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.

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.

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.

Not as insightful as I thought it was going to be. It pretty much covered Hunter S. Thompson's life from 1996-1997. There were a few flashbacks but they weren't very long. I think his race for Sheriff of Aspen should have been covered more. I'm not saying I hated it, but at times it dragged while HST gave meaningless mumbles of insight. At times he p***ed me off (when he wouldn't sign autographs at the book signing and his argument with Alex Cox), but at other times made me laugh and cheer for the outlaw. He's probably my favorite American author but he is sure one hell of an asshole. I guess it's a Kentucky thing lol. I was let down by the fact that it didn't give the viewer what the lifestyle and point of HST is. For that, I suggest reading Kingdom of Fear, which I consider the best piece of reading material I've read in a while. And as mentioned above, his argument with Alex Cox and Tod Davies about putting cartoons in the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas movie was sometimes unbearable but other times just flat out funny. I like Alex Cox and all, but I sort of agree with Hunter. It was his material and he didn't want it interpreted as a cartoon! Maybe Terry Gilliam was for the better. All in all an average documentary, but did have a noteworthy soundtrack (all songs have been mentioned by Hunter sometime or another) that included "Spirit in the Sky", "American Pie", "The Weight", "Mr. Tambourine Man", and many other. But where was "Sympathy for the Devil?" Worth checking out if you're a fan of HST's work. I don't if it was worth the $29.95, but still a good addition to my HST collection.

I am posting the following as a challenge to the "most useful" comment, which states that this film should be reserved for Doc's "die-hard fans".

Firstly, I find the idea of excluding this rare bit of succulent meat in a world of dry bones and paper napkins is blasphemy in the truest sense against all Hunter S. Thompson stood for. True, a die-hard fan will rejoice in letting the juices run down their chin, but truer, damned be the man who proclaims to be holier than thou! If this film seems scattered, frantic, and mindlessly compiled, let it be because the man who it rejoices wanted it so. It is a perfect embodiment of what we can only imagine his hectic mind must have been like inside. Bits and Pieces of a so far gone world and life and place he could not find, and understood those with half a brain could not ourselves.

I don't believe that Thompson had any illusions of grandeur and perhaps thought a fool any man who had them in his favor. He knew what he meant to the people he meant it to, and wanted nothing more than to be respected and understood to be the great writer he was by any outsider. This man is a damn good writer. period. Do not be shamed away if you are unexposed. It's here for everyone.

This film embraces the character the man was. It allows others to embrace it, and maybe open the door to their awareness of a renegade, gonzo journalist. It takes you from his home life, to ridiculous nightlife, enraged attacks by the Doc on misunderstanding and oblivious Hollywood types, and hilarious pranks on those he knows the best.

The door opened here, is smoky, loud, brass and uncouth. It leads to a world we don't like to look at but exists. It's your world, seen through the eyes of an old burned out man, who saw and did and lived things you can only imagine.

Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride. You'll be glad you did.