Hyacinth (2014)

The 50th Anniversary for the long lost Jim Morrison film First Love is celebrated in the festival release of the documentary Hyacinth. Before becoming lead singer of The Doors, Jim Morrison studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles. It is now 50 years ago that Morrison created his only surviving directorial work starring his roommate Max Schwartz and friend Elizabeth Buckner. In 2002, with the obscure print still in his possession, Schwartz discusses life, love and the use of poetry and photography as a positive influence on the future of mankind. What is unique about the film is the viewer's ability to actually look through the eyes of Jim Morrison. Hyacinth provides links to a series of little known relationships and artistic considerations that produced a number of multi-faceted and multi-talented individuals, one of whom was James Douglas Morrison. Schwartz, The Mad Poet of San Francisco leads us around his studio while talking about his friendship with Morrison, the last day they plunged into a swimming pool in Bel Air ('the last innocent day of our lives') and the love of Schwartz' life Liz [Elizabeth Buckner] who dropped LSD with Morrison on his first acid trip opening his doors of perception. Morrison's daylight noir, First Love includes a simulated sex scene, phallic symbolism and a preoccupation with voyeurism which later manifest itself in his work and is distinctly present in this early document. Hyacinth comes to a climax with First Love shown in it's entirety. In the end Hyacinth is a true untold story, one that is more than meets the eye.