Tuesday, May 19, 1998
Apple pie and LSD
FILM: A drugged-out Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro play
a sports writer and a lawyer searching for the American Dream in
novelist Hunter Thompson’s land of lost hope
By Lonnie Harris
Daily Bruin Contributor
The year was 1971. Journalist Hunter Thompson set off in a red
convertible along with his lawyer and confidant for Las Vegas. His
quest: to discover the American Dream in a time when it seemed that
all hope for redemption was lost. The 1960s were over, and all the
hope that a generation of young people had created through
experimental drug use and free love had degenerated into an orgy of
excess and wasted opportunities.
Thompson never did find the American Dream on that fateful trip
to Sin City, but it did inspire him to write one of the defining
novels of the second half of the 20th Century: "Fear and Loathing
in Las Vegas," a fictionalized account of his trip.
Now, some 27 years after Thompson’s excursion, his surrealist
text has been made into a movie. The film follows the novel in
telling the story of a sports writer named Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp)
and his lawyer, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro).
Together, they abuse just about every drug known to man
(including sniffing ether) and run around Las Vegas offending
people and damaging their rented convertible. But beneath all of
the mayhem and destruction, the film is really about how people
dealt with the end of the ’60s and the sudden dose of reality
brought by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and
JFK.
The two emotions in the title – fear and loathing – accurately
describe the feelings which the characters exude throughout the
film. The future scares and worries them, and they feel unprepared
to deal with a new life in the "real world" after the wild and
passionate ’60s. They also loathe the hypocrisy found everywhere in
society, since those who should be protesting injustice are instead
turning to greed and apathy.
Of course, playing two drugged-out freaks is not an easy task,
even for accomplished actors. In preparing for his performance of
Thompson’s alter ego, Depp shadowed the man himself, who is still
alive and living comfortably in Southern California. Depp tried to
pick up his mannerisms and speech patterns so that he could later
try to get inside the man’s head and figure out just what he was
thinking during his weekend binge in Las Vegas.
"I spent the better part of four months with Hunter and watched
him like a hawk, and studied his habits," Depp says. "His thought
process is just fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody so
quick and so accurate and so sharp. Basically, I tried to steal his
soul, and he was generous enough to let me into that world."
Del Toro, too, had a trying time preparing for his role as the
near-psychotic Samoan, Dr. Gonzo. First, he had to gain nearly 45
pounds to convincingly play the voracious lawyer, a trick which he
insists is not as difficult as it sounds.
"Doughnuts. That’s all I have to say," Del Toro offers. "What’s
strange is that I couldn’t tell the difference, even though I did
it fast. The only way I could tell was my jeans all of the sudden
got much tighter."
Del Toro also conveys his character’s excesses and manic
behavior by sporting long, unruly locks and a goatee. All of these
new physical traits put together make the actor (best known for the
role of Fenster in "The Usual Suspects") almost unrecognizable,
which suits him just fine. The actor attempts to use his bizarre
-almost grotesque – appearance in the film to convey the film’s
message onto the audience.
"I took an acting class once where I had to play a junkie," Del
Toro remembers. "The teacher told me, ‘Don’t play a junkie. Play a
man.’ What you have to understand is that a junkie is just a man
who uses his body to tell people around him that something is
wrong. This is a romantic way to look at (Thompson’s novel), but
they’re basically telling society that there’s something wrong.
Wake up."
Depp, too, felt that there was more to Thompson’s novel than
vignettes about drug abuse. In fact, he feels that the story works
on some levels as a cautionary tale against the use of dangerous
chemicals to attain a higher level of understanding.
"Hunter had a great quote," Depp ponders. "He said, ‘I’ve never
promoted the use of drugs, but it’s always worked for me.’ He never
encouraged anyone to use drugs, but it was his way of life. I think
this is the equivalent of some kind of ride, and it really depicts
an era. It’s a modern fable, in a way. ‘Trainspotting’ as well
doesn’t promote or glorify drug use so much as depict it."
However, when Depp is finally asked just what his goal is for
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and what he hopes the movie will
achieve, the answer is surprisingly simple: He wants to please the
film’s source, author Hunter Thompson.
"I felt such an awesome responsibility to the material," Depp
says. "Hunter had always had me in mind to adapt the material, and
he was the one who presented it to me while I was working on
‘Donnie Brasco.’ I’ve been given his blessing, and I have such
admiration for him, such respect. To let him down would be a
devastation."
Director Terry Gilliam ("12 Monkeys"), who has a long career of
bringing surreal, wacky visions to the movie screen ever since his
early days with Monty Python, has some more elaborate hopes for his
new films beyond that of pleasing its inspiration.
Gilliam tried to capture a moment and display it on screen for a
modern audience. More than inspiring young people to any specific
action, Gilliam has tried to make people understand why educated,
intelligent people like Thompson would fry their brains and act
like mental patients. Believe it or not, he has some very
provocative answers for this troubling questions.
"I think it’s about a specific time and a place, and a world
that had gone sour," Gilliam says. "This is how socially conscious,
romantic people dealt with what they saw as the end of the world.
You can either take up a picket sign and march down the street, or
you can overdose on all sorts of chemicals and explode right into
the face of what you saw as the American Dream.
"My theory is that Hunter didn’t go to Vietnam, so he created
his own battlefield in America and reported from his own internal
battlefield. I think he pushes himself in that way."
FILM: "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" opens Friday.
(Top) Johnny Depp stars as a journalist and Benicio Del Toro
plays a lawyer in "Fear."
(Bottom) Depp plays sports writer Raoul Duke.
Benicio Del Toro stars as Dr. Gonzo in "Fear and Loathing in Las
Vegas."
Universal Studios
Johnny Depp is journalist Raoul Duke.