the dying man's face, twisted, moaning, amazing

eyes at the point of death -- they settle on Jim

MOM:

It's just a dream Jimmy, just a dream

A strange SOUND occurs -- the rattle of an ancient gourd,

"shi-chi-chi, shi-chi-chi". Something flying through the

air. A bull-roarer, a whirling leather thong, announcing the

appearance of a shaman.

INTO JIM -- his eyes staring out the back His receding point

of view -- the Indians, the overturned truck...

JIM VOICE:

...The reaction I get now looking

back is the soul of the ghosts of

those dead Indians -- maybe one or

two of them were just running around

freaking out and just leaped into my

soul -- and they're still there.

(wind, music)

SONG:

Girl you gotta love your man (2)

Take him by the hand

Make him understand

The car pulling away across the giant 1940's landscape

DISSOLVING TO:

EXT. ARIZONA DESERT - DAY (1963)

SUBTITLE READS:
ARIZONA DESERT, 1963. CREDITS CONTINUE TO

ROLL.

Panning up the black chino pants to JIM MORRISON, now 20,

steel seaman's suitcase in hand, thumbing a ride, the road

sign behind him saying "Los angeles 370 miles"

SONG:

The world on you depends

Our life will never end

Girl you gotta love your man

A LARGE LIZARD in the dust c*cks its head, blinks, as the

boots walk by to the car pulling over.

INT. CAR

JIM in the backseat packed with HUSBAND, WIFE, CHILDREN,

DOG, MOTHER-IN-LAW. Between boy and man, eyes ancient and

new. He wears his favorite color: black -- torn black chinos,

paint-spotted black t-shirt, a slouch his favorite pose but

the eyes and smile can be warm and shy like a little boy,

gentle surface, storm in the brain.

The HUSBAND, now looking at Jim a little nervously, pushes

up the Perry Como on the radio... as it cuts to a sudden

news flash:

RADIO:

...from the Texas School Book

Depository. We repeat. President

John F. Kennedy was shot a few minutes

ago in Dallas!

SLOW MOTION:
The Husband's face distorting, saying something

on the track like: "What! God NO!" but it's subdued, low.

Trying other stations.

Jim turns to look out his window, as if he already knew.

RADIO:

(2nd VOICE)

...taken to Parkland Memorial

Hospital. There's no word on the

President's condition. Mrs. Kennedy

is...

The WIFE'S and HUSBAND'S VOICES seem lost in the background.

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