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Depp his unpublished manuscript for The Rum Diary, one of Hunter’s few works of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.
