Terry Gilliam – ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’
After several failed attempts to get a film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas off the ground by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Ralph Bakshi, Hollywood was finally treated to a definitive product with Terry Gilliam at the directing helm and Johnny Depp in the lead role of Raoul Duke – the pseudonym/half-fictional author alias of Thompson – in 1992.
Narratively, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas sees journalist Raoul Duke heading to Nevada’s most populous city in 1971 to cover a motorcycle race for a sports magazine. He is accompanied by his “attorney”, Dr Gonzo, a hulking, mumbling “Samoan” played by Benicio del Toro, and the pair open the film racing towards Vegas in a convertible happily in possession of a healthy and generous stash of all manner of drugs. “Uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…” or coke, mescaline, acid, hash, to us lay-folk.
Duke does indeed intend to cover the race he is being paid for and does so to a limited degree, but he is distracted, mostly by the drugs and the sickening allure of Las Vegas, but also by the deeper journalistic issues that plague his mind. What is America? What does it represent, and where is it heading now that war rages abroad once again and the promises of the late 1960s are beginning to vanish into obscurity? What happened to ‘The American Dream’?
The hilarity of the film is primarily driven by Depp and del Toro’s wildly excellent performances, playing intoxication to such a degree that it is hard to believe they are indeed putting it on. Duke slurs his words often, either in voiceover or in action, before yelping out a more decipherable exclamation of realisation, then dropping back into mumbled internal speech or thought. “Did I say that?” he brilliantly asks at one point. And all the while, he walks around Sin City like a goose with legs too long for its body.
There’s a genuine feel to the film, too, and Depp borrowed several items of Thompson’s actual clothing and accessories for production, including Hawaiian shirts, hats and even his iconic cigarette holder. So too, did he read Thompson’s original manuscripts and notebooks, learning that the story of Fear and Loathing went a lot deeper than the published book might suggest.
Accuracy also certainly appears to be the main aim of Gilliam’s film, from the excellent psychedelic rock soundtrack featuring the likes of Jefferson Airplane, The Yardbirds and, erm, Tom Jones, to scenes which feel almost immediately outdated. Take the particularly difficult-to-watch and highly tense moment between Dr Gonzo and an unfortunate roadside diner waitress as an example. Gilliam, however, is keen to stress that the film, like the book, is an artefact and is, therefore, representative of a real time and a real place, and as such, it should be portrayed as is, without apology.
Fear in Loathing in Las Vegas is bright and colourful, and, ultimately, alluring, and the pace moves so quickly that one genuinely feels like they are along for the ride with Duke and Dr Gonzo. Cinematographer Nicola Pecorini employs a hallucinatory, shifting neon look to the film, and through it, we see the true surrealism of Las Vegas in 1971 and the hangover of the late 1960s; say, dwarves being thrown at giant dartboards or humans turning into copulating lizards under the effects of LSD; the film is just a genuine trip in its own right, and it’s awfully difficult not to enjoy it.
Yet, as with much of Thompson’s actual writing, there is time for poignancy too, and once the madness is said and done, Gilliam uses what we’ve all just witnessed to try and reflect on its meaning. However, unlike Thompson, the film does not succinctly issue a directive or a didactic message of any sort.
On the surface, then, it might seem that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is another glorification of an age long since past and, in one way, it is that. But it is also a celebration of the life and writing of one of the most brilliantly unique and fearless writers America has ever known, and it is one hell of a trip, for sure.
