Wind was blowing, time stood still

Each Day, A Film:
February 10th 2012

Speaking of Benicio Del Toro being lateral, let's just switch right on over to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.



Time for another weird personal remembrance; a long time ago, before this film even came out, a parental unit bought a copy of Hunter S Thompson's book for me. Being a teenager at the time, I assumed this had some special significance, and operated under this assumption for a long time - that it was some sort of acceptance that I wasn't, strictly speaking, normal at the time.

You see, for a while - and this is a fun confession - I wanted to be a Gonzo Journalist.

In the same way that everyone who's read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas wants to be a Gonzo Journalist, I suspect. Because, when you read it as a teenager, it's your ultimate fantasy, really; tooling around Las Vegas with a heterosexual life partner, a boot full of drugs, a more-or-less unlimited expenses account (providing you can run fast enough and your fake ID holds up) and a totally insouciant attitude to life. Call it devil-may-care if you like, but I rather suspect the devil doesn't, because if you tried it in real life, you'd see him sooner rather than later.

Rejection of social normality is a powerful thing when you're a teenager, and Hunter S Thompson is probably responsible for more bad attempts at writing than any other journalist in living history.

But that's a good thing, because without him these attempts wouldn't have even made it that far.

My journalistic career lasted four years as a student writer / editor / general getter of free stuff, then I thought, well, this is probably not for me, because it's never going to be this good in the real world. We're talking four years of free CDs, video games, and occasionally even clothes.

No drugs, though.

Now, I'd read Fear and Loathing and then seen the film when I was still young enough to find it anti-authoritarian and cool, and it never really leaves you; somewhere underneath this cool, beatnik blogger -

No, sorry, I couldn't complete that sentence.

Somewhere underneath this jaded, cynical, and above all bored blogger, however, lies the yearning heart of teenage Thompson addict - the one who found the British versions of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (which, ten years on, I still haven't finished), Better than Sex, The Rum Diary, and anything else I could get my hands on - not realising at the time that they'd probably basically publish Thompson's grocery list if it would sell.

There's no real British equivalent of Hunter S Thompson, unless I'm desperately missing something, because we just can't do that level of sustained craziness for long enough - and even if we could, there's just not the market for it anymore. And that's a little sad, really, because every society needs its crazies, and Britain - well, Britain has Alan Moore, and Grant Morrison, and Garth Ennis for its craziness, and they all write comics for America...

... Which technically tells you all you need to know.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - the film - however, is a masterpiece because it manages to transpose the craziness all into two-or-so hours, and it shows just how infectious is; Johnny Depp being so into character (achieved by hanging around with the real, and really infectious, HST) in the same way that Bill Murray did, way back when, for an entirely different film.