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According to Oliver Stone's film version of the life of Jim Morrison, this
artist did have some sort of encounter with the Native American Other,
that I missed with the shaman Black Elk.
"The movie covers the years between 1965 and 1971, showing Morrison as a
poet who becomes the rock star, ultimately dying, supposedly of a heart
attack, in Paris in 1971. Stone uses a recurring image in the film of a
wounded Indian, played by Floyd Red Crow Westerman (from Dances With
Wolves), who we see at the very beginning of the film when Morrison is a
child and witnesses an accident alongside the road - he becomes fixated on
an old Indian, dying. That image of the Indian appears several times
throughout the rest of the film, most noticeably in one of the concert
scenes. The Indian seems to represent childhood for Morrison, a
remembrance of what could have been. As always, Stone uses very
interesting camera shots to tell the story - when we first see Jim
Morrison, we see a lizard alongside the road - the birth of the Lizard
King. The movie starts to take on its over-the-top, drugged style when the
band and Morrison's girlfriend, Pam, take a trip to the desert. As the
film progresses, Morrison becomes more detached from the band and from
reality, as he takes everything to excess, encouraging the audience at the
infamous Miami concert in 1969 to do whatever they want - there are no
laws and no limits."
The Doors
(1991)
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Releasing
the Shaman
"I believe (as well as others believe) that when Jim Morrison was 5 years
old, the spirits of the Native Americans that died in the car wreck his
family drove past leapt into his body.
Jim was an amazing poet above all. He was driven by some force within him
to write and to sing. He consumed life too quickly in his search for
knowledge. May his presence continue to inspire me and countless others."
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