07.03.08 I WOULD DRINK THIS MOVIE’S BATHWATER
A review of Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - opening this weekend
Disclaimer: In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I’m both a fanatical Hunter S. Thompson fan and a documentary lover. I am, however, an asshole above all else, and feel confident that if this sucked I’d be the first one to say it.
Director Alex Gibney, who previously helmed the critically acclaimed Taxi to the Dark Side, does an amazing job reminding me of what I loved about Hunter S. Thompson in the first place. Gibney’s smartest move is quoting liberally from Hunter himself, and he gets damned near all of the choice quotes. Gonzo opens with narrator and famous Hunter buddy Johnny Depp reading a passage from Thompson’s ESPN football column written just after September 11th. Depp’s reading of the extended passage is set to the predictable stock footage, intermingled with cutesy shots of Hunter’s vantage point from his desk at Owl Farm. “The towers are gone now, along with all hopes for peace in our time…” reads the man who helped shoot Hunter’s ashes out of a cannon mounted to a giant Gonzo fist/sword monument (Hunter left instructions for it in his will).
Opening with 9/11 might seem clichéd or melodramatic if the subject were anyone else, but Gibney keeps the focus on Thompson’s words, engaging and eerily prophetic enough on their own that it works. It’s a microcosm of the movie as a whole: Gibney lets Hunter speak for himself, and if anyone was especially talented in that regard, it was Hunter S. Thompson.
Using stock footage, interviews, photographs, scenes from Fear and Loathing, and quirkily re-created scenes set to Depp’s narration of Hunter’s books, Gibney takes us from his early days witnessing gangrapes and brutal beatings riding with the Hell’s Angels to his campaign for the mayorship of Aspen, Colorado (which he promised to rename “Fat City” and at which time he shaved his head so that he could refer to his opponent as “my long-haired opponent”). And then on to the search for the American Dream in Las Vegas (including some of the original audio tapes!) and Hunter’s coverage of the ’72 election campaign, with special attention to the vivid descriptions of Hubert Humphrey’s theretofore unknown use of the illicit Brazilian narcotic Ibogaine, a drug that existed only in Hunter’s imagination. If you’re like me, it’s like watching Behind the Music on your favorite band.
There are talking heads, but most of them are big names - Jimmy Carter, Pat Buchanan, Jimmy Buffett, George McGovern, Jann Wenner, Tom Wolfe. And they all have great Hunter stories. Hunter getting invited to lunch with George McGovern and ordering four margaritas and six beers (all for himself). Hunter demanding that Jan Wenner pay for a Cadillac “because I can’t cover the goddamned American dream in a Volkswagon.” Pat Buchanan always seems ready to recite his favorite Hunter quotes by heart, and Fear and Loathing illustrator Ralph Steadman shares his collection of Hunter’s saved answering machine messages.
Of course, some of the best stories come from the smaller names, like Hunter’s neighbor in Colorado whose introduction begins, “Hunter was my friend and neighbor, the man who never paid his rent, broke up my marriage, and taught my children to smoke dope.” Sort of sums it all up right there, doesn’t it?
The challenge of making a good documentary is being able to cover all the things that make your subject interesting without cheapening it with hype or fake drama. You can love your subject, but don’t make him into goddamned Addidas commercial. Luckily, there’s none of that here. Gibney gives us Hunter in all his incarnations without too much pop psychology or philosophizing about where Hunter fits on the list of all-time most important journalists. He also doesn’t cast a bunch of different actors to play different facets of Hunter’s psyche, thank God.
Gonzo should be an interesting watch for anyone, but if you’re the kind of person who gets a hard on at the mere mention of Hunter’s original audio recordings from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas like I do, well, smoke a joint, smuggle in some Wild Turkey and enjoy the ride. I loved every second.
Grade: A
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There are 22 comments about:
I WOULD DRINK THIS MOVIE’S BATHWATER
Yawn. Call me when you review a Shel Silverstein biopic.
Boing!!
Thank’s for the wood VaLince.
HUNTER! <bows head, raises lame one thumbed Gonzo fist>
awesome i hope they bring this to the theaters here
I am a huge HST fan myself, actually, my dick is huge at the thought of audio tapes from Vegas.
<double finger guns at VaLince>
I just finished reading Gonzo about a month ago and had to stop myself from ripping through the stack of HST books I have. Or getting exceptionally twisted shooting my house full of holes and terrorizing my nieghbors with explosives. Ya know, good times.
I’m sure Seltzer and Freebird are already hard at work on the poster for Biographic Movie, featuring Carmen Electra as Anais Nin and Verne Troyer in an American flag diaper as Larry Flynt.
He must have been a pretty great guy to be around if you could say he broke up your marriage and taught your children to smoke dope, all while still calling him a friend.
True Story:
As a homage to the great HST, (and for the fun of it) me and several of my friends got proper…proper twisted in LV. Eventually we land in Slots of Fun. Slots is a shitty little hole in the wall dive of a casino that sits in the shadow of Circus Circus. We soon get cut off at the bar and escorted out of the place. This was suprising, we were not being beligerant to the other patrons but volume control and wildly irrational behavior may have prompted them. I asked rent-a-cop why (I think that’s what I said, I could have said anything considering my mental dissonance with reality) but I remember him saying that it was an issue of "public safety". Which is exactly why they would move us out onto the streets of Vegas, you know, for public safety.
Do you know how fucked up you have to be to get escorted out of Slot-of-Fun? I do.
Did four of these trips, ah my twenties…
I’m gonna watch this and get Pee-Wee Herman’d at the thater.
i feel ashamed for not seeing this when it came into town.
8==D~~:(
I wonder if VH saw it.
HST is super-awesome!
I just watched "Buy the ticket take the ride" another HST documentary. but this looks way better.
I have Too weird to live, too rare to die tattood all around my collar bone.
yeah I know what your thinking, and yes I would fuck me
I drink your bathwater.
In honor of this movie, i’m going to but two 4 packs of Flying Dog and drink them through an IV i’ve tapped into my jugular vein.
but = buy
Freaking sweet. I hope this plays around here. I hate this fucking town.
They do show footage of the funeral right? I saw some in the trailer but stuff like that is always iffy. That’s the sort of funeral I’d LOVE to have.
You know I saw it!
I almost mist it though. Showed up minutes before it was to start and they informed me that the ONLY showing of it was sold out. That is when I informed them that I was going to see it! Long story short, a few colorful words & a $20 handshake got me standing room at the back of the theater.
I was happy just to get to see it, but I kept feeling an overwhelming feeling of angst, considering just 4 years early I was in the exact same theater sitting next to HST while watching the premier of Breakfast with Hunter.
Lince, he shot himself in the head while talking with his wife on the phone.
That’s pretty much the definition of a fucking asshole, no?
Fuck him, mate.
I think she was in the house, not on the phone. And it wasn’t like he was like, "I’ll show you, you bitch!" That was just when he wanted to go out.
I dunno. I’d just heard he was speaking to her on the phone when he did it. That’s fucked up, I thought to myself.
For what it’s worth, and again I dunno that either, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson#Death
it says:
They reported to the press that they do not believe his suicide was out of desperation, but was a well-thought out act resulting from Thompson’s many painful medical conditions. Thompson’s wife, Anita, who was at a gym at the time of her husband’s death, was on the phone with him when he ended his life.
She said this but maybe she’s lying.
His wife said:
"I was on the phone with him, he set the receiver down and he did it. I heard the clicking of the gun," said the author’s widow, adding that the clicking sounded as if he was striking the keys of his typewriter. She heard a loud, muffled noise in the background, but did not know what had happened. "I was waiting for him to get back on the phone." He never did.
Both Anita and Hunter’s son Juan say Hunter had planned his death
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2005/02/25/870/36423
(Not trying to bug ya, big
thumbguy)Fair enough, I believe ya. Still love the guy though.
Ok, cool. So many people loved the guy, eh?
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