Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

[1upmushroom]

So I noticed there wasn't a thread about the topic listed so I'm making one right. For those of you who don't know, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a book written by Hunter S. Thompson. A man known for Gonzo Journalism (I'll get to that later).

The story centers around two characters, Raoul Duke (the expy of Thompson), and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (an expy of Chicano activist Oscar Zeta Acosta). They go to Las Vegas because Duke has been assigned to report on a dirt bike race that was going on down there. Naturally however, things don't happen normally. They spend most of the money given to them by Duke's sporting editor on drugs and other items and head off to Vegas where they perform and witness a lot of bat shit insane events. I'd go into more detail but either you've already read the book or you haven't, in that case you need to RIGHT NOW!!!

Interestingly enough, Thompson himself stated that Fear and Loathing was a very bad example of Gonzo Journalism because he had to edit a lot of the piece and as you know, that's not a good form of Gonzo Journalism. Oh yeah, you're probably wondering what that is. Well basically, think of a regular baseball game on a newspaper, now imagine it in first person POV, with a definite sense of surreality, mixed together with having the opposing team (or the home team for that matter) portrayed in an antagonistic way while having the other team treated like an underdog plus including more emphasis on the Narrator's experience and to top it off, little to no editing.

Ok, that may not be a perfect example but I'm pretty sure I got it down ok.

Anyway, in the late 90's, Terry Gilliam directed a live action adaption with Johnny Depp as Duke and Benicio Del Toro as Dr. Gonzo. It's being hailed as a cult classic and is one of my favorite films...period.

Fun fact: Ralph Bakshi apparently wanted to do an animated adaption of the book in the designs of the book's illustrator Ralph Steadman...just TRY and think how that would've turned out! (I'm kind of afraid to! ) Anyway, apparently he couldn't get the rights to do so even he constantly warned that if they (the studio) tried making it in live action they would just end up with a bad looking cartoon. Guess what happened? They made it into a live action film.

Anyway, what do you think of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

[Serum]

Hunter Thompson is an acquired taste, and in some cases you either love him or hate him. While I don't agree with the guy's politics, I think he was a great writer and one of the few Americans unafraid to speak his mind in the 20th century. As far as Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas goes, again, it's not everybody.

Not everybody is going to understand the drug-fueled scribblings of a mad man like Thompson, especially not on a first reading. It's like jumping into a William Burroughs book and having no idea what the cut-up method is that was used to write Naked Lunch. The sad truth is, these days, most people your age will have to read about Hunter Thompson online in order to even begin to understand his works.