Summer Showdown: Naked Lunch & Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Director: Terry Gilliam
Summit Entertainment, Rhino Films, Shark Productions, Fear and Loathing LLC
Released: 05.22.1998

Naked Lunch
Director: David Cronenberg
Recorded Picture Company
Released: 12.27.1991

Going into my double screening, I knew two things: 1. I love Hunter S. Thompson, and 2. I do not love William S. Burroughs. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is perhaps the greatest piece of Americana put to screen. Thompson points out that America is, contrary to the opinion of Cormac McCarthy, a country for old men. Mutant freaks of nature are constantly succumbing to animalistic desires, except they’re too ashamed to do it anywhere. No, there is one place in this country where their masochistic hedonism is allowed, even celebrated — Las Vegas, Nevada. Ground zero. A town built in the middle of a wasteland. Secret degenerates too ashamed to carry it on their person in their home, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo are manifestations taken to the extreme.

Naked Lunch is a Kafka-esque nightmare about an artist succumbing to his addiction. His drug of choice? Insecticide. After “accidentally” murdering his wife, he flees to North Africa and gets wrapped up in a plot involving Interzone Incorporated, a corporation that’s producing a harmful new drug. Naked Lunch excels in its surrealist imagery, with fantastic and goopy practical effects making this a really fun watch, and it makes great use of humor. Peter Weller is great in it, and the extended cast is incredible as well.

It’s appropriate to pair Burroughs and Thompson. They were both self-destructive drug addicts who wrote stories about the effects of drugs on the psyche. Where Burroughs was self-defeatist in his art, Thompson was self-celebrative. Naked Lunch reads like a suicide note. Miserable and hazy — that’s how it all looks through the destruction. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas reads like a portrait of America at its lowest. 

In spite of my clear favoritism, I liked both of these films a lot, and they are absolutely worth the time. If you’re a fan of revolutionary American writers, they offer great insights to the grime. 

The real question, of course, is which movie had the better lizard people? Naked Lunch is the correct answer. C’mon, it’s a David Cronenberg movie. —B. Allan Johnson

Read more by B. Allan Johnson:
Film Review: Supergirl
Film Review: Backrooms

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