Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas caught my eye upon initial release, but I lost interest in seeing the film when I read Roger Ebert's review in which he described the film as "a horrible mess of a movie."

"If you encountered characters like this on an elevator, you'd push a button and get off at the next floor. Here the elevator is trapped between floors for 128 minutes," Ebert wrote then.

I turn to Ebert often. When I leave a movie and can't put my finger on what I liked or didn't like, I go read Ebert's review. Most of the time, he carefully and completely articulates exactly what I am thinking but can't say just yet. I'm not the only person who does this, so don't get all uppity about my lack of originality. I need time to process things, to reflect, and then assert. Ebert gets there first. So what?

He rips this film, though. He questioned Terry Gilliam's true influence on this project, given that Gilliam was not the original director (Alex Cox was fired from the project). He chalks this one up as a Johnny Depp vanity project, but I don't know how Ebert could miss Gilliam's touch here — these lens choices, soundtrack selections, and camera angles are nothing but Gilliam.

But regardless, because of Roger Ebert, I ignored the film for several years. I figured this was yet another Terry Gilliam mess, style over substance, story optional. Yawn and barf.

For all my moments of self-loathing when I reflect on my early 20s, I had Terry Gilliam pegged. I couldn't stand his work outside Monty Python, really. I still have trouble with Gilliam films — just not as much. I need less time to process what he's doing, and instead of getting frustrated, I welcome the challenge. After watching Lost in La Mancha, I see Gilliam as more down-to-earth, not some madman with a budget and a camera.

If I'm not mistaken, I finally watched Fear and Loathing on glorious VHS with my old film school roommate, Justin, when I lived in Ohio. He insisted I watch this one. Justin had quite the influence on me. He was the film student, while I was a screenwriting student from the telecommunications program who got to sit in film department courses. I was an interloper.

In short, I sat among future giants of the film industry who cited without fear of pretentiousness such influences as Bergman, Kurosawa, and Godard. They'd seen most of the films we screened, and had interesting things to say about technique and aesthetics. I was interested solely in storytelling.

These were true film students who shot on film, not video, like a real film school, not some podunk college that promises to "teach you valuable film industry skills that get you a job" while not actually having the equipment to do so. No, these folks were for real. They helped each other. They made actual films. They edited on Steenbecks and eschewed nonlinear editing software. Several of these folks ended up on IMDB, with actual credits. I'm not linking to them no matter what.

Anyway. Justin. I'd mention a title or he'd mention a title and we'd get around to me admitting I hadn't seen the film. First he'd sort of make me feel like an idiot, which was his custom, and then boom, he put the tape on. He did this four or five times that summer. He'd go out and get movies and come home with a pile of them. Living with Justin was sort of like living with a much younger, more pretentious version of my dad, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

That summer kicked me in the ass, in a way. I learned director's names. I learned more about shooting. He kept film stock in the refrigerator, because that's what you're supposed to do. Once, his mom called and caught me off guard. "How do you like living with Justin?" "It's fine." "Oh, trust me, I know my son. But he's harmless. He's an open book." Uh...okay. I never figured him out because I never tried.

We bickered a little. Then we had a falling out. Stupid roommate stuff. I moved to Chicago and started the next chapter, but I became more voracious with how I consumed movies. Justin and I got back in touch several years later, but hardly spoke after that. He's out there somewhere, in Colorado or Oregon or some damned place, making movies, watching movies, an open book.

I prefer the Criterion version of Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas because, as with most Criterion releases, you get a metric assload of special features. I don't get why people buy the cheaper, stripped-down versions of things when there's a Criterion edition. Oh, sure, the Criterion versions are always more expensive, but look at what you get!

Documentaries, artwork, liner notes, and of course, with this one, you get a commentary track with Raoul Duke himself, Hunter S. Thompson. He chimes in occasionally with something borderline lucid, but spends just as much time rambling and, from time to time, he just howls like some kind of donkey-wolf braying at the moon. This is the genius?

I wonder if Ebert evaluated this film unfairly, based on the latter-day Hunter Thompson, who burned out and became even more rambling and incoherent. Yes, there are moments of utter chaos and confusion in this film, but there are just as many quirky, humorous moments amid the chaos to keep me watching. Add to that the lucid moments, the times when we just see Depp's Thompson typing, musing, set to the music of the era, when I see that even the paragon of drug addled nonsense can articulate what I'm thinking, even about an era I never knew.