Fear and Loathing in Las VegasEither through a preponderance of drugs or a radically cynical outlook, the "American Dream" is just a twist away from looking like the American Nightmare. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a darkly comic road movie about a journalist perpetually under the influence named Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp). Along with his attorney/enabler, known as "Dr. Gonzo" (Benicio del Toro), he sojourns to Sin City ostensibly to report on a motorcycle race and (in a moment laden with irony) an assembly of policemen with a mission to fight drug abuse. Raoul flounders in his journalistic assignment, instead writing on everything from his hellish hallucinations to a profound dismay at the cadaveric spasms of the counter-culture movement of the Sixties.
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is directed by Terry Gilliam and is based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Hunter S. Thompson. Before speaking about the film, it is necessary to observe that Thompson's style of journalism--dubbed "gonzo journalism"--was a means of reporting that deliberately defies objectivity, obfuscates the lines between fact and fiction, and in the wrong hands might be potentially libelous. This is the tone that permeates the film from the striking opening line: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold"--the drug-culture equivalent of "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". As in the novel, Raoul Duke is a surrogate for the notorious Thompson, who wrote his book in 1971 following a trip he took--in every sense of the word--to escape tensions in Los Angeles, along with his equally wild friend, a fiery politician and attorney named Oscar "Zeta" Acosta Fierro. The imagination swells at how much of Raoul's experience mirrors Thompson's--did they really bring a briefcase overflowing with virtually every drug known to man for a two-day weekend? Johnny Depp has developed an acting persona reminiscent of Peter Sellers, physically overhauling himself to embody his character. He embodies--nay, exaggerates--the iconic look of Thompson, with his wilted panama hat, patchwork blazer and Hawaiian shirts, sunglasses the color of tobacco stains, and the ubiquitous cigarette holder (with dromedary) dangling from his lip, like a latter-day Groucho Marx. The night before their fateful trip, they get high on mescaline and Raoul wraps himself in the American flag while pretending to surf on the beach at night. The juxtaposition of Raoul and the flag--even one soaked in ether--frames him as a counter-culture antihero and a satirist of American values. Raoul's mumbling narration is the connective tissue that ties the film together, and even bleeds over into his dialogue--like when he and Dr. Gonzo pick up an unwitting hitchhiker (Tobey Maguire) while travelling through the "bat country" stretch on the sun-bleached highway through the desert. His is the voice of a generation--one given over to the dark impulses of a failed revolution, selling their birthright for a bowl of marijuana. Raoul ponders where it all went wrong in moments inter-cut with stock footage from the Flower Power movement in San Francisco and protests in Los Angeles. His musings wax sardonic and maudlin, decrying late night gamblers in his hotel/casino as capitalists "humping the American dream".
The cinematography in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is appropriately trippy, and Raoul's fugue-like descent is a psychedelic dance to a rhythm dank with paranoia. Elaborate cinematic flourishes, set design, and costumes bring Thompson's writing of his hallucinogenic experience to life--or at least a drug-soaked semblance of life. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas boasts a preponderance of wide-angle shots, creating a distorted perspective like Raoul's. The room he shares with Dr. Gonzo always seems to be a little bit different than the last time they were in it, speaking to their constant state of disorientation. Even the narrative is deliberately disjointed, replicating a lack of focus akin to being under the effects of various illegal substances. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an education on drugs for the uninitiated. Consider when Raoul is under the effects of LSD, and imagines that the patrons in the hotel's bar have transformed into literal lounge lizards, and are engaged in a bloody revelry--a disarming scene that recalls Jacob's Ladder. When Raoul and Dr. Gonzo drive down the Vegas strip in their rented convertible, the city is projected onto the background, emphasizing their muddied perspective and alluding that their trek into the Southwest is artificial or staged. This technique is also used in Natural Born Killers--another road movie about a pair of anti-social misanthropes (albeit to a different degree). The closest cinematic companion to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas would be Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I--both films depict a pair of drug buddies on an adventure of introspection and self-evaluation, behaving like buffoons through a series of madcap encounters. (Coincidentally, Bruce Robinson and Johnny Depp would later collaborate in an adaptation of another Hunter S. Thompson novel called The Rum Diary.)
Despite the humorous interactions between Raoul and Dr. Gonzo, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas rarely (if ever) glorifies drug abuse. The imbecilic duo occasionally inconvenience stuck-up "normals"--caricatures of an oppressive or artificial culture, ranging from bigoted police chiefs to simpering salesmen--but they mostly behave with selfish disregard for everyone. Raoul clearly has a general disdain for authority; consider his playful routine with a highway patrolman (Gary Busey) whose been out in the sun too long, or his predilection for dodging his debts--from restaurants to hotels--without fail. To say that Raoul and Dr. Gonzo retreat into drug abuse to escape a totalitarian society that has no place for their individuality downplays the very serious psychological issues that emerge while they are under the influence, especially regarding Dr. Gonzo. Heavily dosed on LSD, Dr. Gonzo tries to convince Raoul to help him kill himself by dropping a tape player into his bathtub when Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" reaches its "peak". Dr. Gonzo's paranoia is triggered by the drugs, and he often threatens people with knives of varying lengths, like the crew members accompanying an attractive blonde reporter (Cameron Diaz) after they disparage him. He abducts and gives psychedelic drugs to an underage girl named Lucy (Christina Ricci)--who has a penchant for painting pictures of Barbra Streisand over and over--and it is implied that he intended to rape her, despite his protests to the contrary. (Raoul uses gallows humor to emphasize to Dr. Gonzo just how transparent his depravity is, even though he helps him dump her in a remote hotel to avoid a scandal for himself.) Near the end of their journey, they are lying low at a greasy spoon in North Las Vegas; Dr. Gonzo offends the solitary waitress (Ellen Barkin), who makes it clear that she doesn't appreciate his sexual harassment. Dr. Gonzo's response is to intimidate her with his knife, emphasizing its phallic associations as he waves it around to terrorize her. Raoul has many chances to be the hero; but he doesn't halt his vile companion's campaign of fear against her, nor does he apologize or make restitution while she is reeling from his threats. The extent of his gallantry is stopping himself from inadvertently stealing the dinner plate his food was on and nothing more. It's evident that Dr. Gonzo is a caricature of Richard Nixon, given Hunter S. Thompson's vocal displeasure for "Tricky Dick", who was president at the time "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was written. When Raoul drops off Dr. Gonzo at the airport, his maybe-Samoan partner-in-crime flashes a pair of peace signs, implying that all of the evil Dr. Gonzo has done is a reflection of the dark undercurrent of evil in America under Nixon's leadership. Politics aside, it is common for addicts to seek out some boogeyman to blame for their self-inflicted lifestyles when the high finally yields to the inevitable low. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas can be seen as a metaphor for how the Seventies became the sobering hangover to the Sixties, remembered for hopeful--even naive--dreams of free love that came with a price.
Recommended for: Fans of a vivid and darkly comic adaptation of one of the most infamous drug novels in the American canon of literature. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has thrived as a counter-culture cult film over the years, due to its absurd humor, outrageous story, and creative set design--despite its source material being nearly a half century old and being relative to current events at that time. (It beggars the imagination to consider how many people might have actually tried sniffing an ether-soaked flag after watching it.)
The cinematography in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is appropriately trippy, and Raoul's fugue-like descent is a psychedelic dance to a rhythm dank with paranoia. Elaborate cinematic flourishes, set design, and costumes bring Thompson's writing of his hallucinogenic experience to life--or at least a drug-soaked semblance of life. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas boasts a preponderance of wide-angle shots, creating a distorted perspective like Raoul's. The room he shares with Dr. Gonzo always seems to be a little bit different than the last time they were in it, speaking to their constant state of disorientation. Even the narrative is deliberately disjointed, replicating a lack of focus akin to being under the effects of various illegal substances. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an education on drugs for the uninitiated. Consider when Raoul is under the effects of LSD, and imagines that the patrons in the hotel's bar have transformed into literal lounge lizards, and are engaged in a bloody revelry--a disarming scene that recalls Jacob's Ladder. When Raoul and Dr. Gonzo drive down the Vegas strip in their rented convertible, the city is projected onto the background, emphasizing their muddied perspective and alluding that their trek into the Southwest is artificial or staged. This technique is also used in Natural Born Killers--another road movie about a pair of anti-social misanthropes (albeit to a different degree). The closest cinematic companion to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas would be Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I--both films depict a pair of drug buddies on an adventure of introspection and self-evaluation, behaving like buffoons through a series of madcap encounters. (Coincidentally, Bruce Robinson and Johnny Depp would later collaborate in an adaptation of another Hunter S. Thompson novel called The Rum Diary.)
Despite the humorous interactions between Raoul and Dr. Gonzo, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas rarely (if ever) glorifies drug abuse. The imbecilic duo occasionally inconvenience stuck-up "normals"--caricatures of an oppressive or artificial culture, ranging from bigoted police chiefs to simpering salesmen--but they mostly behave with selfish disregard for everyone. Raoul clearly has a general disdain for authority; consider his playful routine with a highway patrolman (Gary Busey) whose been out in the sun too long, or his predilection for dodging his debts--from restaurants to hotels--without fail. To say that Raoul and Dr. Gonzo retreat into drug abuse to escape a totalitarian society that has no place for their individuality downplays the very serious psychological issues that emerge while they are under the influence, especially regarding Dr. Gonzo. Heavily dosed on LSD, Dr. Gonzo tries to convince Raoul to help him kill himself by dropping a tape player into his bathtub when Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" reaches its "peak". Dr. Gonzo's paranoia is triggered by the drugs, and he often threatens people with knives of varying lengths, like the crew members accompanying an attractive blonde reporter (Cameron Diaz) after they disparage him. He abducts and gives psychedelic drugs to an underage girl named Lucy (Christina Ricci)--who has a penchant for painting pictures of Barbra Streisand over and over--and it is implied that he intended to rape her, despite his protests to the contrary. (Raoul uses gallows humor to emphasize to Dr. Gonzo just how transparent his depravity is, even though he helps him dump her in a remote hotel to avoid a scandal for himself.) Near the end of their journey, they are lying low at a greasy spoon in North Las Vegas; Dr. Gonzo offends the solitary waitress (Ellen Barkin), who makes it clear that she doesn't appreciate his sexual harassment. Dr. Gonzo's response is to intimidate her with his knife, emphasizing its phallic associations as he waves it around to terrorize her. Raoul has many chances to be the hero; but he doesn't halt his vile companion's campaign of fear against her, nor does he apologize or make restitution while she is reeling from his threats. The extent of his gallantry is stopping himself from inadvertently stealing the dinner plate his food was on and nothing more. It's evident that Dr. Gonzo is a caricature of Richard Nixon, given Hunter S. Thompson's vocal displeasure for "Tricky Dick", who was president at the time "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was written. When Raoul drops off Dr. Gonzo at the airport, his maybe-Samoan partner-in-crime flashes a pair of peace signs, implying that all of the evil Dr. Gonzo has done is a reflection of the dark undercurrent of evil in America under Nixon's leadership. Politics aside, it is common for addicts to seek out some boogeyman to blame for their self-inflicted lifestyles when the high finally yields to the inevitable low. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas can be seen as a metaphor for how the Seventies became the sobering hangover to the Sixties, remembered for hopeful--even naive--dreams of free love that came with a price.
Recommended for: Fans of a vivid and darkly comic adaptation of one of the most infamous drug novels in the American canon of literature. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has thrived as a counter-culture cult film over the years, due to its absurd humor, outrageous story, and creative set design--despite its source material being nearly a half century old and being relative to current events at that time. (It beggars the imagination to consider how many people might have actually tried sniffing an ether-soaked flag after watching it.)