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Journalist Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp, right) heads to
Vegas with cohort Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) in tow
in director Terry Gilliam's 1998 film Fear and Loathing
in Las Vegas.
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Visionary filmmaker Terry Gilliam, the director responsible for creating the magical worlds of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brazil and Twelve Monkeys, is back in the news, but it has nothing to do with a new movie. Directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's engrossing behind-the-scenes documentary, Lost in La Mancha, follows Gilliam's doomed fall 2000 production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, an eclectic adaptation of the Cervantes epic, about a modern-day ad executive (played by Johnny Depp) who trips back to 17th-century Spain where the legendary Don Quixote (Jean Rochefort) mistakes him for his sidekick, Pancho.
Lost in La Mancha captures all the ugly details of Gilliam's failed film: NATO jets swooping above the film's period sets, inadequate financing, an absent celebrity actress (Vanessa Paradis) and a sick leading man (Rochefort). The climactic slap is a rainstorm like the biblical flood that washes away expensive equipment. Gilliam's Quixote film remains a creative dream, a failed project joined with filmmaker Orson Welles' uncompleted version of the Cervantes epic from 1955. Ironically, the movie about the non-movie, Lost in La Mancha, has become something of an independent hit, playing art house theaters across the U.S. and around the world.
Gilliam is also visiting worldwide living rooms courtesy of an extravagant DVD reissue of his 1998 film, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a surreal adaptation of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream.
Here's something I wrote about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas at the film's 1998 release: "There was never any doubt that maverick filmmaker Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas would be anything less than a cinematic freak out. After all, it boasts a collaboration between the warped minds of Gilliam and gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who's played in the movie by Johnny Depp. Their impressive teamwork makes for an ultra-colorful, mind-twisting, conscience-bending, big-screen adaptation of Thompson's seminal 1971 work. What else should it be?"
Recently watching the film for a second time on DVD, I admire it even more. Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an honest retelling of Thompson's rambling story. Johnny Depp plays gonzo journalist Raoul Duke, Thompson's alter ego, who travels to Las Vegas to report on a desert motorcycle race with his own Pancho-like sidekick, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro), and ends up at a conference of district attorneys.
Gilliam is currently more famous for films he hasn't made: the cult comic book, Watchmen; Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's apocalyptic thriller, Good Omens; Tideland, a variation on the Wizard of Oz; Scaramouche, a sword-clattering romp based on Rafael Sabatini's adventure novel; a tale based on the lives of the Brothers Grimm; and finally The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. For the time being, it feels good to lie on the couch and watch the last Gilliam feature that made it onto the big screen.
I tend to shy away from the "making-of" extras that surround many DVDs, but the history behind Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is too fascinating to ignore.
A second disc of extra features outlines the battles Gilliam experienced over Fear and Loathing. Gilliam and screenwriter Tony Grisoni explain the controversy over their screenwriting credits in an extensive audio interview. Original filmmaker Alex Cox and partner Todd Davies wrote an aborted draft for their version of the film, one that the Writer's Guild wanted to credit for Gilliam's film.
Gilliam does a good job explaining his frustration over his battle to receive credit for writing his screenplay, but his short film, The Dress Pattern, does a better job poking fun at the "credits" controversy. There's also the short video documentary, Hunter Goes to Hollywood, which follows the writer's visit to the Fear and Loathing set. The best bonus is the 1978 BBC documentary, Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood, which follows Thompson and artist Ralph Steadman, who created the now-famous illustrations for the Fear and Loathing book and Rolling Stone excerpts, on an extended road trip to California.
During a voiceover that accompanies the film's trailer and TV commercials, Gilliam explains how Universal struggled to market the film as an alternative to the summer blockbuster, Godzilla, which opened on the same Memorial Day weekend.
Gilliam is the filmmaker responsible for the legendary 1985 Variety ad that asked Universal executives: "When are you going to release my film?" It was published during his public battle with Universal over the final cut of his future fantasy, Brazil.
A similar sense of frustration can be heard in Gilliam's DVD interviews about the release of Fear and Loathing. The film was a commercial and critical disaster when it was released. Five years later, the hope is that audiences will discover at home what they missed in cinemas.
Together, the slick digital transfer of Fear and Loathing, paired with noteworthy extra features, makes a heady package of Hollywood reality and Gilliam-inspired fiction. Gilliam and Thompson match well in depicting American follies; drug-induced delusions of lizard-like creatures and a story about a legendary film whose qualities are ripe for rediscovery.
Gilliam's most popular film remains The Fisher King, a fantasy story that grounds its tale with social themes about homelessness and political issues. Existing on a different storytelling planet, Fear and Loathing reminds us that it's fantasy that drives Gilliam's moviemaking. Thanks to Gilliam, Thompson's gonzo journalist embarks on a fantasy voyage into a glittery desert world of drunken conventioneers, rude gamblers, leering cops and a pixyish girl artist who makes drawings of Barbara Streisand. The trip is as psychedelic, gaudy and surreal as it needs to be.
At last fall's Toronto Film Festival, Gilliam was meeting producers to discuss would-be projects as well as promoting Lost in La Mancha. Over an early morning coffee, Gilliam said he has no regrets over allowing La Mancha directors Fulton and Pepe to document his train wreck for posterity. In fact, he's learned to appreciate the film for its honesty.
"It did take me a week to recover after watching the documentary for the first time," Gilliam said, laughing. "I'd like to take another shot at Quixote ... There's a young man in Germany who's put up a Web site to gather funding for the film. Just imagine: If hundreds of thousands of everyday people contributed just $10, we'd have a movie."
The Minneapolis-born director now lives in Highgate, north London. Gilliam says he frequently reaches back to his Midwestern childhood when it comes to dreaming up stories.
"What's it like back in the Midwest these days?" Gilliam asks. "Is there still that distinct spirit that I remember?"
Our conversation ends on talk about future projects, but that's a story for another time. For now, Gilliam is wandering in the creative deserts of Spain and Nevada. One story, Raoul Duke's story, is for audiences to re-discover. The other lies inside Gilliam's heart and head. That cursed story, Quixote's story, is also for another day. ©
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