The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo | |
---|---|
Directed by | Phillip Rodriguez |
Written by | Phillip Rodriguez David Ventura |
Produced by | Benicio Del Toro (executive producer) Alison Sotomayor |
Cinematography | Claudio Rocha |
Edited by | Claudio Rocha |
Music by | Alejandro Cohen Aaron Drake |
Production company | City Projects |
Release date |
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Running time | 56 minutes |
Country | US |
Language | English |
The Rise and Fall of the Brown Buffalo is a 2017 American documentary film directed by Phillip Rodriguez, and written by Phillip Rodriguez, and David Ventura. [1] [2] [3]
The film documents the life and career of Oscar Zeta Acosta, an American attorney, politician, novelist, and Chicano Movement activist who was fictionalized as Dr. Gonzo in Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas . The documentary was developed and directed by Phillip Rodriguez [4] [5] over many years and consists of stills and film footage interspersed with dramatic reenactments. It is based in part on Acosta's autobiography with the similar title, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo . [6] [7] [8]
The film is available online through pbs.org [9] and Kanopy [10]
Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story using a first-person narrative. The word "gonzo" is believed to have been first used in 1970 to describe an article about the Kentucky Derby by Hunter S. Thompson, who popularized the style. It is an energetic first-person participatory writing style in which the author is a protagonist, and it draws its power from a combination of social critique and self-satire. It has since been applied to other subjective artistic endeavors.
Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author. He rose to prominence with the publication of Hell's Angels (1967), a book for which he spent a year living with the Hells Angels motorcycle club to write a first-hand account of their lives and experiences. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional article titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly, which further raised his profile as a countercultural figure. It also set him on the path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", a journalistic style in which the writer becomes a central figure and participant in the events of the narrative.
Oscar "Zeta" Acosta Fierro was a Mexican American attorney, author and activist in the Chicano Movement. He wrote the semi-autobiographical novels Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972) and The Revolt of the Cockroach People (1973), and was friends with American author Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson characterized him as a heavyweight Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in his 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Acosta disappeared in 1974 during a trip in Mexico and is presumed dead.
The Revolt of the Cockroach People is a novel by Oscar Zeta Acosta. It tells the story of a Chicano lawyer, "Buffalo Zeta Brown", fictionalizing events from Oscar Acosta's own life, including the East L.A. walkouts at Garfield High School, the founding of the Brown Berets, the Christmas protests at St. Basil's church, the Castro v. Superior Court decision of 1970, Acosta's run for sheriff of Los Angeles County later that year, the Chicano National Moratorium, and the death of Ruben Salazar, who is referred to as "Roland Zanzibar" in the novel. The novel is written in the style of Gonzo journalism, which he helped codify the conventions with American journalist and friend Hunter S. Thompson. The story of Buffalo Z. Brown, a persona of the author, satirizes the East L.A. Chicano movement through the eyes of a participant observer. Acosta uses the historical events of the late 1960s and early 1970s "as the context for the construction of a Chicano identity and the realization of a revolutionary class consciousness."
Raoul Duke is the partially fictionalized author surrogate character and sometimes pseudonym used by Hunter S. Thompson as the main character and antihero for many of his works. He is perhaps best known as the narrator for his 1971 autobiographical novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The book was originally written under the name Raoul Duke. The character wears a bucket hat and yellow tinted aviator sunglasses.
"Strange Rumblings in Aztlan" is an article published in Rolling Stone #81, dated April 29, 1971, and written by Hunter S. Thompson. It was included in the first volume of Thompson's Gonzo Papers, The Great Shark Hunt, published in 1979.
The Great Shark Hunt is a book by Hunter S. Thompson. Originally published in 1979 as Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1: The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time, the book is a roughly 600-page collection of Thompson's essays from 1956 to the end of the 1970s, including the rise of the author's own gonzo journalism style as he moved from Air Force and sports beat writing to straight-ahead political commentary. It is the first of what would become four volumes in The Gonzo Papers series.
Where the Buffalo Roam is a 1980 American semi-biographical comedy film which loosely depicts author Hunter S. Thompson's rise to fame in the 1970s and his relationship with Chicano attorney and activist Oscar "Zeta" Acosta. The film was produced and directed by Art Linson. Bill Murray portrayed Thompson and Peter Boyle portrayed Acosta, who is referred to in the film as Carl Lazlo, Esq. A number of other names, places, and details of Thompson's life are also changed.
The Rum Diary is an early novel by American writer Hunter S. Thompson. It was written in the early 1960s but was not published until 1998. The manuscript, begun in 1959, was discovered among Thompson's papers by Johnny Depp. The story involves a journalist named Paul Kemp who, in the 1950s, moves from New York to work for a major newspaper, The Daily News, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is Thompson's second novel, preceded by the still-unpublished Prince Jellyfish.
Ruben Salazar was a civil rights activist and a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He was the first Mexican journalist from mainstream media to cover the Chicano community.
Philip Alexander Gibney is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time."
The Curse of Lono is a book by Hunter S. Thompson describing his experiences in Hawaii in 1980. Originally published in 1983, the book was only in print for a short while. In 2005 it was re-released as a limited edition. Only 1000 copies were produced, each one being signed by the author and artist Ralph Steadman.The book is now available as a smaller hardcover edition.
San Francisco Law School is a private, for-profit law school in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest evening law school in the Western United States.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a 1998 American stoner road black comedy film based on Hunter S. Thompson's novel of the same name. It was co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam and stars Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro as Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, respectively. The film details the duo's journey through Las Vegas as their initial journalistic intentions devolve into an exploration of the city under the influence of psychoactive substances.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is a 1971 novel in the gonzo journalism style by Hunter S. Thompson. The book is a roman à clef, rooted in autobiographical incidents. The story follows its protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Doctor Gonzo, as they descend on Las Vegas to chase the American Dream through a drug-induced haze, all the while ruminating on the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement. The work is Thompson's most famous book and is noted for its lurid descriptions of illicit drug use and its early retrospective on the culture of the 1960s. Thompson's highly subjective blend of fact and fiction, which it popularized, became known as gonzo journalism. Illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the novel first appeared as a two-part series in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971 before being published in book form in 1972. It was later adapted into a film of the same title in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro, who portrayed Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, respectively.
Straight Arrow Press was a publishing company that published the periodical Rolling Stone.
Bibliography of works by American author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is a 2008 documentary film directed by Alex Gibney. It details Hunter S. Thompson's landmark writings on music and politics. Friends and family provide interviews to help describe the mythos of Hunter and his life.
Phillip Rodriguez is an American documentary filmmaker and veteran content provider for PBS.
The Chicano Liberation Front (CLF) was an underground revolutionary group in California, United States, that committed dozens of bombings and arson attacks in the Los Angeles area in the early 1970s. The radical militant group publicly claimed responsibility for 28 bombings between March 1970 and July 1971 in a taped message sent to the Los Angeles Free Press. Their targets were typically banks, schools and supermarkets. They also claimed responsibility for a bomb at Los Angeles City Hall. The Chicano Liberation Front was also more than likely responsible for explosions at a downtown federal building and at the Los Angeles Hall of Justice, although those incidents remain officially unsolved.