Terry Gilliam's film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a peculiarly cinematic retelling of the book by American journalist Hunter S. Thompson, which was published in English under the title Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In his 1971 literary work, subtitled Wild Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, the iconic author recounts the bizarre experiences he has as journalist Raoul Duke with his Samoan-born lawyer (whom he calls Dr. Gonzo) on their journey from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and then to the hotels, casinos and streets of Las Vegas.
Duke is in the gambling town to cover the Mint 400 off-road motorcycle and buggy race and then a national conference of district attorneys dedicated to the war on drugs. The two protagonists are in a perpetual drug haze, which they continually feed off their abundant supply of narcotics of all kinds and alcohol. In their high, they inevitably get into tricky situations and clashes, from which they always miraculously escape. The book, which, like the film, is introduced by a quote from Dr. Samuel Johnson ("He who makes himself an animal will be rid of the pain of humanity"), is in fact a reckoning with the 1960s, with hippie culture, with the anti-Vietnam War movement and with the wave of psychedelic "madness".
Terry Gilliam sticks quite faithfully to the text of the book and strives for over-visualisation. The film lacks a unifying "story"; it is a sequence of loosely connected episodes. It unfolds like a journalist's narrative with commentary on various external contexts. This includes minor flashbacks, the use of contemporary documents and especially the "Gilliam" trick technique to express the protagonist's condition (people turn into various monsters, especially close to large lizards, the floor comes to life, etc.)...
Search: ""
