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Terry Gilliam and Tony Grisoni, �Not the Screenplay for Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas�

Started May 19 � Finished May 20, 2003; 244 pages. Posted 03 June 2003

I remember when I first saw a promotion for the upcoming Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas movie. I was furious. Totally furious. You can�t make that story into a book, I reasoned. Trying to do that would be as dumb as, well, trying to make Vonnegut�s Breakfast of Champions into a movie! (Which they did and it sucked, solidifying my point that people should listen to me, goddammit.)

But then I read the fine print and saw who was involved. Terry Gilliam, Alex Cox (best known for Repo Man), Johnny Depp — this might actually work. And it didn�t really matter anyway. The same way that I went to see Breakfast of Champions just to see how bad they would fuck that book up, I had to see how much of a train wreck this one would be.

And they didn�t fuck it up! Oh sure, Savage Lucy wasn�t nearly savage enough for me. (Cristina Ricci, cute as she is, does definitely not have, �Teeth like baseballs, eyes like jellied fire.�) Ellen Barkin�s diner scene was important enough to use, but slowed the movie down. And those wolverines needed some work as well. Still, I was pleased as hell with general outcome.

What I didn�t know is that behind the scenes, another typical Terry Gilliam nightmare of production was unfolding. I knew Alex Cox was released as director after having pissed off Hunter S. Thompson, a man you should probably never piss off, but I never figured out why his name was left on the credits.

Well, know I know. It turns out, The Screenwriter�s Guild, acting like a typical bureaucracy, would not let Terry Gilliam and Tony Grisoni publish a screenplay, because one had already been commissioned by the studios. Gilliam insists that his version is completely different from Cox�s, which I tend to doubt. I can�t see anybody radically changing Thompson�s book, as they would have to know they would suffer the wrath of fans, not to mention Thompson himself.

But it all comes down to a matter of Cox getting there first. Gilliam, in typical troublemaker mode, published this book, which is of course, NOT the screenplay, which of course, actually is.

Confused? Well, that makes it appropriate for an adaptation of the book, doesn�t it?

The funny thing is, unlike the rest of the screenplays that I�ve read in my lifetime, this is the first one where I can�t picture the action through the words alone. I suppose that should be expected for a screenplay, which uses almost all dialogue and no descriptive passages in its form, and Thompson�s book and the movie are undeniably visual. Also, for the first time, I can see how much ad-libbing was used in this film, which still manages to read nearly word for word with the novel in some parts.

Most instances of this spontaneity are great, particularly with Depp and Del Toro. But it also shows that Gary Busey�s throwaway line at the end of the cop on the highway chase scene was improvised, a line I thought totally changed the meaning of the scene that followed, and not for the better.

So, after all is said and done, would I recommend this to others? Well, no. There�s nothing here that you wouldn�t get more from, either in the film or the novel. Don�t get me wrong, I�m glad I read it, I�m glad that I now own it, but I have a rat-pack mentality, and getting this is a no-brainer, seeing as I�m a huge fan of Hunter Thompson AND Terry Gilliam. And if you are like me, then you probably already have this.

If you�re not, you�re certainly not missing anything.


Rating: Flea Market Prices.

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