Iain Grant Boyack: Philosopher & Doors Aficianado

by Lisa Nesselson

Iain takes Morrison's influences as a poet very seriously, pointing out that Jim was greatly influenced "by Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Apollinaire -- all the French symbollists" and became aware of Nietzsche, Sartre and the Beat poets as a teenager.

Jim was also deeply interested in the possiblities of film and, according to Iain, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in cinematography at UCLA, where his classmates included Ray Manzarek and Francis Ford Coppola.

Have the films that Jim worked on survived? "Ray says they no longer exist, or else they're lost in a vault at UCLA, " says Iain. "Ray Manzarek's films still exist. On December 8,1995 they were put out on laser disc -- four hours, limited edition."

How does Iain feel about Oliver Stone's film "The Doors"? "It was my worst nightmare come true," Iain replies, concurring with Jerry Hopkins who assessed it as "40% inaccurate. The acting's very good. Visually it was excellent. But the screenplay was DIRE," Iain continues. "Serious Doors fans and serious writers feel the film was terrible. Ray Manzarek (originally an advisor) washed his hands of it."

What sort of work might Jim have produced had he lived? "I think he would have concentrated more on his poetry and maybe made a blues album with the Doors every so often," muses Iain, before proposing a fitting epitaph for James Douglas Morrison. "Voltaire said: To the living we owe nothing but respect, but to the living we owe nothing but the truth.""