Amy and I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas the other night as part of our (read: her) Johnny Depp Film Festival. Luckily for me, this was one of the movies in which Johnny, playing “Raoul Duke” (really Hunter S. Thompson), isn’t all that attractive or appealing. I don’t know how I’m ever going to measure up after we watch Chocolat in a few weeks.
Anyway, Johnny/Hunter and his friend/attorney Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) spend the entire film strung out on any number of illicit substances they carry with them in a suitcase — mescaline, ether, cocaine, acid, and good old-fashioned tequila. Not a moment is spent sober and no one gets any sleep. They rampage through Las Vegas in a drug-addled stupor and leave destruction is their wake.
I can’t say I enjoyed the movie. I tend to like Terry Gilliam as a director, and the film is visually stunning. Johnny Depp is, as usual (with the exception of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) excellent. I think the subject matter just got to me. I really can’t relate to the degree of self-destruction and loss of personal control that the characters experience.
I had a similar reaction to watching Sid & Nancy. I think that movie is great, too, but I can’t watch it without shifting uncomfortably in my seat the whole while.
Just as some people can’t take horror movies (myself included) and others are put off by graphic violence or explicit sex, I just can’t bear to watch people wasted out of their minds. Some people like to scream “Don’t go in the basement!” to the horror movie victim. Me, I just wanted to slap Johnny around and tell him to take a cold shower and get some sleep.
I have close to zero experience with drugs (besides sweet, sweet liquor, of course). I’ve smoked pot on exactly two occasions, both of which left me violently and vomitously ill. I’ve only been truly drunk a handful of times, and when I’ve stayed just coherent enough to realize how drunk I am, I got anxious about it and stopped enjoying myself. When I’ve been totally bombed, I’ve ended up sick and miserable. It’s quite hard to achieve the delicate state of being just beyond “buzzed” so that I can still have fun and not be worried about the consequences.
I do have trouble “letting myself go.” I have trouble relaxing and unwinding. I’m not a particularly stressed out person, and I certainly don’t have morality problems with mind-altering substances (which I believe should be legalized, for the most part). I just like to be “on” all the time, except when I’m not (ahhhh, precious, precious sleep….) and I derive no pleasure from turning my brain and body completely over to external forces.
I once thought it would be really cool to be hypnotized into forgetting I had seen a favorite movie or heard a favorite song so that I could experience them for the first time again. Knowing me, however, I’d probably never be able to allow that to happen to myself. I’ll simply have to rely on the utter failure of my already-deteriorating memory, and not any external assistance, to accomplish that for me.
