Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S. Thompson is a very well put together documentary from Alex Gibney, whose Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room was a fascinating insight into the fluff and fraud of a section of Corporate America in the early years of the 21st century. Not sure how I managed to miss Gibney's Who Killed the Electric Car? but I intend to track it down now, as on the evidence of this movie, it will be worth the effort. Gibney frames his subject well, with a wealth of background detail on the 60s West Coast counter culture which launched Thompson's literary career, and he has assembled a great soundtrack; it's almost worth watching this movie just to hear the music. Gibney follows Thompson's story coherently. He tracked down some revealing home movies and some unexpected people (Pat Buchanan, Jimmy Carter) to explain Hunter S Thompson to the world, (his first wife seems remarkably lacking in angst despite having to call the sheriff when she feared for her safety), although I felt there could have been a little more emphasis on the early years (the air force, the time in Puerto Rico and Brazil). There is some suggestion that Thompson carried a fairly major chip on his shoulder from his teen years, when his father died, leaving his mother to raise 3 sons in genteel near-poverty. Hunter, with his sharp intellect, mixed with the rich kids but was in actuality a fairly poor kid, and one incident when he was jailed for his proximity to a crime, may have contributed to his life long despising of authority.
I'm slightly too young to have been a fan of his writing back in the late 60s and early 70s, when I was a teenager living on another continent, and although I've caught up with some of it since, the movie of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I re-watched recently, produces little reaction from me these days beyond a yawn. It's better on the page. But he was a fascinating character, no doubt about it, and I can't think of anyone around today who can write with quite his accuracy and style (and how we need it.) My husband confessed that he had never heard of Thompson (well we are foreigners!) before watching this movie, so it may well be an indication of how good a documentary this is, that we both enjoyed it so much.
Gonzo tracks the journey of Thompson from outsider journalist and acute spectator, whose acid sharp observations skewered the Great American Dream, to the sad situation where Thompson himself became the story, stoned, drunk and wasting his talents, apparently feeling a need to live up to the over-the-top persona he had created on the page. On an objective level, it's intriguing to watch the winding path from the great and original writing of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hells Angels and the 1972 presidential election - where he championed the decent McGovern - to the debacle in Zaire, the Ali Forman match-up, where Thompson gave away his tickets and spent the time drunk in the hotel pool, thereby missing one of the greatest boxing matches of all time, (and failing to report on the fight for the mugs who had paid his expenses.)
Much as I admire his well pointed vitriol and satire and wish we had it around today - I have a very limited amount of sympathy for people who choose self destruction as a life style, and Thompson always seemed to blow it just as true greatness beckoned. He comes across as utterly self obsessed and I found myself lacking any real sympathy for him, or connection to him, rather feeling impatient that he chose not to hang around long enough and stay sober often enough, to wield his pen a few years longer. Everyone, of course, is free to chose their own path to death, and Thompson's makes interesting viewing. Just don't ask me to feel much sympathy for the guy. Still, it's a good movie.
I'm slightly too young to have been a fan of his writing back in the late 60s and early 70s, when I was a teenager living on another continent, and although I've caught up with some of it since, the movie of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I re-watched recently, produces little reaction from me these days beyond a yawn. It's better on the page. But he was a fascinating character, no doubt about it, and I can't think of anyone around today who can write with quite his accuracy and style (and how we need it.) My husband confessed that he had never heard of Thompson (well we are foreigners!) before watching this movie, so it may well be an indication of how good a documentary this is, that we both enjoyed it so much.
Gonzo tracks the journey of Thompson from outsider journalist and acute spectator, whose acid sharp observations skewered the Great American Dream, to the sad situation where Thompson himself became the story, stoned, drunk and wasting his talents, apparently feeling a need to live up to the over-the-top persona he had created on the page. On an objective level, it's intriguing to watch the winding path from the great and original writing of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hells Angels and the 1972 presidential election - where he championed the decent McGovern - to the debacle in Zaire, the Ali Forman match-up, where Thompson gave away his tickets and spent the time drunk in the hotel pool, thereby missing one of the greatest boxing matches of all time, (and failing to report on the fight for the mugs who had paid his expenses.)
Much as I admire his well pointed vitriol and satire and wish we had it around today - I have a very limited amount of sympathy for people who choose self destruction as a life style, and Thompson always seemed to blow it just as true greatness beckoned. He comes across as utterly self obsessed and I found myself lacking any real sympathy for him, or connection to him, rather feeling impatient that he chose not to hang around long enough and stay sober often enough, to wield his pen a few years longer. Everyone, of course, is free to chose their own path to death, and Thompson's makes interesting viewing. Just don't ask me to feel much sympathy for the guy. Still, it's a good movie.