A Voice of Ink and Rage

I first became aware of the author and acclaimed journalist Hunter S. Thompson while at college, it was during my time there studying media that my film addiction truly took hold; I couldn’t go a day without watching at least one. I used to spend a substantial amount of my weekly wage buying second hand videos from Cash Converters, a plastic bag of tapes to fuel my dependence. I would read up about directors, actors, anything to increase the buzz. I had encountered the trip that was Terry Gilliam after stumbling upon my parent’s video collection, viewing the likes of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Time Bandits, but it was Gilliam’s second and more intense time travel head fuck 12 Monkeys that this particular addiction strand was formed. Scouring the streets for another fix the drug ravaged lunacy of Thompson was unveiled to me with Gilliam’s adaptation of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.

“Those of us who’d been up all night weren’t in the mood for coffee and doughnuts”

The creator of gonzo journalism, a style of reporting in which the reporter involves themselves in the action to such an extent they become the central character in the very story they’re trying to tell. With many of Hunter’s stories involving his epic substance abuse.

It was during the making of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, a gonzo account of an assignment to the city of neon and shame, Thompson struck up a friendship with Johnny Depp. The pair spent much time together, Depp trying to capture the mannerisms and character of Thompson in order to portray him on screen, and it was during this time that Thompson first showed Depp his unpublished manuscript for The Rum Diary, one of Hunter’s few works of fiction.

I say fiction, The Rum Diary, while being a fabrication is heavily influenced by Thompson’s own time in Puerto Rico as a journalist, and anyone who watches it can see its semi-autobiographical nature. Hunter worked for a Puerto Rican newspaper in his early days, the building he describes in the now published book is the very one he worked in. It’s also quite clear that the protagonist is a version of Thompson, a writer who hasn’t yet found is own voice, and probably why Depp portrays him as a young Raoul Duke, who for those unfamiliar with Fear & Loathing is the name Thompson gives himself in the book.

The alliance of Depp & Thompson spent many years, from that first reveal to Hunter’s grand exit attempting to get the book to screen. Eventually, after various people had been linked to the production, including Depp’s Fear & Loathing co-star Benicio Del Toro, Bruce Robinson was convinced to abandon his directorial retirement, and film the shit out of it, but we’ll get to that later.

Depp, while starring, also served as producer, and righty insisted that along with his name printed chair, there was also one for Thompson. The chair was set out every day, at every location, so that the spirit of Thompson would always be present. Upon the chair would sit Hunter’s favourite drink, and everyday Depp and Robinson would dab some behind their ears like cologne, essence of depravity.

Sadly Thompson never even saw the project reach pre-production. At the age of 67, Thompson, who suffered from various health problems, committed suicide, four years before Robinson started the screenplay. At his request he was cremated and his ashes fired from a canon.

“Don’t fuck with me now, I am Ahab”

Bruce Robinson is a man of many talents, screenwriter, director, actor, novelist, with his most notable work being his semi-autobiographical film Withnail & I. A farcical tale of two out of work actors, and their destructive, yet functional friendship.

He would then go on to direct the surreal How to get a Head in Advertising, and the underrated thriller Jenifer 8, before taking a little break from directing, some seventeen years to be precise. Maybe it was the obvious correlation between the novel and his early life that brought Robinson out of retirement to create the adaptation.

While attempting to write the screenplay for The Rum Diary he suffered from writer’s block. In order to combat the problem, Robinson, who had been sober for six years, began to drink every day until the screenplay was completed, quitting once again thereafter. Clearly it helped get him in the right mind set.  

“Holy Jesus, What are these goddamn animals”

Anybody who is looking for some kind of Fear & Loathing sequel will be disappointed; The Rum Diary is as different from Fear & Loathing as that was from Where the Buffalo’s Roam, the 1980 film starring Bill Murray as Thompson. Fear & Loathing could only ever have been made by the twisted imagination of Terry Gilliam, whereas The Rum Diary could have been made by anyone, but I don’t think just anyone could have done the job as well as Robinson. The film has a similar feel to Robinson’s first work, less bleak and British, more sun drenched and Puerto Rican, but just as dysfunctional, just as many misadventures and trouble with the locals. Whether it was worth Robinson’s day release from his self-imposed directorial exile is up for debate, but he certainly writes like Thompson.

It’s not the greatest film Robinson has made, he’ll be hard pressed to ever better his debut, and Gilliam’s effort will forever be the Thompson benchmark, it is however clear this was a labour of love for all involved, which I don’t think would have seen the light of day if Depp hadn’t done the pirates movies, his name is so big right now filmmakers can probably make their money back just from the audience percentage attending simply because it’s ‘the new Johnny Depp movie’ without actually knowing anything about the plot. In fact you could probably make a tidy sum just filming him pissing about in the costume department…in 3D.

If this were a superhero movie, it would be the origin story, where the young photographers bitten by the radioactive spider, where the little richboy sees his parents slain and turns vigilante, where the heavy drinking writer finds his voice and blazes the trail for the verbally unhinged.