Journalist was a force of nature
By Phil Villarreal
Pvillarreal@azstarnet.com
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.07.2008
To hear it from several of Hunter S. Thompson's friends and associates, his death was all part of the plan.
"Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson" makes a convincing case that the writer who lived like a rock star and invented participatory "gonzo" journalism felt that he had nothing left to give, and that his suicide was the ultimate extension of his iconoclastic ways.
Director Alex Gibney, who made "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" and the Oscar-winning "Taxi to the Dark Side," pulls together video footage, photos and Thompson's audio tapes to tell his life story.
Gibney also interviewed some of Thompson's famous associates, including Tom Wolfe, Pat Buchanan, Jimmy Carter, George McGovern and Jimmy Buffett, who wax nostalgic about Thompson's insatiable thirst for adventure.
Far more insightful than typical rose-colored-glasses eulogizing, the subjects are as brutally honest about Thompson's successes and shortcomings as Thompson was as a writer.
And what a journalist Thompson was, riding with the Hells Angels to write "Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga" and ironically searching for the American Dream in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
In all his triumphs and failures, Thompson lived with passion, lust and greed, sometimes staying awake for days on end, always with a tape recorder at his side to record thoughts he feared he'd party away.
As a consequence he neglected those who loved him most, but Thompson was such a force of nature even those closest to him made peace with his ways.
They speak of a man riddled by despair as he aged and resentful of the expectations that surrounded his public persona.
Illustrator Ralph Steadman, the writer's longtime collaborator, says Thompson's suicide at the age of 67 in 2005 was little surprise because Thompson had been declaring he'd kill himself for years. Some of the film's jazzier moments come when Johnny Depp, who played Thompson's surrogate, Raoul Duke in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998), checks in with impassioned readings of Thompson's prose.
The words immortalize the man's dynamic spirit.
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