The Door Film Analysis

Film response====================== Two of the films I watched were J. Edgar (2011) and The Doors (1991). Both films seemed to provide a number of insights into American culture during the Cold-War era and 1960’s. Granted, they did so in different ways. Where J.Edgar is detailing the history of J.Edgar Hoover, former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, The Doors details the history of Jim Morrison, who affectionately refers to himself in the film as “the lizard king.” The two stories portray personalities that are as different as night and day. But in those personalities are historical and cultural elements which, in some ways, might not always be corroborated with Foner’s particular view of American history. The one personality, i.e. J.Edgar, becomes a vehicle through which the history of the national security state in Cold War American culture becomes articulated to the average viewer. The other personality, Jim Morrision (and the other members of his band, “The Doors,” variably portrayed in the film) becomes a vehicle

We learn of his values, his patriotism and sense of duty to his country. We learn of his relationship to his mother, his development from childhood (with these same values) all the way into the highest ranking offices of American national securtiy. In short, we get a picture of the archetypical “good guy,” that is, by the standards of American culture in Hoover’s time: professional, committed to their country, willing to do what’s necessary in order to keep American lives safe from criminal activity and develop an institution (the FBI) toward this end. But we also see, later on, a person with conflicting values and questions of how much they have contradicted/corrupted their own values in order to serve their country. We see the intersection of conservative poltical values with the course of American history; changing its