FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
dir: Terry Gilliam
"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime, the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant." - Raoul Duke
Brief Synopsis
A journalist and his attorney head towards Las Vegas to cover a sporting event followed by a series of bizarre psychedelic experiences in search for meaning and the American Dream.
Why It's Here
For a filmmaker whose built a reputation on creating bizarre films, Terry Gilliam has never before or since made a film quite so unusual as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". Derived from Hunter S. Thompson's famous and inspirational novel by the same name, the film focuses on Thompson himself (under his pseudonym Raoul Duke in the film) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo whom both venture to Las Vegas to report on a dirt bike race. The race plot line ends early in the film, leaving the entire remainder of the film open for irresponsibilities and chaos without motivation or reason. Easily passed off as stoner comedy or drug promoting filth, "Fear and Loathing" has captured the attention of the audience by presenting subject matter in such as a way that it quickly divides it's viewers into faithful followers and outright loathers. Yet, it is this power of the script and subject that is able to resonate such powerful, raw emotions from it's audience. Something that most films are unable to do, which separates "Fear and Loathing" from it's imitators.
Likely having a larger impact on those who grew up in the madness of the 60's, it's ideals and messages still transcend to today's youth in concepts that are eternal. The era of Hunter's writing was filled with anger and revolution, a time that Hunter describes as having no explanation, that you just had to breathe it in for yourself. The film brings us to the latter years of these psychedelic times, where these two burnouts stumble through streets into a carnival, referring to it as the Sixth Reich. Even in this madhouse, these two are the most bizarre and frightening sight to the other visitors. Their perception of reality is so distorted they barely exist in the same plain of reality as everyone else. Las Vegas, the perfect setting for this bizarre adventure, the only place in America that is nearly as insane as the two protagonists. A place that promises fortune and glamour when Hollywood has failed, and of course the film makes a brilliant study on how that's all wrong.
What is so engrossing about the movie is the ability it has to visually represent their trips. Each drug with it's different effects, clever camera work and unorthodox lighting techniques present an almost cartoonish animation and highly surreal look to the characters and world. Movies like "Requiem for a Dream" can show us the decomposition of a junkie, but no film lets us inside their head like "Fear and Loathing", transporting us to a place strange to us, but familiar to them.
Here we can only speculate about what is real and what is illusion, a large emphasis on utter madness and disaster pulls the film over the top. Showing the destructive side of drugs through the damage Duke and Gonzo cause makes the audience head spin as Duke awakens to a hotel room victim to an Adrenochrome trip. While the drugs as sometimes exaggerated, their chaotic potential stays true. The drug imagery is off-set by the iconography of the American flag referring to the seemingly unreachable American Dream. The characters mention the dream, how they are chasing it, how they are living it. Yet they know they are not, the flag is used and waved while on binges, it appears and a sloppy painting on a motel room wall. The quest for the American Dream seems impossible unless lost in the trip of a psychedelic drug, these junkies are looking for a dream in a place where everyone is trying to find it, Las Vegas. Their search only brings them closer to their own fear and loathing, a realization that the world is not as peaceful and free spirited as the 60's and LSD had them believe. Many claim the film doesn't capture the full essence of Thompson's writing, but it succeeds as much as a film possibly can in capturing his ramblings, the quest for the American Dream and the realization of it's non-existence is subtle, not pounded into the heads of the viewer. It's the films madness that represents Thompson's disgust with a Nixon-era America.
The films large emphasis on drugs and drug culture is an easy way for viewers to casually enjoy the film as a comedy, largely ignoring Depp's narration that strings the films otherwise random events together. His speech is soft and while sometimes wildly enthusiastic for the drugs being consumed, yet he is also reflective of the significance of the failed 1960's counter-culture. He pays tribute to the fight against Vietnam and how it felt like peace was winning, and yet we constantly return to Duke's present, locked up in a Las Vegas hotel room and taking drugs for kicks to see bats and giant, drunk reptiles. Duke is a victim to his generation and while he enjoys his escapade of drug binges, he truly knows and realizes the emptiness to his ways as he narrates the films ending monologue of the acid-generation hoping to "buy peace and understanding for three bucks a hit". Making a full connection to the opening title which reads: "he who makes a beast of himself takes away the pain of being a man". The very real character of Hunter S. Thompson masked as Raoul Duke that chose this path ventures on down the desert highway at the films close, leaving behind a blurred sense of freedom, expression, and depressing realization of America. To us Duke leaves a lasting, bizarre, but truly unforgettable story behind.
Likely having a larger impact on those who grew up in the madness of the 60's, it's ideals and messages still transcend to today's youth in concepts that are eternal. The era of Hunter's writing was filled with anger and revolution, a time that Hunter describes as having no explanation, that you just had to breathe it in for yourself. The film brings us to the latter years of these psychedelic times, where these two burnouts stumble through streets into a carnival, referring to it as the Sixth Reich. Even in this madhouse, these two are the most bizarre and frightening sight to the other visitors. Their perception of reality is so distorted they barely exist in the same plain of reality as everyone else. Las Vegas, the perfect setting for this bizarre adventure, the only place in America that is nearly as insane as the two protagonists. A place that promises fortune and glamour when Hollywood has failed, and of course the film makes a brilliant study on how that's all wrong.
What is so engrossing about the movie is the ability it has to visually represent their trips. Each drug with it's different effects, clever camera work and unorthodox lighting techniques present an almost cartoonish animation and highly surreal look to the characters and world. Movies like "Requiem for a Dream" can show us the decomposition of a junkie, but no film lets us inside their head like "Fear and Loathing", transporting us to a place strange to us, but familiar to them.
Here we can only speculate about what is real and what is illusion, a large emphasis on utter madness and disaster pulls the film over the top. Showing the destructive side of drugs through the damage Duke and Gonzo cause makes the audience head spin as Duke awakens to a hotel room victim to an Adrenochrome trip. While the drugs as sometimes exaggerated, their chaotic potential stays true. The drug imagery is off-set by the iconography of the American flag referring to the seemingly unreachable American Dream. The characters mention the dream, how they are chasing it, how they are living it. Yet they know they are not, the flag is used and waved while on binges, it appears and a sloppy painting on a motel room wall. The quest for the American Dream seems impossible unless lost in the trip of a psychedelic drug, these junkies are looking for a dream in a place where everyone is trying to find it, Las Vegas. Their search only brings them closer to their own fear and loathing, a realization that the world is not as peaceful and free spirited as the 60's and LSD had them believe. Many claim the film doesn't capture the full essence of Thompson's writing, but it succeeds as much as a film possibly can in capturing his ramblings, the quest for the American Dream and the realization of it's non-existence is subtle, not pounded into the heads of the viewer. It's the films madness that represents Thompson's disgust with a Nixon-era America.
The films large emphasis on drugs and drug culture is an easy way for viewers to casually enjoy the film as a comedy, largely ignoring Depp's narration that strings the films otherwise random events together. His speech is soft and while sometimes wildly enthusiastic for the drugs being consumed, yet he is also reflective of the significance of the failed 1960's counter-culture. He pays tribute to the fight against Vietnam and how it felt like peace was winning, and yet we constantly return to Duke's present, locked up in a Las Vegas hotel room and taking drugs for kicks to see bats and giant, drunk reptiles. Duke is a victim to his generation and while he enjoys his escapade of drug binges, he truly knows and realizes the emptiness to his ways as he narrates the films ending monologue of the acid-generation hoping to "buy peace and understanding for three bucks a hit". Making a full connection to the opening title which reads: "he who makes a beast of himself takes away the pain of being a man". The very real character of Hunter S. Thompson masked as Raoul Duke that chose this path ventures on down the desert highway at the films close, leaving behind a blurred sense of freedom, expression, and depressing realization of America. To us Duke leaves a lasting, bizarre, but truly unforgettable story behind.