Documentary on Hunter Thompson had gobs of gonzo to choose from

At the Academy Awards earlier this year, Alex Gibney was almost alone in making a political speech. He had just won the documentary Oscar for his film about lethal torture techniques, "Taxi to the Dark Side."

"Let's hope we can turn this country around," he said, "move away from the dark side and back to the light." He dedicated the award partly to his recently deceased father, "a Navy interrogator who urged me to make this film because of his fury about what was being done to the rule of law."

Previously a nominee for another documentary, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," Gibney has already finished yet another politically explosive nonfiction film: "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," which opens here Friday.

The late Rolling Stone reporter has been played by Johnny Depp in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998) and Bill Murray in "Where the Buffalo Roam" (1980). This time he plays himself.

"What made Hunter great was that he was a novelist being forced to work as a journalist, and that gave him his unique voice," said Gibney when he showed the film last month at the Seattle International Film Festival. "It was the tension between those two that made him great."

Gibney describes himself as a fan, but not a fanatic: "I wasn't one of those guys who read everything that Hunter wrote." But when Thompson killed himself three years ago, Gibney thought the time was right to create a documentary.

"I'd been thinking about how his voice was needed," he said, "especially at a time when the agreed-upon rules of everyday journalism — always balance even if there is no balance — had ended up turning too many people into megaphones for powerful people."

Gibney thinks Thompson and Rolling Stone were made for each other, especially when they were new and experimenting with the kind of druggie 1960s hyperbole that became known as gonzo journalism.

"Rolling Stone was the underground that had come above ground," he said. "Its roots were in the underground press, and it sprouted fruit way above ground. Suddenly [Thompson] had this huge audience. The idea of a political writer in a rock 'n' roll magazine made him kind of incendiary, too."

Gibney was approached to do the film by Graydon Carter, who had published Thompson's pieces in Vanity Fair magazine and knew Doug Brinkley, who was the literary executor of the Thompson estate. Immediately that opened up the Thompson archives, including home movies, audiotapes and photographs.

When Johnny Depp paid for a spectacular funeral, during which Thompson's ashes were fired from a rocket launcher adorned with a giant peyote button, Gibney started shooting his film.

"We tried building the movie around the funeral," said Gibney. "They'd set up a party room as a series of tableaux from different parts of his life, so it would have been an intriguing idea to do it that way. We thought about it, but it didn't work, or we didn't think it worked."

Finding a structure for the film wasn't easy, partly because Gibney and his crew had so much to work with.

"They gave us complete access to all the material in his estate," he said. "The hard part was combing through it all. There was great stuff that never made it. There's a certain attention span that the viewer has, and there's a certain story that ends up being more important than anything. If you don't listen to the voice of the story, then you're in trouble."

One of the more surprising interviewees in the film is conservative writer Pat Buchanan, who once worked for the Nixon White House.

"He initially turned us down," said Gibney. "I wrote him a long letter and one of the things I said in the letter was, 'Hey, one of the things Hunter stood for was talking to anyone about anything.' "

Gibney believes the true successors to Hunter are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: "They're right for this time. They make sense for this time. Their job is to hold politicians to account. Even though they're comedians, they're doing it. Hunter was a comedian, too. He was a great comic writer like Twain.

"But it's not about imitating Hunter. It's about finding your own voice to do what Hunter did, which was to embarrass the rich and powerful."

Gibney's next target is Jack Abramoff, the subject of a soon-to-be-released documentary, "Casino Jack." He's also filmed Lawrence Wright's one-man play, "My Trip to Al Qaeda," but hasn't yet rounded up the cash to finish it. Then he plans to use original footage of Ken Kesey to produce "The Magic Bus." After that, he hopes to tackle "The Best and the Brightest," based on the late David Halberstam's book.

On Oscar night, Gibney actually had two films in the running for best documentary. He was listed as executive producer on the Iraq war movie "No End in Sight," and as director on "Taxi to the Dark Side."

"I was glad to have two dogs in the hunt, but it became very personal to me because my father was in 'Taxi,' " he said. "And whereas 'No End' was just about incompetence, 'Taxi' was about the corruption of the American character."

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com