The Doors Page #13

GLORIA STAVERS, beautiful 30ish ex-Vogue model shooting Jim

for her layout. It's not going well. He's resisting, the

attitude negative to be photographed, compounded by the acid

it seems he's on.

GLORIA:

Take off your shirt.

JIM:

(cow noise)

Mooooooo!!!

GLORIA:

(taking his shirt off)

You remind me of a Russian peasant.

I see you standing in a wheat field.

The pride, the arrogance. You love

to look at yourself don't you. You

love yourself.

(he's moving, getting

into it)

...good... big cat stalking...

JUMP CUTS -- photos going off... JIM starting to pout

narcistically, Jagger-like, for camera -- a bare-chested

pose, long lion's mane of hair streaming down to his

shoulders. She's shooting rapidly talking him thru the trip.

Her sentences falling on separate cuts of Jim. As we hear

the backbeat of PEOPLE ARE STRANGE.

GLORIA:

...the camera is like a roulette

wheel Jim. It becomes whoever you

want it to be -- a woman you want to

seduce, a man you want to kill, a

mother you want to upset, a wife you

want to lie to or love, whatever you

want it to be, it is...

JIM:

(pausey, paranoid)

Where are the Doors.

He resists, he goes with it, push pull, prowling her loft on

the acid, a bottle of cognac in one hand -- changing from

shot to shot like a chameleon, free, wild, vicious, obscene.

GLORIA:

Forget the Doors. It's you they want,

Jim. You're the Doors.

JIM:

(scared suddenly)

We do everything together.

GLORIA:

You control the audience, like dogs,

manipulate them Jim, one picture can

control a million people, be anything

you want -- growl at them, be ugly,

be frightened, be selfish. Be man,

woman, whild, animal. Live, die,

return again. Anything you want.

Everything is permitted.

A weird dance ensuing between them -- teasing, enticing. He

runs away, writhes along her wall, being photographed inch

by moving inch. He crawls to her. She gets down with him on

the floor, straddling him, photographing. Then he straddles

her as she shoots him from her back. They kiss, flirting. He

growls like an animal... dives into her closet... tearing

open the doors, flinging away hanging clothes, he finds her

white fur coat and puts it on... JUMP CUT -- him as he moves

to her full-length MIRROR, contorting himself. She slides up

behind him.

GLORIA:

Go on look at yourself, fall in love

with yourself. You're your own

audience now Jim. They want you.

Worship and love and adore you...

A pause. She wants him. No longer so cool.

GLORIA:

...Jim Morrison, the god of Rock and

Cock...

JIM:

I am the snake and you are the lute

GLORIA:

Exactly...

Our camera dwells on Jim in the mirror, closer, closer --

the image and the reality, which is which anymore -- where

does it end?

The Great Jim Morrison, The Shaman, then Pamela, Patricia,

Gloria, a series of women who face after face fill the ancient

gallery, interchangeable masks as PEOPLE ARE STRANGE climaxes

and JIM's face SPINS OUT OPTICALLY TO:

DOORS SONG:

People are strange when you're a stranger

Faces look ugly when you're alone

Women seem wicked when you're unwanted

Streets are uneven when you're down

LIMBO - MAGAZINE COVERS

JIM'S FACE on a series of MAGAZINES twirling -- "SIXTEEN",

"GLAMOUR", ROCK MAGAZINES, etc. flowering out into:

INT. DOWNTOWN LOFT - NEW YORK - NIGHT (WINTER)

Style vampires drink and grope and drug and dance under the

staccato blips of strobe lights. Artists and intellectuals,

groupies and debutantes, everyone on display, as contrived

and replicated as one of the Warhol prints of Elvis or Marilyn

and Mao on the walls...

FISHEYE POVS -- hearkening back to the acid trip -- as JIM

wanders through the dream, drinking, smoking, swallowing

pills. PEOPLE look at him, talk to him (AD LIBS) but drugs

distort everything and their voices are foreign, incoherent

and they disappear. "PEOPLE ARE STRANGE" continuing:

DOORS SONG:

When you're strange

Faces come out of the rain

When you're strange

No one remembers your name

When you're strange

When you're strange

When you're strange

INT. ROOM - LIMBO

Jim peering into a room somewhere -- one of Warhol's FILMS

is playing on a wall -- a man sleeping, eating...

A GLIMPSE OF VIETNAM WAR FOOTAGE on a TV monitor -- B-52s

dropping bombs.

A fat little PR MAN grabbing Jim's arm, leaning in, distorted.

PR MAN:

(cool)

You must meet Andy Warhol, Jim. He's

more than an artist. Andy is art.

Bright people in America wonder --

does Andy imitate life, or does life

imitate Andy. The meeting of two

kings. Yes, Come.

PAMELA is suddenly there, laughing, nuttily introducing a

handsome strapping TOM BAKER, a charismatic actor, and a

COUNT, suave, urbane, on heroin. Her voice lost in the jabber --

their names sound as if they're in a bottom of a tank. PAMELA

seems so impressed with the high life of New York.

PAMELA:

Oh Jim this is Tom... Baker, he's an

actor, he was in Andy's movie and

this is Count Ruspoli. He lives in

Paris, but he's Italian. He's from a

very famous family over there. They're

seven hundred years old.

COUNT:

(Italian accent)

Hi Jim, you are great... I see you

at Ondine's with Bobby and Jimmy.

It...

PR guy stays there, introduces himself to the count.

PAM:

(pawing at Jim)

Don't you like the way he talks.

Isn't he cool?

JIM:

(annoyed with Pam)

Yeah... hey what's your trip?

TOM:

(cutting in)

Saw your gig at 'The Scene'. Hot...

very hot... You strung out? Here.

Try this.

(pill, popper, joint,

a drink, all at once)

JIM:

Love your movies man. What a great

penis...

Tom is obviously a major druggie. A popper -- joint trade-

off going off.

RAY's face leaning in distorted.

RAY:

Come on, we're splitting man.

Dorothy's waiting at the door. We'll

get a bite at Max's and...

JIM:

You can't leave. Where's your will

to be weird man?

JOHN DENSMORE appearing with a wasted looking ROBBIE who is

giggling, high, and with a NEW GIRLFRIEND in tow.

JOHN:

Get outta here man. This is f***ing

weird man.

The PR MAN is still next to Jim, jumping up and down excitedly

waving across the room at nothing in particular. As the

PHOTOGRAPHERS try to get Jim and the Doors in a photo

opportunity.

PR MAN:

Right this way Jim. Andy's in the

bedroom.

JIM:

(to RAY)

Don't go, y'see Norman Mailer, I

hear he's here?

RAY:

Yeah can we meet him, he's great...

just like he is.

(enamored)

You wanna meet him?

JIM:

(paranoid)

I don't know... did he know who you

were?

RAY:

Yeah sure, he's cool, come on, he's

your hero!

JIM:

Nah... later...

A wasted, emaciated Edie Sedgewick type floats into Jim's

fractured POV -- introducing a MAN with a crew cut and silk

suit.

EDIE:

(echoey voice)

Hey Jim, this is Jake Johnson, you

remember Jake Johnson -- the

astronaut, he's just got back from

outer space.

JAKE JOHNSON:

I like the Doors, I like the Doors,

I like the Doors.

JIM:

I like outer space.

Tom Baker brings a tall, incredible looking BLONDE in black

leather towards him.

TOM:

Hey where's my joint?

(a roach goes back)

There's this chick sings with the

Velvet Underground, Andy's band. She

says she can drink you under the

table.

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