Both the film and the novel begin with the following quote from Dr. Johnson: "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man." How do the main characters go about making beasts of themselves and does it really relieve their pain?
Part 1)
I thought the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was interesting. I think it gave a pretty life like depiction of a life of drug abuse. But if I wasn't looking for stylistic film devices, I probably would not have noticed them. I bet a lot of people watch the movie and think its funny because of all the crazy drug abuse, but they probably don't pick up on the symbolism and the use of different camera views to create different perspectives.
Part 2)
The main characters engage in taking many mind altering drugs in order to escape reality. When they are under the influence of the drugs, they are reduced to a beast-like state that is in some ways less then human. They lose control of their motor and cognitive functions. Therefore, they cannot properly move or think like the other humans around them. They chose to be in this state the majority of the time because they do not want to deal with the pains of real life. It seems to be much easier to live life through the altered perception of drugs than to confront the true reality of their lives. However, no matter how many drugs they take, and how much of them they take, they always come back from their altered state and their real lives have not changed. The drugs only allow them to temporarily escape and reality is always waiting for them when they come down from their high. The main characters' solution to being back in reality is to simply take more drugs to escape again. However, this solution will not work forever. Eventually, if they continue their drug abuse, they will most likely face the reality of death. The drugs do not really relieve them of their pain, because they always have to come back to reality. If anything, the drugs make their pain worse because it keeps them from doing anything to improve their real lives. The main characters in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas will soon realize that if they keep running away from their problems, they will only get bigger.
