Breakfast with Hunter

It wasn't until I randomly looked on the message board for this fly-on-the-wall documentary, Breakfast with Hunter, that I found out it was available on an internet video site. For the first time ever I watched something longer than a short (it's 90 minutes in running time), and I couldn't get enough. Hunter S. Thompson is one of those rare cases in literature and journalism where fact meets fiction and does a very weird dosey-do into the deranged and brilliant. As a political-type person says on a panel when Hunter visits the old democratic hopefuls from 68 and 72 at a reunion function regarding the book Fear & Loathing On the Campaign Trail, it was "the most accurate AND the least factual." But then again, when you have someone like the good Doctor leading himself through the story- more than the story leading him (though sometimes that too is the case)- who needs solid, objective facts? Thompson's approach is to say 'f*** it', and take out a few guns with some whiskey and have some fun, while never completely losing his head (seemingly anyway).

Wayne Ewing's documentary only offers so much of a glimpse of Thompson, at a crucial point during the 96-97 period where Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas- perhaps the pinnacle of his career, if at least his most well-regarded and notorious masterwork- was having it's 25th anniversary, and amid the celebrations and reverence there was still work to be done, and some trouble on the horizon. Ewing sets up a quasi structure then around two things: the pre-production on the film adaptation of Fear & Loathing, and the DUI charge he got brought against him by a not totally honest police officer (albeit Thompson WAS heavily drunk during the drive, but as he writes about it and is read on stage by John Cusack on the doc, the details behind it are gruesomely funny). Sometimes we get some random adulatory type scenes, of Hunter almost in the midst of all of the praise and celebration in either small rooms filled with joy and alcohol (at least one of those anyway) or on a book tour.

But the best moments are seeing him at his most candid, and as his nature, sort of sweetly insane. One of those, which I got a big laugh out of, is when he visits an old friend at Rolling Stone magazine, and while intending just to bring flowers, he doesn't hesitate to bring along the fire extinguisher to bring that to him FIRST and then say "but I brought flowers." Or seeing him, as a distinct favor to Johnny Depp, teaching his bird how to talk (truly uproarious, however in poor quality Ewing shot it). Or seeing him with at the time his quasi-protégé Depp, who basically because a version of Hunter, as was his niche to play Raoul Duke in the film, and even went so far as to talk like him, smoke the same cigarettes, and shoot off the same amazing guns. This doesn't totally we mean we don't see Hunter being soft in appearance to the viewer. In fact, one can see the flip-side to the good Doctor's coin, where one side reads bizarre affection and camaraderie with his guests and fellow colleagues and old friends and the like, and the other shows if he doesn't dig you, he can come close to biting. The latter is shown when Alex Cox- the original writer/director of the Fear & Loathing movie before (rightfully) leaving the project- doesn't get that doing a cartoonish version of the book, complete with Raoul Duke actually riding 'the wave' as written in that great piece about San Francisco is totally wrong.

What ends up coming out through seeing that, juxtaposed with hearing various pieces of Hunter's writings and hearing and seeing various stories of his form of Gonzo journalism (not to mention his near-win at becoming Sheriff in 1970 in Aspen, shaved head included, as part of the 'Freak Power' ticket), is that Thompson was all about going for craziness and over-the-top ways, but only if it worked for his work. The only one that one can see that can control the world that Thompson has created, both on the page and with the atmosphere of Owl Farm in Aspen, is (or rather was) Thompson himself. Nobody, not the law, or horrid politicians, or misguided filmmakers, can really put a hold on Thompson and his own form of subjective reporting. It's sadder still to see this all after his death, and see how in an ironically quiet way he was really a true force to be reckoned with in American culture, not just with literature. And this documentary, at it's best moments, captures the poetic lunacy of this man, while never getting in the way.

The documentary is a thinly veiled attempt to "break into" the life of the famed Gonzo fiend and shed light on his inner madness. Many funny scenes throughout the film, especially when Hunter is berating glib English director Alex Cox. The film itself comes across slightly amateur-esque in its editing and presentation, but is certainly a must-see for Hunter fans.

Hunter S. Thompson is a cultural icon, this isn't news. What is, is a real inside view into his life in this film. The documentary is a collage of Hunter and some of his antics as filmed by friend and neighbor Wayne Ewing over the past twenty years. A rare look into life at his "fortified compound" and the tribulations of making "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" into a movie are just some of what makes this film an absolute must for any fan of The Good Doctor. This is real life Gonzo, from The Legend himself, the writer who changed American Journalism and the way we read it.

Well, first off I have to say i greatly respect Hunter Thompson, at least before he started getting more mainstream and writing for Rolling Stone. I'll keep this short, this did for me to Hunter Thompson what The Osbournes did for Ozzy. This movie is first and foremost very boring, if you read Fear and Loathing or Hell's Angels, Hunter Thompson was real far out, into the pudding! But this shows him hanging out with John Cusack and Johnny Depp and going around doing his daily sh*t like walking around, talking to old people, Rolling Stone mega assholes talking about this sh*t like they know what its about, thats about it. I don't give a f*ck! I was hoping for an old man doing acid and going crazy! Being Hunter Thompson! Don't see this movie if you want to hold on to your respect for Hunter.

Wayne Ewing's cinema verité portrait of the Doctor of Gonzo Journalism is a keyhole to the everyday life of Hunter S. Thompson. Through years of edited film without any narration or interview from Ewing, this everyday life given to the viewer comes as a bit of a surprise. It is uncommon yet somehow natural. The Thompson I might have predicted is shown throwing a Chivas Regal bottle, spraying people with a fire extinguisher, manhandling blow-up sex dolls, shooting high-powered revolvers, etc. What I didn't expect is the warm interaction between Thompson and his friends. He embraces what might be considered the basket of a flip-flopped American Dream – Hollywood – in his friendships with John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and Terry Gilliam (not, however, Alex Cox). This juxtaposition reveals a prevalent theme in Breakfast, and perhaps in Hunter himself.

Thompson suggested in the film a rationale for his rambunctious lifestyle when he said he was 'making literature out of what would otherwise be considered craziness.' This is the crux of the film, and the motivation for Hunter. Though he may be essentially crazy, some of the craziness he exudes is forced. For Thompson, it works. With drugs, alcohol, violence, etc. he causes excitement from what would otherwise just be boring. He creates a palette for which to convey his message. He did this in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas through his (Raoul Duke) and his attorney's excessive abuse of drugs to help show the degradation of the American Dream.

But can this explain the wild-side Thompson portrayed in Ewing's film? Is their some focused ambition behind spraying Jan Wenner with a fire extinguisher? – or soaking Depp, Del Toro and himself in alcohol by sending an opened bottle of scotch freely whirling into the air? Maybe, maybe not. He takes control of any situation with such a crazy gesture, but if it's for some greater good, I don't know. Perhaps Thompson is so high on his own adrenaline that his antics are now focused on sole personal amusement. I like to think this is the case when he laughs off throwing a blow-up sex doll in front of a moving car, or when he mischievously notices an unaccompanied fire extinguisher in a hallway.

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One personal note: something I felt missing from Ewing's portrait was Thompson's intended funeral. A massively-constructed Gonzo fist rifling a bullet containing his remains to explode above the Owl Farm mountains and then cover them like a blanket of rouge on a wrinkled America in such a way that would dwarf the resurrection of Jesus Christ seems to me to say something personal about Hunter S. Thompson.