Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
(1998)
Dir: Terry Gilliam
The fellow at the video store made sport of me for renting this. Handing him the box, I asked if they had the Criterion Edition. He gave me a funny look and loudly proclaimed, “No. We don’t have the Criterion Edition of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS.”
Was I supposed to feel inadequate for renting this movie so soon after Dr. Thompson’s suicide? Should I have already watched it fifteen times? Or should I own it? Is there a grace period for renting movies based on books by recently departed authors? Maybe I should’ve also rented Naked Lunch, as a test.
I didn’t probe the matter.
I’m sure that nationwide, there have been countless ceremonial viewings of Gilliam’s film as of late. Further, I’m sure that most of these viewings have incorporated plenty of booze, grass, pills and powders. This is a travesty to some, no doubt. A preeminent caricature of Thompson is that of a wandering festival of lewd intoxication. People often take his way of life and the cultural impact of his work as a sign that, if they are even remotely suspicious of The Man, they are right in drinking a quart of whiskey and soiling the couch.
What this kind of thinking overlooks is that all of the booze and drugs were merely fuel for a truly unique creature. Very few journalists, living or dead, are, or were, capable of Thompson-caliber reporting. This is not something you’ll likely realize watching Johnny Depp waddle around like there’s wet shit in his shorts. Read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 and a truly revelatory vision of this great relentless seeker will roost in your mind. Thompson had such enviable instincts as a journalist that it was often easier for many in his profession to write him off as a madman than to humbly admit that they’d never eye what he was able to discover. These sentiments are largely absent from Gilliam’s picture, but that doesn’t make it wholly inadequate. It’s pretty fucking effective as an abstract vision of the book. So it’s horrifying to purists, I suppose, to think of foggy-headed frat types, chugging bong loads and cackling like hyenas—well realizing there’ll probably be a centurial viewing of Natural Born Killers afterward.
Ironically, however, Fear and Loathing (the film) probably confuses anyone who’s never ingested hallucinogens. To the pure of liver, it probably looks like cartoon nonsense. Carpet morphing into vines, giant lizards; quite literally the fear and the loathing that a person can start to feel for his surroundings when in the grips of such a trip. So, as is invariably the case, the book far outshines the movie. I’d imagine anyone who hasn’t tried drugs could still get a chill and several chuckles out of the book. Unfortunately, the movie needs at least the requisite experience of some drugs—or at least a stiff Robitussin jag.
