January 7, 2009 - Kenneth J. Souza, DVDFile.com

As a young, aspiring journalist in college, it was hip to be a fan of notorious “bad boy” writer Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Although his groundbreaking “Gonzo journalism” works like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 had been published nearly two decades earlier, his legend and reputation still loomed large among wannabe intellectuals and fledgling writers, fueled by his occasional but still incisive rants in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine. Years before Johnny Depp brought Thompson’s larger-than-life alter ego Raoul Duke to drug-addled life on the silver screen in Terry Gilliam’s wonderfully off-kilter film version of Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, virtually every member of our college newspaper staff had a dog-eared paperback copy of the 1972 source book strewn among the clutter on their desks. Like the journalistic equivalent of Orson Welles, Thompson continued to be an inspirational icon even though he seemed well past his prime.

Several good documentaries were previously released in an attempt to piece together the convoluted and complex life of the somewhat reclusive and enigmatic Dr. Thompson, many of which were released after his death on February 20, 2005. With the blessing and assistance of Thompson’s good friend Johnny Depp, Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) turned his attention to the late Gonzo great in Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Using never-before-seen home videos, photographs from family archives, and a series of intelligent one-on-one interviews with both friends and enemies of the late writer, Gonzo is likely to be the most comprehensive and definitive documentary on Thompson you’re likely to see. While there are still some annoying gaps in the writer’s 67-year history – most notably within the last 20 or so years – this film provides a good overview of Thompson’s life and fast times from his earliest success with Hell’s Angels to his not-wholly-unexpected but still untimely death in 2005.

Unlike much of Dr. Thompson’s own passionately opinionated work, Gonzo is well balanced in presenting an objective view of the writer who seemed to thrive on controversy for controversy’s sake. It also makes no bones about Thompson’s excesses and his open use of and support for various mind-altering drugs – most of which remained illegal in the United States. Dr. Thompson’s sporadic flashes of genius are juxtaposed with his serious bouts of depression, often fueled by drugs and alcohol. A longtime proponent of the right to bear arms and a proud member of the National Rifle Association, Thompson also owned numerous guns and enjoyed firing them and dabbling with explosives on his self-proclaimed Owl Farm compound in Woody Creek, Colorado. These odd hobbies would often be a source of concern for his family members, since they were frequently done while Hunter was under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or both! His sudden and violent outbursts were also something that worried his two wives, since he had so many guns and explosives readily at his disposal.

But like the omnipresent sunglasses and cigarette holder clenched in his teeth, these obsessions all became part of the ever-growing legend of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson that he, himself, cultivated over the years and then let run amok to the point where it became a caricature of the true man. In one of the documentary’s more telling sequences, friend and fellow writer Tom Wolfe noted how Thompson initially was furious that political cartoonist Garry Trudeau had based a character named “Uncle Duke” on Thompson’s own surrogate, Raoul Duke, for his classic Doonesbury comic strip. But then Thompson eventually warmed to the idea of being immortalized in such a way. Indeed, it was Thompson who created his own legend by inserting himself into his most famous Gonzo writings… and soon people couldn’t tell the difference between Dr. Thompson and Raoul Duke – the two became one and the same.

Although the film doesn’t go into great detail about his later life, there is the suggestion that this identity crisis is what bothered Thompson the most in his twilight years, having virtually locked himself into both a persona and a writing style that he could not deviate from in any way. Looking at early writings like The Rum Diary and even Hell’s Angels, they are far more conventional and straightforward than his popular Gonzo works like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and I suspect he always felt trapped by his own success.

After providing some background on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson for the uninitiated, narrator Johnny Depp offers a few choice dramatic readings from some of Thompson’s works and then director Gibney uses both period film and video footage, along with never-before-seen family photos and some nicely-staged re- enactments, to provide a chronological timeline of Thompson’s early life and career. These are all intercut with some great one-on- one interviews with people like Depp, Juan Thompson, Douglas Brinkley, Tom Wolfe, Ralph Steadman, Jann Wenner, Jimmy Carter, George McGovern, and Pat Buchanan. As mentioned earlier, not everyone here would be considered a friend or even a fan of Thompson, but they all seem to have the same level of respect and admiration for his work. Buchanan comes across as the most interesting, noting how he and Hunter were often at odds politically, but they remained in contact over the years and the former senior advisor to Richard Nixon was always entertained by Thompson’s written accounts of their meetings. The one disappointing omission from the list of interviewees is Bill Murray who, like Johnny Depp, remained close friends with Thompson after portraying him in the 1980 film Where the Buffalo Roam, an interesting but far less successful attempt at translating Thompson’s writing to the silver screen.

From early success with his first-person account among the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang to his unsuccessful campaign bid for Sheriff of Aspen County, the development of Hunter S. Thompson into eventual iconic Gonzo god is given ample time during the first forty minutes while the entire middle section of the documentary is pretty much devoted to his seminal work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. While Thompson’s later years remain a bit sketchy, the documentary still delves a bit into some of his final contributions and reveals how he was both shaken and yet oddly inspired in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. Fellow cohort and friend, artist Ralph Steadman, provides plenty of great insight into Thompson’s persona and notes how he always knew that Thompson would one day take his own life. There’s also plenty of fresh material like how Hunter essentially helped put Jimmy Carter on the map by writing an article about Carter’s stirring speech before a convention of lawyers in Georgia; how he campaigned hard for George McGovern’s unsuccessful presidential bid in 1972; and, how he was once a contestant on To Tell the Truth just after publishing Hell’s Angels. But the most poignant revelation offered in Gonzo: The Life and Times of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is how many lives the late, great Dr. Thompson affected with his writing – and how an important literary voice has forever been silenced.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s original 1.85:1 aspect ratio has been slightly opened up to fill the 1.78:1 frame. This being a documentary comprised of various film and video stock footage and photographs, the quality varies depending on the source material. For the most part, however, the transfer remains fairly consistent and offers a nice level of detail, especially in some of the family photographs. All of the newly-shot interviews and re-enactment footage looks sharp and well-defined, while color balance is solid and black levels are deep and consistent throughout. Flesh tones all look natural and nicely-rendered and there are no signs of compression artifacts, black crush, mosquito noise, or edge halos. Overall, a good video presentation.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The compressed Dolby Digital 5.1 track is surprisingly good given the nature of the documentary. This is pretty much a talking-head affair, and dialogue remains clear and concise through the center-channel. But director Alex Gibney also employs a nice selection of period rock songs – many of which were among Hunter Thompson’s personal favorites – and these are given ample soundstage throughout the six channel matrix. When songs like Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” Brewer and Shipley’s “One Toke Over the Line,” and Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money” kick in, the track comes alive with a sharp high end and deep, rumbling bass notes. Although there aren’t a lot of discrete directional effects during the documentary, some are used to great effect during a few of the re-enactment scenes – especially the ones when Thompson is out alone riding his motorcycle at excessive speeds. While not an overly active or aggressive mix, this remains a good audio presentation.

There’s also an optional stereo track, along with optional subtitles in Spanish.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

This Collector’s Edition DVD includes a nice offering of bonus material beginning with a feature-length running audio commentary track by writer/producer/director Alex Gibney flying solo. Gibney provides plenty of great additional material and reveals a lot of juicy tidbits uncovered in his exhaustive research for the project. Diehard Thompson fans will certainly want to take the time to listen to this commentary track, as there’s just as much information offered here as there is during the film proper. Among the highlights: how director Alex Cox was originally slated to direct Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas until Thompson butted heads with him over how to depict his cherished “wave speech” near the end, and how Gibney had difficulty tracking down the coveted To Tell the Truth footage used in the documentary.

Next is a batch of five deleted scenes including: Winter Football in Aspen (1:07); Hotel Jerome Bar 1973 (12:51); San Francisco Examiner Commercial (0:30); A Brush with Fame (1:00); and, Ralph Steadman Performing at Owl Farm (3:34). None of these are terribly important or interesting, but it’s nice to have them for diehard completists.

There are also extended interviews including: The Origins of Gonzo with Douglas Brinkley (1:00); The Memorial with Juan Thompson (1:47); Drawings of Hunter with Ralph Steadman (5:59); The Rejection Letter with Charles Perry (1:25); 105 MPH with Corey Seymour (1:12); NRA with Douglas Brinkley (2:29); Peacocks with Gary Hart (2:34); Haggling with Hunter with Jann Wenner (2:14); Fire at the Hotel with Jimmy Carter (1:15); Fire at the Hotel – An Alternate Account with Pat Caddell (1:20); Crossing the Border with Laila Nabulsi (1:19); Firework Cakes with Laila Nabulsi (1:27); Meeting Hunter with Pat Buchanan (0:37); The Harvard Swim Test with Pat Caddell (2:33); The Cigarette Holder with Ralph Steadman (1:26); Foghorn with Tom Wolfe (2:47); Sex Doll with Corey Seymour (0:29); Shotgun Art with Ralph Steadman, Douglas Brinkley, and Corey Seymour (1:31); and, A Visit from Hunter with Pat Buchanan (1:00). While a few of these segments are amusing – especially those detailing Thompson’s obsessions with guns and his white-knuckle driving habits – there’s nothing earth- shattering here that isn’t also contained in the documentary. But again, fans will certainly appreciate their inclusion.

Several photo galleries offer: the unique drawings of Ralph Steadman as commissioned by and for Thompson; various family photographs from every period of Thompson’s career, including personal memorabilia, notes, and sketches; and, a complete typewritten inventory of Thompson’s notorious cache of guns and firearms.

The self-explanatory “Wayward and Weary,” A Tribute to Hunter S. Thompson – Live Acoustic Performance by Tift Merritt (4:02) is basically a music video of Merritt performing a song on piano; she wrote the song as a means of reflecting on Hunter’s life and death after seeing the Gonzo documentary.

There are also audio excerpts from Hunter S. Thompson’s original tape recordings that have been collected and released on five CDs as The Gonzo Tapes. We get to sample It’s Monday Morning (1:23) and Well She Was Crazy (5:56), both recorded at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in 1971 as part of the research for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The disc also includes promotions for the companion Gonzo book, the film’s soundtrack CD, and the aforementioned Gonzo Tapes five-CD boxed set. You’ll also find trailers for What Just Happened, Mister Foe, Man on Wire, and Humboldt County.

The 120-minute film is divided into twenty chapters.

DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

No ROM extras have been included.

Final Thoughts

Although it still leaves some unanswered questions concerning his later years, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is the most fully realized account of the late, great Godfather of Gonzo Journalism I’ve seen to date. Boasting many never-before-seen photographs and archival footage, along with new interviews and insights from Thompson’s closest friends and foes, it’s a compelling and entertaining look at the man behind the myth. With decent video and audio presentations and a collection of equally- fascinating bonus material, this disc is highly recommended.

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