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Films  ›  Terry Gilliam

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Film
DirectorTerry Gilliam
Meta takes4

Figures

Locations
Form & technique
  • The "Ad-Hole" convention scene at the Bazooko Circus casino. → Carnivalesque Inversion
  • The Pogo Lounge scene where patrons morph into lizards.
  • The use of voice-over narration, directly lifting passages from Thompson's novel.
  • The distorted, overlapping, and disjointed sound design during hallucinatory sequences.
  • The narrative structure of the road trip to Las Vegas.
  • The film's disjointed, non-linear, and seemingly pointless narrative structure.
  • The "Wave Speech" monologue at the end of the film.
  • The diner scene with the waitress and the confrontation over the bill.
Tropes
  • Johnny Depp's physical performance as Raoul Duke (posture, gait, vocal tics). → The Grotesque Body
  • The erratic and self-destructive behavior of Duke and Gonzo. → Performative Masculinity
  • The prevalent use of Dutch angles and extreme wide-angle lenses.

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