Contact High

Could it have been all the drugs that kept Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from being made into a movie? Whatever the cause, journalist Hunter S. Thompson's staggering, semi-fictional account of "a savage journey to the heart of the American Dream" has proven highly difficult to translate to the big screen. It's taken more than a quarter-century -- and 20 versions of the script -- since the book's 1972 publication for Thompson's countercultural touchstone to earn its own film.

Fear and Loathing chronicles a journey made by Thompson's alter ego, Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp), and his rotund Samoan lawyer, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro), to that desert oasis to cover a road race for a fashionable sporting magazine. The tale -- which spirals into drug-addled oblivion and random escapades -- would be impossible enough to script, even without Thompson's "gonzo" writing style, a style of journalism beyond stream-of-consciousness, and characterized by the reporter's deranged and drug-addled attempts at conveying objective reality.

Most recently, the camera was about to roll with British director Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy, Repo Man). "But he managed to alienate everyone involved by deciding he could improve upon Hunter's work," says Terry Gilliam, Cox's replacement, who in person exudes an open, friendly presence, with occasional flashes of a devious sense of humor and a strangely booming laugh.

Responsible for such otherworldly films as Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and 12 Monkeys, Gilliam was not intimidated by the idea of bringing Thompson's work to life. At home in London, the Minnesota native enlisted co-writer Tony Grisoni and the two hunkered down over the espresso maker for ten days.

"We started chopping up the book and sticking it together and we came up with a script," he says from the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. "The only way to make this work was to stay as true to the book as possible." Filmmakers often take wild liberties when adapting a book for the screen: The characters and even the plot can become unrecognizable. But in this instance, aside from a few structural changes and flashbacks to create some sense of progression, the film is as literal an adaptation as possible. Dialogue is extracted verbatim, passages are transformed into voice-overs and Thompson's cutthroat, hallucinatory scenarios become 30 feet tall.

Though true to Thompson, there's no doubt it's Gilliam's work. "It was really hard, because we all felt this terrible responsibility to Hunter," he says. "We did our homework; we imbued ourselves with him and the times, but eventually we had to throw it aside and just work."

Most Gilliam films feature a valiant struggle between one man and the world -- whether that world is a labyrinthine government bureaucracy or an evil corporate structure. This time, it's a man struggling with the American Dream, or at least Vegas's surreal version of it. Though prior to shooting, Gilliam had only been through Las Vegas briefly while driving cross-country to escape to London in 1967, the green-felt jungle is a perfect victim for the director. "It's like Lourdes," Gilliam muses. "Except I don't think anyone gets healed there." More than any other filmmaker, he manages to convey the eye-popping vulgarity of modern western life with the grotesque and excessive visual humor one can trace all the way back to his Monty Python days. "They're forces beyond my control. I can't stop myself from portraying what I see and what I think. I don't know why other people can't see it."

Cartoonish chaos abounds, from the carny booths at the hotel with a carnival theme to the ridiculously unhep speaker at the Narcotics Convention. But it's when the characters are caught in the throes of massive drug consumption that Gilliam's imagination is really unleashed. "The drugs gave me an excuse to do these, like, moray eels and lizard lounges and all these fantastic things. If it wasn't drugs, you would say I was doing a fantasy film."

Stars have sought out Gilliam in the last decade. "Which is ironic, because I always wanted to make movies without stars," he says. Bruce Willis was so desperate to prove himself with 12 Monkeys, for instance, that he worked for scale.

Johnny Depp, teen heartthrob turned quirky thespian, spent a prodigious amount of time with Thompson in preparation for his role as Thompson's alter ego, Raoul Duke. "I was very keen to work with Johnny," says Gilliam. "He's spectacular. He became Hunter. He came back with his clothes, driving the Red Shark, which we used in the film. He's wonderfully inventive, brilliant -- really funny and always truthful."

And some would say campy. His wild gesticulating, obscene bow-leggedness, bizarre facial contortions and clipped, bulldog-huff of a voice make Thompson seem like more of a caricature than the professional, soft-spoken Southern journalist he was at the time he wrote the book. Depp's affectations would seem out of place in almost any other director's film -- but had he not exaggerated the character, he could've been upstaged by his surroundings.

"He brings a remarkable amount of humanism to the role -- he's Hunter, but taken one step above reality," continues Gilliam. "But it works perfectly with my stuff because my images are pushed to the limits, and Johnny's there. I think the film works for most of it: the fact that you care about the two characters; you're with them through their nightmare. And they're enjoyable to be with and they're funny, even though it's getting really dark and ugly, they're still there."