Just to keep the momentum going. Margaret Harrell’s new book Keep This Quiet! is available soon. William McKeen’s Mile Marker Zero tomorrow and Daniel J. Watkins’ Thomas W. Benton is available now. (I’ll have a review of that in a few days.) Also Wayne Ewing’s great Vodcast: Rum Diary Back Story is a must see. Click the titles to buy. The Rum Diary, that one is on Wayne!!
A readers feast!
Marty
Available now is The limited edition Hunter S. Thompson Films gift box containing all 4 of Wayne Ewing’s films on Hunter Thompson in a beautiful tin box proudly bearing the Gonzo logo. Also inside is autographed by the director Wayne Ewing, friend, neighbor and video biographer of Dr. Thompson. The films are Breakfast with Hunter, When I Die, Free Lisl, and Animals , Whores & Dialogue. For more information and to order just click on one of the images above or click here. Get your order in now in time for Christmas.
Out of all the folks Iv’e had the pleasure of dealing with since this site began Simone Corday is one of my favorites. Simone came to know Hunter during his time at the O’Farrell Theatre, where at the time she was a stripper.
She is author of “9 1/2 Years Behind the Green Door, A Memoir: A Mitchell Brothers Stripper Remembers her Lover Artie Mitchell, Hunter S. Thompson, and the Killing that Rocked San Francisco.”
You can see my review of this book and my interview with Simone here. Simone is the one on the left in the picture with Hunter (Photo is by Michael Nichols.) Also the other picture is the cover of Simone’s book. To buy a copy click the cover image to be taken to her site. For the record, I cannot say enough good things about this book. It’s well written, out-there but believable, honest and open. And dont forget the Hunter S. Thompson factor. Here is Simone’s review of Wayne Ewing’s latest HST film Animals, Whores & Dialogue. Sincere thanks to Simone for taking the time to do this.
Animals, Whores, and Dialogue—Review by Simone Corday
For anyone who was knocked out by seeing Wayne Ewing’s fine documentary Breakfast with Hunter, it’s a great gift to have Animals, Whores and Dialogue released. Excuse my momentary indulgence in Sex in the City images, but it’s like receiving that wedding band after relishing the solitaire, savoring the frosting after the cake. For someone who knew Hunter in the 80s, it’s touching to see him in the last years of his life, lovely to watch his triumphs at the 25th anniversary celebrations for Fear & Loathing, and to hear his fine-tuned political perspective, and listen to the power and elegance of his writing.
I’ve been reading the reviews and am thoroughly impressed. The reviewers cover the video with such alacrity I’m not sure what else I can add. So I will center on the arresting title, which we are told arose from the frequent metaphors the good doctor used in plying his craft. And in several scenes, the inscription “Animals, Whores, Dialogue, Electricity” is taped to Hunter’s typewriter, as he hovers over it wearing an eerie blue sportsman LED headlight strapped to his hat, honing in on just the right word.
“Animals”—we’ve all gotten a phenomenal laugh from Hunter’s mastery of animal metaphors. Often their presence is linked to mayhem, whether they are real animals or hallucinatory. In the DVD, there are shots around Owl Farm of peacocks flaunting their plumage or nesting at night, a sleeping kitten on Hunter’s couch near a glowing fire and his lively kitchen.
“Whores”—As a former stripper and a woman, I must say my ears pricked up when I heard “whores” in the title. But I took a thorough look, and could spy no obvious whores appearing in the DVD. There is one lively brunette who hoists her skirt to reveal a g-string with the Gonzo emblem outside the book signing for Hey Rube at the Aspen Institute, but that is the raciest moment.
“Whores” was another common metaphor of Hunter’s–most often to condemn politicians, evangelists, unscrupulous media types. And I am veering away from the video in talking about this, but In Generation of Swine Hunter wrote: “Not much has changed with these powermongers since Caligula’s time. Sex and power have a long history of feeding on each other. In Hey Rube he says of Clinton and Bush: “They are both whores, because that is the nature of American politics.”
In Hey Rube alone, “whore” appears 16 times. There are vicious uses of the word in its traditional meaning: “two fat young whores from Oxnard,” “gold-plated whores from mysterious harems in Hong Kong, Turkey, and Liechtenstein.” One of the more disturbing uses of the word is in “We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world – bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are whores for power and oil with hate and fear in our hearts.” And other of the reflections and predictions in Hunter’s later writing are just as insightful and grim.
Please bear with me as I digress a bit more. When Hunter was honorary night manager of the Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theater where I met him, a legal case was going on when the place was under scrutiny by the police. At that time the theater had the wildest reputation, plus a mystique as a counter-cultural gathering place. Artistic expression in the shows was considered a defense for cannoodling in the audience—but flagrant whoring was risky. It was then that Hunter proclaimed Mitchell Brothers “the Carnegie Hall of public sex in America.” While writing his weekly columns for the San Francisco Examiner, Hunter traveled a lot, was a consultant to the Mitchells, and did research for a novel—but although intrigued by the sex business and curious, he remained wary. Some of his best pieces about it are in Generation of Swine. My impression of Hunter was that he was a romantic idealist, in the best sense. “Whores” and “pimps” are words he uses to show contempt.
After the lawsuit was settled in favor of Mitchell Brothers in the early 90s, word has it that the place has become more permissive. And I am oversimplifying, but in the 90s some strippers began to believe that they could have impact by organizing, and improve their situation at the clubs. This was at a time when many American strip clubs changed the employment status of their dancers to independent contractors and charged them escalating stage fees or quotas.
Meanwhile, whores, escorts and other sexworkers found their livelihood was endangered by political pressure in their communities, and some of them banded together as well.
Some of the women and men in different areas of the sex business began to feel they had more to identify with in one another than in the boundaries which defined their occupations, so they got together, shared experiences, and founded magazines like $pread, a quarterly published in New York. In her recent memoir about Portland, Magic Gardens, former stripper Viva Las Vegas explains, “As I saw it, we were all equally vulnerable as part of the invisible fringe, and when the powers at be picked on one of us, we all took a hit. We needed unity.”
Recently I attended a workshop with the savvy acclaimed author of the Belle de Jour book series, The Diary of a London Call Girl—lately made into a television series. Now retired from the profession, with a Ph.D. and a job as a forensic scientist, she turns the stereotype of whoring on its head.
Nowadays the words “whore” and “stripper” have taken on a broader range of meaning and acceptance. The weak economy plays a part, wide media exposure, and in some cities the Strippermobile packed with pole dancers traverses the streets late at night. One young woman attending the workshop explained she is founding Whore Magazine. “My grandmother doesn’t like the title–she asked me, Can’t you call it something else?” So there is still sensitivity about the word, along generational lines. And for many the word “whore” brings up the ugly practice of trafficking, and other forms of involuntary whoredom, which must rightly be condemned, along with pimps and procurers who prey on those in dire circumstances.
“Dialogue”—In the video we hear that Hunter began Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with the dialogue, forgetting about the interior monologue that would make it difficult to film. We also hear and see how important friends like Oscar Acosta were to Hunter and how engaging in dialogue was part of his writing process. Along with his inner circle of friends from Aspen, the late George Plimpton, Warren Zevon, and Ed Bradley each appear and pay affectionate tribute.
Thank you, Mr. Ewing, for filming the real deal, the most expansive coverage of Hunter, the best commemoration of all.
–Simone Corday is the author of 9 ½ Years Behind the Green Door, A Memoir: A Mitchell Brothers Stripper Remembers her Lover Artie Mitchell, Hunter S. Thompson, and the Killing that Rocked San Francisco.
Review (©) Simone Corday 2010.
Many thanks to James Campion (Gonzo Journalist, Author, and Pop Culture Satirist) for allowing me to post this here for all to see. It is an interview Campion did with Wayne Ewing after the release of Breakfast with Hunter. I think you’ll find it interesting. There is a lot to learn about Wayne’s relationship with HST, and the making of Breakfast with Hunter.
More on James Campion in a day or two. Meanwhile enjoy the interview.
WAYNE EWING INTERVIEW
TRANSCRIPT
3/25/04
Conducted over the phone lines from his Unfortified Compound in Aspen, Colorado and The Desk at Fort Vernon.
jc: First of all, bravo.
Wayne Ewing: Well, thank you.
Excellent film. It totally hits home my point refuting all the Hunter Thompson things that always paint him as merely the clown prince of literature, and I think this one took us 180 degrees, and as a fan of the man’s work, I really appreciate the effort.
And I appreciate your comments, because that was really my intent with the project to present a homage to Hunter as a writer and a great figure in American literature, and also, obviously, a very interesting personality.
(laughs) Right. In fact, I was wondering before embarking on this documentary if you ever had the chance to preview a BBC documentary from the 70s’ that is currently part of the Criterion version of “Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas” in which they have Hunter and (famed English artist Ralph) Steadman go back to Las Vegas.
Sure, I’ve seen that, and I actually use a piece in the film that was done earlier by Thames television in the 70s’, about Hunter’s run for sheriff of Aspen.
The reason I bring it up, that was the closest depiction of Thompson I’d seen, and this is mainly because Hunter fought them tooth and nail throughout the thing, to present him as not over the top, despite their best efforts. And it was reminiscent, I thought, of a compelling moment in “Breakfast With Hunter” when Hunter is seen arguing vehemently with the doomed first director of “Fear & Loathing” not to make a goofy cartoon of his work. And in the BBC thing Thompson actually says, “It would be better for my work if I were dead. I get in the way.”
In a way it is difficult to be true and honest to Hunter, in a sense to define your audience right away, because there are a certain number of people out there who are looking for the cliché, the cartoon character that has nothing to do with Hunter.
Well put. Now to the film itself; this was started in ’96?
I’d been shooting off and on with him since ’85 on, but what’s primarily in “Breakfast With Hunter” is from about ’96 to 2001 when I started shooting in digital video.
What kind of camera did you use?
I used the very first pro-sumer mini-digital camera that SONY put on the market, the VCR-VX 1000, and I used two of them. Very often I shot with two cameras by myself. (laughs) One in a fixed position, of course, so I could move around with the other.
What would be equivalent to that camera today, and what would have made your life easier with all the advances in digital video technology since the mid-90s’?
I guess what I would have wished for, which digital video didn’t have the capability of doing back in the 90s’, was 24-P, which is a frame-rate of 24 Progressive, the frame-rate of film. It would have been a lot easier to have made the conversion to making a 35 mm film print for theaters in the end, because that matches the true frame-rate of film at 24 frames per second. And it matches the other film I have in the documentary, for instance the Thames piece and the later scene, the segment of the credits at the end from the 80s’. So what you have to do is do a frame-rate conversion to make the 35 mm print. You have to pull the video back from 29.7 frames-per-second to 24, and you pick up some odd artifacts sometimes in pans and movements, but I think it came out pretty well in the end.
So that’s the one thing that would have been great. Also, cameras with better low-light capability exist now, and I’m not sure I wouldn’t have wanted to shoot it in high definition, which is about to be available in camcorders. I know JVC has had one on the market for over a year, but SONY is about to come out with their own mini-high definition camera.
How did you mike the subjects? Was that the mike on the cameras most of the time and you had to sync it up? Or did you use a boom, or maybe lav Hunter from time to time?
All of the above. It depends on the scene. Sometimes it’s just the camera mike when I’m really close to people and a larger microphone wouldn’t have gotten in the way and impeded things. Generally in the kitchen at Owl Farm (Thompson’s home in Colorado) was a combination of a planted mike which is right in front of Hunter by the typewriter, Norman Cartiode mike that I just experimented with and found reproduced Hunter’s voice the best of any mike I tested. And that has a big cardioid pattern. For instance in the argument scene you mentioned with Alex Cox, all the audio pretty much comes from there, until they’re all the way by the refrigerator in which case I’ll use the camera mike on them. And then sometimes I’ll use lavalieres. In the scene on the DVD extras when (Rolling Stone writer) P.J. O’Rourke is interviewing Hunter, P.J’s coming off a radio mike while Hunter is coming off the Normal in front of the typewriter. And finally, there was a shotgun mike I mounted on the camera.
So you really aimed to be unobtrusive in many ways, from hotel rooms and inside Owl Farm where it doesn’t look to be roomy enough for too much roaming, and you don’t want to be intimidating either. And that’s the great thing about your film, not only does it stay true to presenting Hunter as one of the greatest living American writers, and I think he is, along with (Kurt) Vonnegut, the idea that these people could act freely as if you are actually a fly on the wall.
Yes, especially when you are using a cinéma vérité style, and that’s always been my goal in film. I was very much inspired by the original P.A. Pennebaker films like “Don’t Look Back”. Have you seen that?
I did. It’s brilliant. I have it on DVD. I love it.
When I was at film school I stole a print from the local film society when they had it for the weekend and analyzed it on the workbench and was just totally intrigued. And that’s what got me involved in film in the first place, was hearing a lecture when I was at Yale by Richard Leacock, who was Pennebaker’s partner in the early cinéma vérité films. In fact, in the beginning I shot my first film on a twenty-pound camera they used to shoot Woodstock. (laughs) So with the evolution of digital camera it makes the problems involved with making cinéma vérité truly possible – to become the fly on the wall. If you have that kind of persona, that you can become egoless and just disappear amongst people, and I got lucky that I was able to get among the people around Hunter and spent that amount of time.
And it goes to show you how difficult it must have been for the Maysles’ Brothers to do that Beatles documentary they did on the train from New York to Washington during their first U.S. visit in ’64, a film I think they originally called “What’s Happening”, but is out now on a DVD called “The First U.S. Visit” or something or other. And I think that film actually inspired “A Hard Day’s Night” and even Pennebaker’s work later on.
I’ve got to get that.
So how did you pitch this film idea to Hunter originally? I understand you worked on some of his last few letters books with him.
I wasn’t the primary editor, but I helped with the editing on The Proud Highway, compiling the letters from 1968 on, and pretty much helped out on every book since then. And that was somewhere around ’96, and then I helped with Fear & Loathing In America, the second volume of letters, also Kingdom of Fear, the last one that came out a year ago. I worked a bunch on Rum Diary, the resurrection of his first novel, and a zillion columns back in the 80s’ when Hunter worked for the San Francisco Chronicle, and finally his latest columns for ESPN.com called “Hey Rube”.
Which I understand there is a compilation of those coming out.
In July, yes.
So would you say you gained his confidence through friendship and then you pitched the idea to him, or you did you just keep filming? Because he seems comfortable throughout the thing. His former girlfriend and producer of the finished “Fear & Loathing” film, Laila Nabulsi says something revealing about Hunter in your film, something to the effect that “What would Hunter do without an audience to play to?” Which is why I love the periodic metaphoric shots of the peacocks on Owl Farm throughout the film in between some of Thompson’s more showy moments. I’m going to assume, and set me straight if I’m wrong, that you appealed to that part of Hunter that likes to have the world be a voyeur to his celebrated lifestyle.
In part, but the other thing is that Hunter describes Gonzo journalism as “a reporter with the eye and mind of a camera” and he has literally obsessed with documenting what is going on around him. So, in a sense, I became an instrument for this great ongoing experiment in Gonzo Journalism, and was able to do what he has always wanted to do. An example would be the video footage of Hunter setting fire to the Christmas tree and jamming it into the fireplace. (laughs) And that was something he did himself! (really laughing) I think maybe he realized it was good having someone like me around to do a better job of documenting that kind of mayhem.
So that’s how I came to know Hunter, as a documentary filmmaker. I met him briefly on the road, but really got to know him during a long weekend in San Francisco we spent together at the O’Farrell Theater. And I made contact with him about the idea of doing something with him for (PBS Show) Frontline. And I had a little rise out of David Fanning, the executive producer, on the basis of that weekend. So I spent my own money to go out to Owl Farm and spend a little time with Hunter, but by the time I got back from San Francisco (laughs) Fanning was like, “Are you crazy? If PBS supported a film about Hunter Thompson as the night manager of the O’Farrell Theater, the Carnegie Hall of public sex in America, congress would go crazy.” (laughs) So they pretty much told me not to call again. And that was the basis of the friendship and it sort of evolved from there.
And it comes across in the film. And that, I think, is the nut. Because I think if you had been simply a documentary filmmaker, and this is why I keep harkening back to that BBC film, you can tell Hunter is putting on his show for them. For instance, when I first met Hunter in the early 90s’and I hadn’t been a published author yet, immediately there was a different feel, a different approach to his demeanor. It was more how he is portrayed early documentaries or films, like the one with Bill Murray (“Where the Buffalo Roam”), but when I gave him a copy of my second book about a year and half or two years ago, I could tell immediately how much his persona had changed. He talked with me far more seriously. And having had that experience, I get that side of Hunter from your film. You can tell that the guy trusts you. Not that Hunter trusted me, but I think he feels a certain bond with fellow writers or those who joined him in busting their ass to be published.
That’s true. It’s earning your stripes with Hunter. It takes a long time to earn the kind of trust I needed to complete a film like this. So for every night I filmed, there might be 15 that I wouldn’t, when I would just work on books with him or hang out or watch ball games.
So you became part of the furniture in a lot of ways. So when you did turn the camera on, you were always there anyway.
(laughs) Exactly.
I guess that would be a good vehicle for access. Judging by Hunter’s notorious mercurial personality, was there ever a time where he turned on you? Or was he on board the entire time?
I’d say he was on board pretty much the entire time. I watched him like a hawk. So I could tell if he was irritated or didn’t want to be filmed, but that was rare. There would be a few times when he didn’t feel like doing anything. In fact, more so, he would get upset with me because I wasn’t filming. I seemed to get him going in terms of getting ideas and writing, the idea that something important is happening right then, I guess.
I liked the scenes where he’s watching bits you see earlier in the film. You’re watching him watch himself and getting a kick out of it, a reverse cinéma vérité in itself.
(laughs) A “Gimmie Shelter” trick.
(laughs) Another Maysles’ Brothers classic.
Right.
That reminds me. What was conspicuous by its absence, I thought, and the only disappointment I had with the film, and I’m thinking you may have had a deeper agenda for leaving it out, was there were no real shots of Hunter writing. Now someone might argue, and that someone might be you, “Well, who wants to watch footage of someone typing?” But I would have liked to see some snippet of that in the film.
Yeah, it’s true. And actually I have quite a few shots of him sitting there at the typewriter, trying to write. (laughs)
Send it to me!
(laughs) I was trying to think of how to best use them, really. Maybe it’s something for the second edition DVD, because actually we’re still shooting all the time. I actually wanted to shoot the whole lifecycle of a “Hey Rube” column, a little scene of Hunter writing a column. So we might have something like that in the next edition. But yeah, (laughs) the only thing about Hunter is watching him write is a little like watching paint dry.
(laughs) Yeah, I’ll assume he doesn’t apply the same kind of machinations Johnny Depp invented for “Fear & Loathing”, rocking back and forth like a mental patient. But I have seen bits from other news things and documentaries of Hunter in front of the typewriter plying his trade and its inspirational for me as a fan and also as a fellow scribe having pained over columns and manuscripts before, to see someone I respect immensely, like I say, plying the craft.
No, it’s true. There should be more of that in the film.
Are you serious about doing a sequel to “Breakfast With Hunter”? Or is it nuts to think you’ll spend the rest of your life following this man, although you’d do a great service for the rest of us who love him.
(laughs) Thanks. Yeah, well I do a lot of other things too. I’ve made a lot of other films along the way over the past ten years, directed a lot of television, and I’m actually about to start another film, a sequel to my very first film that was called, “If Elected”, another cinéma vérité film. But with Hunter it is always an ongoing process. We shoot for fun, really, with the idea being that there will be a second edition coming out in the next year or so with some more extras.
You know what would be great? I don’t know if he’s talked about this at all, and I know he’s bailed on national politics since the publishing of his last overtly political book, Better Than Sex, but there’s an obvious polarized electorate now, and I wonder if Hunter would want to go back and cover in any extensive way the 2004 presidential election. Perhaps not to the extent of the ’72 election, but just getting back into the mix, and try and get that on film.
That’s possible. He’s real involved in local politics; at least until he was delayed a bit since he broke his leg in December while covering the Hawaii marathon. It was a freak accident. In fact, he’s just getting the cast off now. But he’s heavily involved in politics, and writes extensively about it in the ESPN.com columns. And he’s talked about trying to revive the voter registration effort that revolved around Freak Power, under another name at this point, because the name doesn’t apply to our times, but still, there is a great deal of disenfranchised youth who don’t bother to vote or think it is a waste of time or stupid to vote instead of getting involved. But as far as him going out on the campaign trail again, I doubt it, because starting after ’72, Hunter’s presence on the trail became the story itself. So it became harder and harder for him to cover it.
Hunter does mention the old adage that “politics is local” in your film, and certainly he once made his way by running for sheriff of Aspen, the details of which you cover in “Breakfast With Hunter”, and I think it was Ken Kesey who said “once you reach some level of fame as an author it is harder to be the observer when you’re the one being observed.” And this is the problem I have with seeing Hunter speak over the years or at a book signing with these yahoos screaming and throwing joints at him, and you can see him getting more and more aggravated. So the idea of him becoming the anonymous Gonzo reporter anymore is ridiculous.
That’s certainly true. Actually, he’s really involved in, and writing a great deal right now about the case of a young girl named Lisl Alman.
Right. In Denver?
Yes. And he’s just finished a piece that will appear in the next Vanity Fair with another writer, Mark Seal, about Lisl. The Colorado Supreme Court right now is considering her final appeal. They had oral arguments this past January. It’s a fascinating case, because it’s this felony murder law that takes the concept of conspiracy as far as infinity. I mean, here is the case of this young girl sitting handcuffed in the back of a police car when a guy that she barely knew, who was going to help her move out of her apartment, killed a police officer while she was in custody. Now she’s in jail for life with no parole for the charge of murder in Colorado.
And that’s been three years running, I believe.
Yeah, we had a big rally in 2001 on the steps of the Colorado capital down in Denver that Hunter put together. So he’s been real involved over here, and that’s just as a result of that girl. He gets letters from people in prison all the time and he was thumbing through them and found hers. And it wasn’t the usual, “I’m innocent! Get me out of here!” (laughs) In fact she wasn’t even complaining about her case. She wrote him because they didn’t have any of his books in the prison library.
(laughs)
And when he spoke with her she mentioned her case. And now it’s a huge political fight in Denver that’s had serious legal ramifications. He was able to pull together some great legal talent behind her appeal.
I think you mention in the commentary for the DVD that Johnny Depp helped with the film, as well as actor, Benicio Del Toro and the late George Plimpton. They along with Depp are depicted quite a bit in “Breakfast With Hunter” when Depp was researching the role of Raul Duke for “Fear & Loathing” and traveling with Hunter on one of his last book tours, but was their contribution at all financial or in helping in getting a distributor?
Well, just allowing me to film was a huge help. (laughs) For Johnny Depp to allow me into his home to film between four and six in the morning, where no one had ever filmed before, was incredible, and he even volunteered to carry my equipment for me. He was really such a gentleman. He really was. And Benicio too. Just allowing me to be around and hang with them, and to be unaffected by it relatively. And obviously there is a panache that comes in having their names attached to the film, and yet we don’t have mainstream distribution, we’re doing it ourselves.
The reason why people are buying the DVD is primarily because of Hunter, but, of course, it makes it more interesting to see Johnny and Hunter together in a fairly personal, intimate way. So that’s what I mean by help. Nobody helped me financially except my brother, Andrew Ewing, who is executive producer. Other than that it was all my own resources.
How many years would you say you poured through all that footage to edit this thing, and getting to the final edit, if there ever really was a final edit, or did you just ran out of time and say, “I guess this will be the movie.” (laughs)
Well, it was always evolving. I was cutting on it as I shot it. But in the end it took me about a year and a half, working pretty much full time, to cut it into the final form. I would always want to finish it up at certain points, but Hunter would say, “Well, then, what would we do, Wayne?” (laughs) He didn’t want the process to be finished. And the only reason I was able to finish it in a timely manner in the end was I injured myself playing polo when a horse fell on me and broke my leg. So I couldn’t shoot, and I was working on a television show called “Crime and Punishment” at the time and all I could do was edit. (laughs) I had to sit down finally and edit. So it was a fortuitous accident.
Hunter never did finish that mysterious manuscript for “Polo is My Life” did he?
No, and that’s part of the reason why I got back into polo. (laughs) I used to play when I was a kid. We’d read the unfinished manuscript of “Polo is my Life” to sit and work on it. Someday it will be done, and it’s just incredible. It truly is. It’s the best analysis of the sport I’ve ever read with the hilarious Gonzo storylines and flourishes thrown into it. So it will be done one day.
You also have the late, Warren Zevon in the film, and in the extras writing a song with Hunter that later ended up on his “My Ride’s Here” record, which features lyrics by several writers. The two became close during the last ten years of Zevon’s life, and I know that sometime about six months after he was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer Hunter visited him in California. Did you film any of that? And if you did, was there a reason you didn’t use it?
I think you’re right about that. Hunter did get out to California to see Warren right after he was diagnosed, but I wasn’t with him on that trip. I was off on another assignment. But we did get that great footage you mentioned in the extras where they’re writing the song. It was more than a year or so before at Owl Farm.
Hunter lost a few of his compatriots over the years. I’ve mentioned two, Zevon and Plimpton, both of whom, again, are in the film. But I wonder if that sense of mortality has slowed Hunter down at all. I don’t see it in “Breakfast with Hunter”, but I guess I’m curious if in quieter moments he mentions it, or if he is still as hard charging and uncompromising as ever. You’d like to think so, but then you’d hope he could stay around longer, so we can get to read the finished “Polo is my Life”. (laughs)
You know, Hunter has lived his life to the fullest, but yet he does take care of himself. You know he had spinal surgery last summer. He was just recovering from that when he went out to cover the Hawaii marathon. And he was doing great physical therapy every day and joking about writing “Doctor Thompson’s Guide to Physical Fitness. (laughs)
(laughs) Yes, he mentioned that in “Hey Rube” last year.
(laughs) He’d go down to physical therapy with a scotch in one hand and a cigarette in the other on an exercise bicycle.
(laughs) The living anomaly. Hey, he also got married around then too, right?
Yes, last May.
Did you get a chance to shoot any of that?
I was unfortunately out of town. (laughs)
Damn! So do you know how that went down?
Actually the sheriff married he and Anita, sheriff Bob Braudis, who’s a great friend. They went down to the courthouse and had the sheriff marry them. They did not want to make a big deal of it.
Well, beside the storytelling in the film, which I found compelling and very well done, especially his recent battles in Colorado with a DUI, coupled with snippets of his previous battles with the law and political battles, what really gave me the chills is a scene that is very rare in the annals of Hunter S. Thompson, because he prefers for other to do it, and that is read his own work. The way it is shot with the cigarette smoke wafting between he and the screen, sitting at the bar at the Woody Creek Tavern and reading an excerpt from probably my favorite of his work, Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72. To me, if they were to show something at his funeral that depicted him the way he should be depicted, as a serious satirist and commentator of our times, that scene hit it on the head.
Oh thanks. I really got lucky on that shot. I didn’t even discover it until we got later into production – the little sign in the upper right hand corner of the screen that says “Drink” and his drink in the foreground with the endless stream of cigarette smoke. (laughs)
It’s a great shot! It almost looks phony or staged; too good to be true for a documentary. It belongs in some kind of film noir. If it were in black and white it could be from another era.
Well, it shows that the trick for a documentary filmmaker is to pick the right angle, because it’s always there, that really interesting visual shot. And you don’t have to have a crew of 50 people and take six hours to shoot it. And believe me, I’ve worked with crews of 50 people and spent six hours shooting lighting stuff. But so often the real magic comes out of moments like that when you didn’t do anything to plan it.
It speaks to a long-running fantasy of mine to finally get out to Woody Creek and hit the tavern and sit in the corner, have a pop and have Hunter walk in and slip next to me to sit and talk about writing for hours. (laughs)
(laughs) Yeah, that happens sometimes.
I’ve heard. Maybe I should spend a summer out there. Before we part, could you encapsulate what it was for you to make this film? If you hit the marks you wanted to? Perhaps a moment you remember from the experience that you’ll take with you and that will inspire more work with him in the future for the second volume of “Breakfast with Hunter”.
I was incredibly lucky. For a documentary filmmaker to have that kind of access is just extraordinary. It would be like if I’d been able to spend 20 years with William Faulkner.
So you would say that ultimately the film expounds on what we talked about at the top, and that is presenting one of the great living literary figures of the last century in his idiom.
Yeah, for me it’s a culmination of a career of trying to make a true cinéma vérité film, and I think this is. I think it works as well as any cinéma vérité film possibly could, and about an important subject at the same time.
And it depicts that subject in how you have come to know him as a friend.
Oh yeah, he’s my friend.
As the good Doctor’s birthday shoots by us for another year, here are some of the great tributes that have been written this year. It is folks like these that ensure HST’s memory is kept alive.
Also please dont forget, you can send your reviews of Wayne Ewing’s Animals, Whores and Dialogue to me. I’ll put them on this site for all to see. You can contact me here.
Ron Mexico over at Totally Gonzo.
July 18 1937. A day the world of journalism and reporting will never forget. The day a journalistic behemoth entered this world, hell-bent on breaking all the so-called rules and putting anyone who deserved it (and some who didn’t) in their place. Hunter S. Thompson’s presence is still felt even now, just over 5 years after his death.
Hopefully this year will be a special one for HST with the release of the movie based on his long lost novel The Rum Diary which is supposed to be this year. Even when he began this novel 4 decades ago he was talking about getting it made into a movie. Lets hope, wherever he is he’ll be blowing stuff up, shooting things, and creating havoc in celebration of this milestone.
For some first hand memories of HST go to Wayne Ewing’s great Vodcast here. And to see Hunter in his own environment in hours of video footage hit Wayne’s site here to buy his DVD’s
For some great reading hit Babylon Falling. I got a email the other day from Sean, giving me the heads up on his recent post. He said.. “Because there is nothing that would indicate that the Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson book will be released anytime soon, I figured I’d put this out in honor of Hunter’s birthday (July 18).” Thanks Sean, great read.
So I’ll leave it there, all there’s left to say is Happy Birthday HST. Thanks to you there’ll never be a dull moment.
Marty.
Hunter’s birthday is nearly upon us. Blogs of all kinds will be popping up on my Google alert emails, all with different and interesting takes on Hunter S. Thompson. Fans of HST will come out of the woodwork for this day, blogs will be hot with comments and memories of Hunter. Glasses will be raised worldwide and stories will be shared with sadness and joy.
For me (and probably most of us) this birthday will be one to look forward to with the imminent release of Wayne Ewing’s eminent Animals, Whores & Dialogue.
I was lucky enough to get a preview of this great piece, and also was offered the huge honor of having a blurb of mine included on the back cover of the DVD.
For me its hard not to enjoy anything HST related, but this offering is special. We see Hunter holding court at his mission control / kitchen. He’s surrounded by friends, real friends, not the hangers on. A nice result of this is that we see him relaxed and genuinely happy with his lot.
For the most part the focus is on Hunter in his home but also we see more gems such as the tribute to him in Louisville Kentucky, which include readings from old friends. Hunter running around with a fire extinguisher, and one memorable piece from the great David Amram where he recites a ditty of sorts followed by a feat of ambidexterity in the form of playing 3 types of flute simultaneously.
I dont want to ramble on about this fine movie for fear of not doing it justice. Suffice it to say Animals, Whores & Dialogue and the first installment Breakfast with Hunter simply beat the pants off any HST related documentary made to-date. A bit of a sweeping statement I know but when you watch it you’ll understand.
So to pick it up click here or the picture of the cover above. When you have watched it and feel like reviewing it, I’ll be happy to post all the reviews here on this site. You can send your reviews to me through the contact page here. And dont forget folks. You can buy all 4 of Wayne’s movies and save some cash in the process. The four are Animals, Whores & Dialogue, Breakfast with Hunter, Free Lisl, and When I die. Hours of great Hunter Thompson footage.
Also dont forget to hit Wayne’s Vodcast Its full of HST stories and video clips, the latest of which is “Hunter’s birthday.”
Dont forget folks, send your reviews to be published on this site.
Marty.
It’s here folks. The ultimate televisual feast for all fans of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Breakfast with Hunter Vol. 2 Animals, Whores & Dialogue by Wayne Ewing, is available for purchase now and shipping on July 13, this 2010. So if you fancy yourself a fan of HST, (and lets face it you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t) head over to Wayne’s site here to snap one up.. Hurry though because this will sell out quickly.
I’ll be reviewing it here in a day or two, but why wait? Get one now or you’ll hate yourself forever.
