07/04/08
Text: Swax T. McIver
Given the plethora of books published on Hunter since his suicide in February 2005, only a select few actually being of notable reading, a part of me is unsure of how frank Alex Gibney's documentary will really be. But then at least half of us here are probably thinking the same, that's if you're talking about those who've managed to read more than just Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas.
Deftly-lit shots of an empty Owl Farm, Hunter's home for more than thirty years in Woody Creek, Aspen, open the proceedings; the camera panning over shelves of his books, old photos and assorted ephemera. Meanwhile, Johnny Depp reads key lines from Hell's Angels and sound bytes from old friends or associates spell out that in his latter years, the great Gonzo had, in all honesty slowed down on his creative flow and may well have peaked way too soon.
A line written in his column for ESPN.com on September 11, 2001 talks about the events that day and how, thanks to George W.'s (not so) clever political manipulation, the start of a religious war was inevitable. Footage of Bush and his subsequent Afghanistan/Iraq wipe-outs are run side-by-side with another of Hunter's favorite presidents, Richard Nixon, and his exploits in Vietnam.
Great times for America, no doubt, and you can't help but feel an uncomfortable sense of awkwardness shifting like a mist here in Auditorium 1 as the show goes on. Maybe that's just me thinking too deeply on the subject.
Regardless, the attention to detail is commendable. Filmed reconstruction footage of H. S. T. riding the Colorado freeways late at night while Depp narrates with text from Hell's Angels and interviews with an old Angels chapter boss, Sonny Barger, who tells of the film's subject being a "crazy bastard," even at the best of times.
And then it all reverts back to the beginning: the early days and how Hunter Stockton Thompson from Louisville, Kentucky, actually came to be.
Interviews with Sondi Wright, his first wife, follow, as do stories of high jinks and mischief told by old friends like Aspen Sheriff, Bob Braudis, and George Stranahan. Even his one-time closest political allies—George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and known associates like Nixon's head of press, Pat Buchanan—give their five minutes worth of memories and thoughts.
What does come through in this silver screen biopic—his mad hatter journeys into drug and hedonistic experimentation aside, of course—is that Hunter was a man "who always wanted to get to the heart of the matter; the truth."
Whether it was his beatings at the hands of the Chicago police present at a Democrats convention, the Freak Power campaign for office of sheriff in Woody Creek, countless wild excursions with artist, Ralph Steadman, or simply himself in private at home with second wife, Anita, or son, Juan, Hunter was essentially a patriotic American at heart.
But in the most positive sense of the word.
Cult U.S. soundtracks in the shape of Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane and the Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil" work fittingly given the context.
Maybe it was, as he himself described it, the "death of the American dream," that finally ended in him shooting himself in the head that fateful night... maybe it was just part of it.
According to those closest to him, it was his "get-out clause” that had always been on the cards during his life lived at full speed, no compromise.
Who really knows...
"The most satisfying part of the journey of making this was through the words of Hunter—thousands of letters, his many articles, books and even unpublished manuscripts," said the film's director, Alex Gibney, later, and after all posters had been torn down as souvenirs by the hungry savage masses on leaving the cinema.
"He was a phenomenal writer who was funny as hell and who had a unique ability to embrace the central contradictions of the American character: an unquenchable idealism mixed with a vicious instinct for fear and loathing."
