Before the End: Searching for Jim Morrison

The most insufferable first 15 minutes of anything in the history of ever. The moderation is slowwwwwwww like listening to an oil spill burn in space burn. I think it's the guy that made this dumpster fire, but there's so much high-school-art-class meets low-budget-production un-special effects that will make you forget everything being said.

Seriously, I kept thinking "this is the longest introduction ever" and then I would hear what I thought to be the "big reveal shocker" to move the show forward aaaaaand then just right back to the coma-inducing-dialogue from what's-his-forgettable-name. I checked the times at 5:09, 7:15, and 11:43 thinking that's where the aforementioned introduction(s) stopped. Nnnnnope, just more of the awful.

If you can get past 15 minutes, by yourself something very special because you've earned it.

It is a peculiar thing, this relentless drive to exhume the past, to peel back the layers of a mythology already fossilized in the collective imagination. Before the End: Searching for Jim Morrison is less an excavation of truth than an exercise in indulgence, a fan's quixotic pilgrimage through the mists of conspiracy and nostalgia.

Directed by Jeff Finn, the documentary styles itself as an investigative probe into the final days of The Doors' frontman, but in reality, it is more séance than scholarship. It toys with the well-worn whispers-Morrison faked his death, he escaped to Africa, he is still among us in some undisclosed exile-without the burden of serious evidence. Finn and his parade of interviewees seem convinced that the "official story" is somehow suspect, yet they produce little more than speculative embroidery on an already rich tapestry of myth.

To his credit, Finn unearths rare archival material and interviews that offer a glimpse into Morrison as a man, not just a spectral figure in rock 'n' roll lore. But where the documentary might have explored Morrison's literary ambitions, his existential unraveling, or the paradox of his self-destructive genius, it instead opts for the well-trodden path of counter-narratives that fail to hold up under scrutiny. The introduction of a shadowy "Mr. X," hinted to be Morrison himself, would be laughable if it weren't so painfully earnest.

Critics are divided, with some lauding Finn's passion and others dismissing the documentary as a hallucinatory echo chamber. Jonita Davis of The Black C. A. P. E. acknowledges its compelling storytelling, while audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes skew toward exasperation, one viewer branding it "filled with innuendo, half-baked theories and outright fiction."

In the end, Before the End is not an exposé but a testament to our inability to let our icons rest. The real Jim Morrison-poet, provocateur, self-proclaimed shaman-was already more myth than man in his own lifetime. This documentary does little but add another layer of fog to a legend that scarcely needs it.

This is by FAR the GREATEST Documentary in the existence of Jim Morrison. Jeff goes into great detail, presents all the facts, which are as accurate as they come. Not only that, at the end of each episode he literally cites every one of his sources of info. He blew this entire mystery wide apart. I never thought I would see this come together in front of my eyes in a million years. He left no stone unturned here folks. Hearing from those who were very close to Jim at different phases of his life prior to putting the band together were some of my favorite parts! Hearing from those people confirmed what my gut always knew. Jim was a soft soul. I haven't watched Oliver Stone's movie since like 2002, so I watched it lastnight. I hate it more now than I did then. I literally forgot some of the parts in there. Then you have this Masterpiece Jeff carefully crafted, and it's just a breath of fresh air in the world of JDM. My heart, mind, and soul have a new sense of Peace quite literally. Hearing Frank in parts of his interview brought me to tears. Well played, Jeff. Superb! You put RESPECT on the name JDM! The fact that a woman in particular led you to Frank, tells me everything else I need to know. I don't know how you kept yourself so composed & well put together to get thru these interviews & the emotions surrounding them. 38 years of work & research creates perfection. Oh, and BTW there is no need for DNA testing. Just let it be. And look at what we have gained.

This is the video equivalent of digging up someone's grave. The video effects are cheap and annoying, but I guess this would be much less interesting without them. It's disgusting Jeff Finn is using the deceased Jim Morrison to attempt to make a buck. I feel like a moron for watching this. If you're a fan of The Doors, you're not missing anything by not watching this.

That guy Frank doesn't really look like Jim Morrison. Maybe the eyes look a little similar in the older slightly blurry picture. But that's just not enough. Jeff Finn just wants the viewer to stretch the imagination. I'm typing this while the second episode plays, without really watching. It's just not that interesting. Cheap special effects do not a good documentary make.

You can read this one in so many ways as appalling or as a great effort quite frankly the dude we are being shown here this character called frank is not jim morrison and could not possibly be first of all he looks more like mid 60s or 70 which doesn't tally with a guy who would be 81 now he has an interesting collection of old school friends and college friends being interviewed and this gives us a true insight into the character we have admired and read so much about and in fact it basically corroborates everything we knew about him highly intelligent cheeky impredictable and so on and so forth in many ways we know nothing new here absolutely nothing new whatsoever but it is a nice ride and if the guy really did spend that amount of time he talks about 12 years or more doing this well it is not for nothing first of all it is talking about the doors and jim morrison jim morrison mostly and we all want to hear about that it seems to me it would be so easy to disinter jim morrison in the pere lachaise cemetery and take a tiny sample of bone and then match its dna to any remaining members of his family then we would know for sure it would be the end of the mystery

• do we want an end to the mystery maybe not probably not?

I always had a question regarding the way we were told he was buried they sealed his coffin why would you do that for a guy who drowned it doesn't make any sense whatsoever

i grew up in france and never have i heard of people being placed in a sealed coffin it makes no sense whatsoever anyway is this documentary good? No it looks like it was knocked up by a sixth former a scholar that is a student in england between the age of 16 and 18 as a media project and it is very poorly pulled together frankly

the guy who does the investigating the documaker has a voice and a demeanor that could be seen as irritating at times although not really and i think he truly is a fan of the lizard king that seems to be a given so i think anybody who's a fan of the doors and jim morrison should watch this and but not expect any new found information we see characters from his earlier years that we haven't seen before but pretty much we learn nothing absolutely nothing new about jim so frankly dna would be the way forward while we still have family members surely that is not difficult to do and could be done

PS my 2-bit research (15 years)

okay okay new info has come to light this is what really happened Demis Roussos has a twin brother a perfect twin and he pretended to be Demis Roussos and went to see Jim in his flat in Paris just about the time Jim was going to take a bath thing is Pam had eaten all the flakin' chicken in the house so when Demis Roussos's total lookalike came into the flat in Paris Jim tried to help himself but couldn't and ate the flippin' brother then took his bath and of course with the added weight went under this is what really happened I think I should write a book about it there is a lot of space in the publishing world for new bios on Jimbo and there is much money to be made I would be daft not to tell them that story.

Ps2 my fave is the phone call to a Northern Englander named Linda Ashcroft as in the writer of the ace tome Wild Child dude she is NOT american can you not hear that?