“I never said he was — I said there was a rumor in Milwaukee that he was. Which was true, and I started the rumor in Milwaukee... I’m a very accurate journalist.” The above statement was made by Hunter S. Thompson in response to a television interviewer questioning Thompson about a famously fabricated story claiming George McGovern's campaign manager, Frank Mankiewicz, had been consuming a rare hallucinogenic drug called Ibogaine, which was allegedly being supplied to Mankiewicz by a questionable Brazilian Doctor during the presidential campaign in of 1972. Thompson had first reported the rumor in Rolling Stone Magazine, only to see the satirical jibe at McGovern's severely liberal staff turn into a widely believed story, which in-turn became one of the many reasons why Democrat George McGovern lost 49 of 50 States' electoral votes in the 1972 Presidential Election to Richard Nixon.
America, meet Hunter S. Thomson.
At this point though Mr. Thompson was already a well-known writer, as he had already written "Hell's Angels" - a very popular novel-length firsthand account of his days traveling along with the infamous Hell's Angels in the 1960's, but the 1972 Presidential Election had brought Mr. Thompson's strange practices of "Gonzo" journalism to the forefront of both American journalism and American popular culture. And, using my right to cliché, both of which would never be the same.
After seeing "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson", I wished that I could say I had been around to witness his creativity and bazaar writing extravaganzas. But I also realized Thompson wasn't all fun and games as one might suspect from reading his fictional works, and most popular works, such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" or "The Rum Diaries". No, Thompson had found a way to put his unique personality and view on life into his most damning addiction - his addiction to finding the stories that nobody else could find.
This was what fascinated me the most. The documentary's filmmaker, Alex Gibney, chose to highlight one of Mr. Thompson's biggest failures, which was brought about by his enormous success: for a certain period of time Mr. Thompson had become too well-known to be a journalist. What irony - that he had become so famous that any time he covered a story the story became about Hunter himself and no longer about the subjects he was trying to objectively, or subjectively, observe.
It was a series of accounts made by Thompson's friends and former co-workers that had me glued. They told the audience of Thompson's less-publicized struggles and how they had all culminated on a night in which Hunter S. Thompson simply threw away all of his notes, recordings, and ideas, to go for an evening swim. And while Thompson swam under the moonlight in the city of Manila, Muhammad Ali raised his arms victoriously over a fallen giant
...two fallen giants...
and although this documentary was an amazing account of the way a man lived one of the world's most notably unique lives, it was also a realistic review of a surreal giant of a man. A true Doctor of journalism who was both a pariah an messiah of his craft and personal life.
If you're a fan of Hunter S. Thompson, I suggest you find this movie in a theater before it passes its last box-office breath. If you aren't a fan I suggest you re-read his books and try to become one, because this man helped create contemporary American literature and journalism while letting himself be destroyed by it simultaneously. Besides that, who isn't at least curious about a guy who has his ashes fired into the night sky from a cannon? We're talking Mike Tyson-like infatuation before Iron Mike was even born.
It takes a monster! R.I.P. Gonzo
