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Fear and Loathing is the latest in Terry Gilliam's cinematic revolution

By Skylaire Alfvegren

Dallas Observer: Published: May 21, 1998

Most Gilliam films feature a valiant struggle between one man and the world--whether that world is a labyrinthine government bureaucracy or an evil corporate structure. This time, it's a man struggling with the American dream, or at least Vegas' surreal version of it. Though prior to shooting, Gilliam had only been through Las Vegas briefly while driving cross-country to escape to London in 1967, the green-felt jungle is a perfect victim for the director. "It's like Lourdes," Gilliam muses. "Except I don't think anyone gets healed there." More than any other filmmaker, he manages to convey the eye-popping vulgarity of modern Western life with the grotesque and excessive visual humor one can trace all the way to his Monty Python days. "There're forces beyond my control. I can't stop myself from portraying what I see and what I think. I don't know why other people can't see it."

Cartoonish chaos abounds, from the carny booths at the circus-themed hotel to the ridiculously un-hep speaker at the Narcotics Convention. But it's when the characters are caught in the throes of massive drug consumption that Gilliam's imagination is really unleashed. "The drugs gave me an excuse to do these, like, moray eels and lizard lounges and all these fantastic things. If it wasn't drugs, you would say I was doing a fantasy film."

Stars have sought out Gilliam in the last decade. "Which is ironic, because I always wanted to make movies without stars," he says. Bruce Willis was so desperate to prove himself with 12 Monkeys, for instance, that he worked for scale.

Johnny Depp, teen heartthrob turned quirky thespian, spent a prodigious amount of time with Thompson in preparation for his role as Thompson's alter ego, Raoul Duke. "I was very keen to work with Johnny," says Gilliam. "He's spectacular. He became Hunter. He came back with his clothes, driving the Red Shark, which we used in the film. He's wonderfully inventive, brilliant--really funny and always truthful."

And some would say campy. His wild gesticulating, obscene bow-legeddness, bizarre facial contortions, and clipped, bulldog-huff of a voice make Thompson seem like more of a caricature than the professional, soft-spoken Southern journalist he was at the time he wrote the book. Depp's affectations would seem out of place in almost any other director's film--but had he not exaggerated the character, he could've been upstaged by his surroundings.

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