TERRY GILLIAM appreciation thread

An American transplant who lives in the U.K. and has a cinematic vision and style that is all his own, Terry Gilliam is one of the most inventive and distinctive filmmakers of the past thirty years, and though he makes movies that have large scope and ambitions, he manages to do it his way and work mostly outside the Hollywood system. This has been both a blessing and a curse. His independence has carved out cinematic triumphs and tragedies, with a couple of the messier incidents being that of legend. While his reputation as a maverick is well earned in some respects, he’s also a very efficient filmmaker who knows how to make magic on the big screen. His end products are wonderfully dark fantasies that aren’t necessarily “family friendly”, making them nightmares for a Studio to market, and his sensibility may keep him from ever being a true populist, but going on Gilliam's journeys is always an experience to covet.



Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1940, as a youngster his imagination was first inspired by classic tales of adventure like Ivanhoe and Treasure Island. And of course he always loved to draw from an early age. When he was eleven his family moved to southern California, and as he turned into a teenager that boy from the heartland also developed a wickedly subversive sense of humor, which he loved to express visually. Among his major influences were Tex Avery's anarchic cartoons and Ernie Kovacs' surreal television comedy. Yet he was also a big jock who lettered in pole vaulting, was elected class president, Valedictorian and king of the Senior Prom. He got a scholarship to the small Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he initially majored in physics, but quickly changed to Art. However, personality conflicts with teachers in that department chased him out of there and he settled on Political Science. After giving architecture a brief spin but finding the compromise between art and commerce not something he wanted to deal with for a living, his first professional gig out of college in the entertainment industry was at the now long-defunct humor magazine Help! in New York, where he kind of fell into the job of assistant editor. There he was able to learn about cartooning and humor from the legendary Harvey Kurtzman, the man largely responsible for the success of MAD Magazine. Gilliam worked along side Kurtzman on Help! from 1962 until it folded in 1965.

From there he peddled his talents where he could as a freelance artist, with his stuff appearing in a variety of publications and advertising. But before that, the first thing he did was take some time off and backpack around Europe, which was an eye-opener culturally. On a subsequent trip to England he bluffed his way into Shepperton Studio where he wandered around the set of Oliver! and was impressed with and intrigued by the behind-the-scenes craftsmanship, which fuelled his lust for film. But he had no in for that industry and continued his cartooning. His love of England coupled with frustration over the nature of his career in the States and his disillusionment over the Vietnam War led to Gilliam expatriating himself and moving to London in 1967.



Any Python fan will know all the specifics of how Terry met John Cleese and was later thrown in with Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Jones working on the BBC TV show "Do Not Adjust Your Set". And that eventually led to the forming of "Monty Python’s Flying Circus" in 1969, with Cleese, Idle, Jones, Palin and Graham Chapman. Without making this a Monty Python thread, Gilliam was an integral but special unit in the group, with his cartoons being one of the most identifiable aspects of that hugely successful and influential bit of TV and comic history. All the members credit Gilliam with being the ingredient which really helped shape the show's style, giving them the ability to start and stop sketches at any point knowing Terry's cartooning could bridge absolutely anything, which gave everybody else complete creative freedom to try anything and everything they could imagine. Gilliam would appear on-screen in sketches from time-to-time, but his main job was to do the animations, and in that he had a kind of individual power the others didn’t – the writing of the sketches and deciding which would be in or out any given week was left to the other Pythons, who had writing partnerships and cliques within the group. Gilliam was left alone to do his work as he saw fit.



The multi-cultural phenomenon of Python led to the movies. Their first effort, And Now for Something Completely Different (1971), was simply filmed versions of some of the best skits from the first two seasons of "Flying Circus", directed by the man who did the bulk of the series, Ian MacNaughton. Their second film, made after the series completed its run, was of course Monty Python & the Holy Grail (1975). The two Terrys, Gilliam and Jones, were the only two members of the troupe with real directing aspirations, so they co-helmed Grail. However, the group dynamics being what they were, having all known and worked together for years now, made it difficult for anybody to be in real control, much less having that duty split into two people. Gilliam naturally spent much of his time on the look of the film, while Jones tended to spend more time with the actors. The small-budgeted film managed to get made, and whatever behind-the-scenes difficulties there may have been they don’t show in the finished product, which is a comic masterpiece.

After the success of Grail, Terry Gilliam decided to try and make a movie on his own. Taking loose inspiration from the Lewis Carroll poem, Gilliam set out to make Jabberwocky (1977). Terry expanded upon what he was doing with the visuals and muddy, filthy, disgusting world of Grail, making a sometimes over-the-top portrait of Medieval life that has got to be much, much closer to reality than what was presented in Hollywood epics like El Cid, populated by beautiful movie stars in immaculate silk garb and shiny armor. The humor in Jabberwocky is still very Pythonesque, and it stars Michael Palin with a cameo role for Terry Jones. That and the fact that Grail and Jabberwocky do LOOK alike cause a natural comparison between the two. Jabberwocky is nowhere near the level of sustained comedic brilliance in Monty Python & the Holy Grail. Few films are. But if you take Jabberwocky on its own terms rather than looking at it as some sort of unofficial sequel to Grail (which it was never intended to be), it has a lot going for it. As a first solo film done on an incredibly small budget, it’s an impressive effort. Compared to his own more polished, technically sure and ambitious projects to come, Jabberwocky is like an ugly cousin. But any Gilliam fan should definitely check it out, and you may be surprised at how good it is.




On the third Python film, The Life of Brian (1979), rather than go back to the awkward dynamic from Grail Gilliam let Terry Jones take solo directing credit. Having worked as a director by himself now, Gilliam was not anxious to go back to a co-director situation. He also wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with all the variously fractured group dynamics again. But he was more than happy to work on this film, and he reveled in being in charge of the production design. I think the Biblical parody Life of Brian is Python’s crowning achievement, a razor sharp satire of religious fanaticism that is just as side-splittingly funny as "Flying Circus" and Holy Grail but also has their best sustained narrative.




Next Gilliam returned to some of the adventures and legends he had loved as a boy and what came out the other side was Time Bandits (1981), his first truly great film as a solo director. Written with Michael Palin, Time Bandits is the tale of a young boy named Kevin (Craig Warnock), who lives in the non-descript Middle Class sprawl of present-day suburban England with his disinterested consumer-obsessed parents. Kevin dreams of Robin Hood or working his way out of Daedalus’ Labyrinth or smoky epic war-torn battlefields. His dreams find him one night when a knight in full armor on a white steed comes bursting through his wardrobe and into his room before vanishing. He waits up on subsequent nights ready for anything to happen. What does happen is a band of dwarves stumble into his room, looking for a gateway. Turns out they have a map which they stole from the Supreme Being. The map shows holes in the fabric of time and space which allow one to travel the world in all different eras. The rowdy pack of six dwarves, led by the pushy Randall (David Rappaport), intend to use these doorways in time to plunder gold and riches. The Supreme Being (Sir Ralph Richardson) shows up looking for his map, and before he knows what is going on Kevin is swept along with this band of miscreants. Where and When they’ll land and Who they’ll meet is a series of inventive misadventures, and Kevin proves invaluable since he has a knowledge about these eras the would-be robbers do not. Along the way they meet Napoleon (Ian Holm), Robin Hood (John Cleese) and King Agamemnon (Sean Connery), among others (Michael Palin also has two cameos as characters in different time periods). Kevin and the Dwarves also have to contend with Evil (David Warner), who wants the map for himself so he can wreak havoc on the Supreme Being’s creation. Time Bandits is dark and weird and wonderful. It is essentially a kid’s movie, and most certainly children will enjoy it (I was eleven when I saw it in the theater, and it instantly became a favorite). But there’s also a level of wit and just plain creativity to it all that any adult can enjoy, maybe even more than the fantasy aspect for the kids.

Time Bandits was a surprise hit. Gilliam achieved his ambitious vision with a relatively modest budget of $5-million, while the film grossed over $42-million in the United States alone! That kind of ratio and ability to impressively make-do with so little will get the attention of a lot of Studio executives.


In the third and final Python picture The Meaning of Life (1983), Terry definitely wasn’t going to move backward after the success, financially and creatively, of Time Bandits. But he was allowed to direct one segment all his own, and as the script was inherently episodic it seemed they would be able to fit it in the middle of the film, as intended. His segment is called "The Crimson Permanent Assurance", is almost entirely visual and, unlike his role in "Flying Circus", this one is live-action. It tells the story of an office full of aged accountants in a totalitarian company who rebel against their slavish masters, fashioning weapons out of the common office supplies, and forcing the executives to walk the plank out of the high-rise. After seizing control of their company, they hoist sails on top of the building and set off to plunder other dreary workplaces. A simple satire of corporations, but done in that distinctive Gilliam style. In the end, Terry’s piece was so different from the rest of The Meaning of Life that it was stuck onto the front of the picture, like a short subject of its own (though it is briefly and surprisingly reprised in the body of the film). Terry also spent so much time and money on "Crimson Permanent Assurance" that he didn’t exactly make the other five members of Python happy. But it works, and is in many ways a dry-run at some of the themes and techniques Gilliam would examine further in his next project.



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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

At this point in his career, Terry’s work in film and TV had been very independent, and he was very reluctant to get involved with Hollywood, fearing he would have to give up control to do so. That would all soon come to a head. While at the Cannes Film Festival with Meaning of Life which was getting very positive reception, Terry was also in the catbird seat when it comes to seeking financing for his next project. Hollywood is very much about perception, and that illusion can be created just as much by what you don’t do as what you do do. 20th Century Fox had a hot property at the time, a script called Enemy Mine. This Sci-Fi film was getting lots of buzz as being the next big thing, and Fox was trying to talk the best genre directors in town into helming it. Names like Spielberg and Lucas had turned them down, so they were going further down the list and offered it to Gilliam. Gilliam didn’t really like the script and was not eager to work on material he didn’t originate, so he turned them down. But the script was so hot that now Gilliam’s name was linked to the big boys in the business like Spielberg, simply because he turned down the same material (that was supposedly so sure-fire). He was perceived as being a hot name in the business at that moment, and everybody was still impressed by the returns of Time Bandits. So when Terry partnered with producer Arnon Milchan who had just worked with Scorsese on The King of Comedy and Leone on Once Upon A Time in America, they had many a Studio courting them. Universal ultimately won the domestic rights (Embassy took the international) and would put up the bulk of the money. As a footnote, that super "hot" property Enemy Mine became a movie directed by Wolfgang Petersen starring Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr. It's not bad for '80s genre stuff, but it is no masterpiece and wasn't a hit movie, either.

The project Gilliam sold at Cannes was Brazil (1985), a dark and satirical Orwellian nightmare about dreams and non-conformity going against the monolith of oppressive government and bureaucracy. Jonathan Pryce stars as Sam Lowry, a meek cog in the big societal machine of a cold, totalitarian state. Trouble starts when he questions a paperwork error that resulted in an innocent man’s execution, and when he becomes obsessed with Jill (Kim Griest), an ordinary woman who reminds him of the beauty from his dreams. Sam’s dreams are fantastic affairs where he is a winged and armored do-gooder, flying high in the clouds and able to combat the evil around him with a sword. His fantasy world starts intruding on the scary Hell of reality, and he is dragged into more intrigue and illegality when he meets a rogue electrician and assassin Harry Tuttle (Robert DeNiro), who fights the system by repairing it without going through the proper channels and paperwork. And that’s just some of what’s going on. Brazil really defies any easy description or categorization. Gilliam summed it up as “Walter Mitty meets Franz Kafka”, and that may be as apt as possible. I think Brazil is still his masterpiece, an incredibly dark and subversive parable that is incredibly dense - texturally, thematically and visually.




The difficulty in classification led to many problems when it came to the American release of Brazil. Universal and its President Sid Sheinberg didn’t quite know what to do with it. Gilliam had delivered a film that played to some rave reviews in Europe, but Universal didn’t think it would work in The States. Terry didn’t quite have “final cut” over the project, as there were some basic running-time clauses in the contract. After trying to talk them out of it, he cut about ten minutes out of the movie. It was a compromise, but one he could live with. Universal however could not. I won’t get into all the specifics of the whole long and bloody war that resulted, as there is an excellent book by L.A critic Jack Matthews on the subject called The Battle of Brazil as well as an incredible wealth of supplements in the Criterion multi-disc edition of the movie on the subject. But basically Sheinberg recut Brazil, butchered it really, down to a paltry 94-minutes (the original cut is 142-minutes, Gilliam delivered a 132-minute cut for that compromise) that in addition to ruining the narrative it embarrassingly tries to fashion a “happy ending” out of the material Gilliam shot. Ugh. But even that they thought was unreleasable. Terry fought them tooth-and-nail, including publicly, taking out a full-page ad in Variety asking Universal when they were going to release his movie. Gilliam got a print and arranged clandestine screenings around Los Angeles, including for most of the major critics. When the L.A. Critics handed out their awards for the best of 1985, they named Brazil Best Picture, Gilliam Best Director, and the screenplay (written by Terry, Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard) Best Screenplay…all for a movie the Studio deemed a disaster and were just going to eat the loss without ever screening it in theaters. After the L.A. Critics Association gave it that blessing, Universal was shamed into putting it in theaters. They gave it very mild distribution and little advertising, and it didn’t even manage $10-million at the U.S. box office.

Terry had won a moral victory in that it got some great reviews and was released and, most importantly, his original cut has survived and even thrived on LaserDisc and DVD, but he also gained a reputation in Hollywood for being difficult, and certainly other Studio heads were now reluctant to go into business with him. And of course it was a maddening process. And the worse news is that after the trauma of Brazil, Terry’s next project was even more doomed, especially for his reputation.



The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) is another dark and elaborate fantasy more in line with Time Bandits than Brazil. Taking the character from classic German folktales, Gilliam’s movie finds the Baron (John Neville), prone to exaggeration and even outright lies, an aged figure in a town under siege by Turkish invaders. He reluctantly befriends a little girl (Sarah Polley), and together they take off on an adventure to hopefully save the people and defeat the army. Their travels take them to the moon and its megalomaniacal insane King (Robin Williams), to the Underworld with the god Vulcan (Oliver Reed) and his bride Venus (Uma Thurman), and to the belly of a gigantic whale. Along the way the fantastic feats and beautiful ladies reinvigorate the Baron and knock years off his appearance. They also gather his old battle companions from his younger days, including Berthold (Eric Idle) who can run at over a hundred miles-per-hour, the gigantic Albrecht (Winston Dennis) who possesses superhuman strength, Gustavus (Jack Purvis) who can expel his lungs like a mighty hurricane, and Adolphus (Charles McKewon) who is the world’s greatest marksman with a rifle. It’s all silly and fantastic, and while I love it and think it is much better than its reputation, it does have less narrative coherence than say Time Bandits. But that same strength of creativity and imagination and odd spectacle is very much on full display.




The horror of the behind-the-scenes and post-production Hell on Munchausen is lesser known than the battles over Brazil, but they are even more maddening for Gilliam, and this time it interfered with the making of the movie, not simply the distribution and cutting. The production costs spiraled out of control, though almost none of it due to anything Gilliam was doing: all factors out of his hands. There’s a great book detailing these goings on, too, Losing the Light by Andrew Yule. Columbia was the Studio involved this time, and they gave The Adventures of Baron Munchausen even less of a release than Brazil eventually got. And it didn’t get glowing reviews or awards, either. At a final budget near $47-million (more than double what it was supposed to be), it only returned a paltry $8-million in the United States – just about a reversal of Time Bandit’s fortunes. Worse, Gilliam was now perceived as somebody who couldn’t control a budget. This wasn’t really fair, but such is perception.


Brazil and Munchausen back-to-back had understandably drained Terry. But he knew he had to get back on the horse, so to speak, and if he was going to clear up his reputation he better do something both on time and at budget. His own projects he was developing were much too ambitious for such an endeavor, and he couldn’t find the financing anyway. But he was offered the script of The Fisher King (1991), and he decided to take it on. Written by Richard LaGravenese, it’s a story of New York radio shock jock Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) who loses his show and his lifestyle after a callous on-air remark leads to people being murdered. Down and out, Jack has moved in with brassy video store owner Anne (Mercedes Ruehl), who is love with him, but he is completely disconnected from her...or from much of anything. One drunkenly suicidal night he is about to be beaten to death by some young hooligans, but is saved by a band of roaming street people led by Parry (Robin Williams), who fancies himself a questing knight. Jack is depressed, but Parry is full on insane. Through trying to help Parry get a girl he’s infatuated with (Amanda Plummer) and even retrieve the Holy Grail, which Parry believes is housed on the Upper East Side of Central Park, Jack finds his true self and may even be able to rescue Parry from his insanity. I like the movie a lot.

There are some elements that seem very much like Gilliam, such as the visions of the imaginary Red Knight that haunts Parry or a wonderful sequence where all the patrons hustling around Grand Central Station at rush hour pair up and start waltzing together, and Terry did what he set-out to do: prove he could bring a movie in on time and at budget. Not only did he do that, but the movie made money (nearly doubling the budget in returns), and when the Oscar nominations were announced The Fisher King garnered five nods: LaGravenese’s original screenplay, the score, the set design, Robin Williams as Best Actor and Mercedes Ruehl as Best Supporting Actress. Mercedes won, over the competition of Juliette Lewis in Cape Fear, Jessica Tandy in Fried Green Tomatoes, Kate Nelligan in The Prince of Tides and Diane Ladd in Rambling Rose. Terry’s reputation was back on track.



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After a couple projects he had been working on fell through and couldn't ever find financing, Terry decided to sign on to another script he hadn’t originated, having had such success and fun on The Fisher King. Screenwriter David Webb Peoples (Unforgiven, BladeRunner) and his wife Janet had expanded the idea of experimental French filmmaker Chris Marker’s classic short La Jetée (1962) into a tale of time travel and world destruction called 12 Monkeys (1995). Cole (Bruce Willis) is one of a handful of survivors from a man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population of the planet. The scientists who are in charge of the small society cannot get a pure enough strain of the mutating virus to combat it well, so they live underground. But they are starting to get a handle on time travel. Their plan is to send one man, Cole, back to the Baltimore and Philadelphia of 1996 to where the virus seemed to have originated, in hopes of finding the source. They do not want to change history by stopping it from being unleashed, they simply want more information about the virus so they can combat it effectively in their present, and return to the surface and start repopulating the planet. But they don’t quite have time travel perfected yet, and they send Cole back too far by a few years. There he is of course thought to be insane, but one psychiatrist at the mental institution, Kathryn Railly (Madeline Stowe) can’t shake the sincerity of his ramblings. He also meets a fellow inmate Jeffrey Goins (Brad Pitt), the son of a respected scientist who seems like a good candidate for the culprit behind the pandemic.

12 Monkeys is a great Sci-Fi movie, very smart, great characters and actors, powerful themes, and a kicker of a finale (that goes back to the core of the Marker short), all under the sure-handed direction of Terry Gilliam. The movie was a mainstream hit, bringing in close to $170-million in worldwide box office, and in a day when most genre films had budgets at or over $100-million, Gilliam brought in 12 Monkeys for $39-million. It also got Oscar nominations for Best Costume Design and Brad Pitt as Best Supporting Actor (he lost to Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects, though Pitt did win the Golden Globe). And all this for Universal! Of all the Studios. The suits he did battle with a decade before with Brazil were long gone, but it’s still strange to think his biggest moneymaker was done for the studio that tried to kill his masterpiece. It’s a damn funny business.


His next film is another where he didn’t originate the material. In fact, it’s an adaptation. Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas was a seminal book that Hollywood had been trying to turn into a film for decades. It was finally coming close with Alex Cox (Repo Man), but ultimately he couldn’t crack it either and left/was fired. Gilliam was a fan of both Thompson and graphic artist Ralph Steadman, who indelibly illustrated most of Hunter’s works. That combined with Johnny Depp being attached as the star made it too much for Gilliam to resist. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) is an amazing take on what seemed for many to be an unadaptable book. But Gilliam and company capture Hunter’s voice, his dark sense of humor, his social commentary, and Steadman’s visual style, which goes well with Gilliam’s own sensibility. Depp as Hunter’s literary alter ego Raoul Duke and Benicio Del Toro as the walking Id that is Dr. Gonzo are both magnificent in this retelling of Hunter’s stylized drug-fuelled trip to Las Vegas ostensibly to cover a desert motor race, but really uncovering the dank underbelly of the American Dream gone afoul and turned garish nightmare. And even this wasn't free of some of the old pains and headaches as Gilliam burned his membership card from the Writers Guild of America in protest after what he considered ridiculous arbitration for screen credit on the finished film.




After years of writing and producing projects that didn’t ultimately go forward, Terry settled on The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. It would be a sort of twisted retelling of Quixote, with Johnny Depp as a modern advertising executive transported Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court style to Quixote’s Spain, the modern man essentially becoming his Sancho Panza. French actor Jean Rochefort would be his Don Quixote. Complicated international financing was seemingly secured, leaving Hollywood Studios out of the loop completely this time. Pre-production started and they even began filming when…just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. It is all chronicled wonderfully in the documentary Lost in LaMancha (2002- Fulton & Pepe), which effectively became the first un-making-of a movie. Great piece, and not only a must for Gilliam fans but for film fans in general, especially anybody who has ever entertained the notion of filmmaking themselves. Great stuff, and heartbreaking for Terry Gilliam.


The rights for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote are still in limbo, but it’s one he may return to one day down the line. Time will tell.

After that disaster and not finishing a movie since Fear & Loathing in 1998, Gilliam now has TWO films completed, in the can, and coming soon. The first is The Brothers Grimm, which is not an anthology of Grimm fairy tales but a Gilliamesque comic fantasy that casts the brothers Jake (Heath Ledger) and Will (Matt Damon) as conmen who travel the countryside telling tall tales and bilking the rubes they meet in tiny towns. But they’re put to the test when they come across a real sorceress (Monica Bellucci), who seeks to teach the deceptive braggarts a lesson. Jonathan Pryce and Peter Stormare are also in the cast. It is scheduled for release at the end of August.

The other film is Tideland. Adapted from Mitch Cullen’s novel, it’s an odd story of a little girl named Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland) who moves with her father (Jeff Bridges) back to his boyhood Texas home in the middle of nowhere. He dies shortly after arriving and Rose is forced to fend for herself in the landscape with her dad rotting in the barcelounger. She has an active fantasy life where her only friends are the four decapitated Barbie doll heads she has conversations with. It turns out she does have neighbors in this dusty patch of nothing (played by Janet McTeer and Brendan Fletcher), but they’re at least as weird as she is. More than any other of Gilliam’s admittedly off-beat movies, Tideland is definitely going to be the most off-beat and unclassifiable. Can’t hardly wait to see it. No official release date yet, but it has been completed and could be on screens by the end of the year.


So, that’s Terry Gilliam. Rank and talk about whichever of his movies you’ve seen, whether you loved ‘em or hated ‘em. Let’s chat him up, shall we?

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This is how I grade his work as solo director. I like all of them, even though the last few have been much weaker...

Jabberwocky
GRADE: B-
Time Bandits
GRADE: A-
Brazil
GRADE: A+
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
GRADE: B+
The Fisher King
GRADE: A-
12 Monkeys
GRADE: A
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
GRADE: A-
The Brothers Grimm
GRADE: B-
Tideland
GRADE: C
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
GRADE: B
The Zero Theorem
GRADE: C+
*UPDATED TO INCLUDE RECENT FILMS
OVERALL GRADE: B+

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I cannot remember what my age was when I first saw Time Bandits, but I do remember loving it and staying in the theater with a friend to watch it over again. As a young kid I was hoping for a sequel, but now as an adult I do not think it would work. Monty Python, all of them, of course is amazing to watch, and I never get tired of it. Brazil of course is a masterpiece I think and I need to watch it again, I havent seen it in years. I am looking forward to Tideland, it looks promising.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I've seen three Gilliam films: Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. For me Brazil is the best of the three, Gilliam's vision for the film is just simply wonderful to watch, and Sam Lowry's character is one that you feel for, Pryce played him brilliantly. I just can't get enough of the film, and you're right Holden, the Criterion discs are just plain amazing.

12 Monkeys I loved too, although not in the same level of brilliant as Brazil, it was still wonderfully entertaining and thought-provoking. Still, it was a great sci-fi picture with Gilliam's wonderful eye for visuals.

Now, with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I will say I liked it, but I didn't really think it was anything special. Depp played the character greatly, and Gilliam uses the 2.35:1 aspect ratio beautifully, but the film is just mishap-after-mishap with these two character's that it get's tiring after a while. I did like the film and would definately re-view it, but I'd only grade it a B- or so.

Brazil, A+
12 Monkeys, A-
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, B-

As for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, even though he co-directed, it's pure genius. There will never be another film as funny or creative when it comes to comedy. A+


Great thread Holden, nicely written, I really enjoy Gilliam's work, and I'm looking foward to seeing more, especially Time Bandits, which I've been considering buying the Criterion edition for.

thanks holden for this thread...my favorite terry gilliam film will always be brazil....

Nice one Holden. TG is a treasure among directors.

EDIT - Rankings

Monty Python & The Holy Grail (with Terry Jones) A+
Jabberwocky B
Time Bandits A-
Brazil A+
The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen C+
The Fisher King A-
Twelve Monkeys A-
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas A-

Overall - A-

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Great stuff Pikey, Thanks, I really like Terry.

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Excellent thread. Thanks for putting all the time in to put that together.

Busy tonight, more comments later...

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Great thread, Holden.

I really need to see Lost in La Mancha.

One of the most hillarious scenes I've ever seen is the Robin Hood scene in Time Bandits with John Cleese as Robin Hood.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

I haven't seen Jabberwocky, and didn't get into Time Bandits, but from Brazil on, I love his work and consider him a genius. I loved several of his films before I paid any attention to directors. The stories are just so compelling.

Brazil has that very sympathetic central character, played by Jonathan Pryce and the setting is a marvellous clash of pastoral and art deco styles. Everyone has the conflicts we see in this film, but no one has them so beautifully.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen made a real impression on me. The period sets/costumes were beautifully done, and in this too, I loved the art references. I was suprised to read he didn't spend more time in art school, but glad his response to them was "I'll show you". He has.

The Fisher King is such a touching story. Robin Williams gives a powerful performance in this, and the supporting cast is great. The scene were Grand Central Station breaks into a waltz brings tears to my eyes.

12 Monkeys: I just rewatched this recently and was totally drawn in again. Why doesn't Madeline Stowe work more?! The race against time in this adds great tension.

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas was a nice visit to a pretty disgusting world, with the benefit of not actually smelling it. Gilliam's aesthetic puts us in the psyche of these two losers... and makes it fun.

Great thread, Holden, and an excellent choice of people to spotlight. Gilliam is one of my favorites.

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

I watched Lost In La Mancha again the other day. It's such a pity we'll probably never see The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

...and Cinders, I agree on the Madeline Stowe thing - she's a terrific actress (I even bought Blink just so I could gaze at her in the comfort of my living room ).

Fantastic thread Holden, don't think I can add much to your definitive thread.
As a wanna be director, I bought the AFI boxset on directors, which is a 60 minute long documentary on some of todays most acclaimed directors. I happen to have a double of Terry Gilliams, so if you're intrested send me a pm and I'll arrange for it to be sent over to you.

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Hey Pepe, would you say I have a plethora of presents?


Toga, toga, toga......


Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour?

Another thing I love about Gilliam is that he does the best audio commentary tracks in the business. I like them even more than Scorsese's. The first commentary I ever listened to from anybody was his for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and I absolutely loved it. He is articulate about the process, but also funny and crushingly honest, and he has plenty of amusing anecdotes, as well. Everything you could hope for.

Terry has recorded audio commentaries for all seven of his own films, as well as Holy Grail, Life of Brian and Meaning of Life. Most are available on R1 DVD, though not all. With the exception of Jabberwocky, 12 Monkeys and Meaning of Life, Terry did all the recordings for the Criterion Collection, and they haven't ever acquired the DVD rights for The Fisher King or The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. This is one of the many reasons I still covet my LaserDisc collection.


And of course the ultimate special edition among special editions is Criterion's presentation of Brazil. When they first put that out on Laser in 1996, I was almost shaking in anticipation for weeks until I could actually put it in my hands and start watching it all. Truly. Luckily for all you they later transferred the whole thing to DVD. In addition to for the first time ever being able to see the full, 142-minute cut of the movie presented letterboxed and with a sparkling transfer, there are over eight hours worth of supplements. Including an audio commentary by Terry, naturally. Jack Matthews distills his great book into an audio and video history recounting "The Battle of Brazil" including clips from Sid Sheinberg himself, the infamous 94-minute butchering which they've sarcastically labeled the "Love Conquers All version", a very good 30-minute documentary from 1985 called "What is Brazil?" that features on-set interviews with the cast and crew, McKeown & Stoppard talking about the writing process, Gilliam's storyboards for scenes that weren't shot, and a lot MORE. Absolutely everything you could ever want to know about this masterpiece.

Thank the Movie Gods for the fine folks at Criterion.

The first words spoken on the Criterion audio commentary for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen...

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I can’t wait for Tideland, but I’m just a little worried that I’ll end up disappointed with The Brothers Grimm. The trailer makes it look like a film made by just about anybody, not the master himself. Of course I’ll still go see it…and hopefully feel really silly for doubting it in the first place.

I haven’t seen Jabberwocky in such a long time that I can’t remember anything about it. I remember liking it just fine, though. Time Bandits is a wonderful little fantasy, one of the best ever made, and a perfect kids flick. The cast is very strong with one exception…the little boy. I wish they would have used a kid with more…I dunno, testosterone. Brazil is a masterpiece, I think we all agree on that, but it’s been ages since I’ve seen that as well. I’ve watched it at least 5 times, but not for over ten years now. I remember more about how I love it than any particulars in the film. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is really fun, imaginative, and utterly charming. Unfortunately, because of the problems he had during its production, it never really became what it could’ve been. Yet, since it’s Gilliam…I forgive it. The Fisher King is another Gilliam film I haven’t seen in years. I really need to see it again since the way I view films nowadays is so completely different than the way I used to. I think 12 Monkeys is one of the very best movies of its kind which also has Pitt in one of his most memorable and hilarious performances. And finally, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas is one of the great ones. I love the way Gilliam was able to translate drug induced psychosis so perfectly; showing us the beauty, terror, and hard luck humor that drugs can create within ones own mind. It doesn’t hurt that Depp gives practically his greatest performance to date either.

So, I really dig Terry Gilliam. His style fits mine quite well…and he’s one of the names which, when attached to a film, immediately makes me take notice. My wish: I wish that Gilliam would rekindle a relationship with the other surviving Python cast and create magic one last geriatric time. I’d pay to go see Monty Python’s Search for Idle’s Dentures any day of the week. I’d even take a date with me.

Great write-up, Mr. Pike. It was a pleasure to read.

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"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

I've got a feeling that would be a very bad idea. I saw them reform a few years back (Comic Relief, I think but not sure) and it sadly stank the place out. Maybe they weren't given much time to rehearse or write the tiny bits of original material they performed, but it gave the impression of a Bank Managers' AmDram farce.

Palin is now everyone's favourite Uncle figure on the BBC, I love the guy. He's brought new life to travel documentaries.

Jones has morphed into everyone's favourite Uncle figure who makes funny and informative history programmes on the BBC.

Eric Idle...well he wrote Splitting Heirs...still gives good cameo though.

Chapman is sadly an ex-Python.

The worst of all is Cleese - how one of the funniest men in the world became a patronising old bore is beyond me. Maybe it was those Stop Smoking adverts. Maybe it was the Partly (sic) Political Broadcasts for The Liberal Democrats. Maybe it was the script for Fierce Creatures. Who knows?

I still love them all, as Pythons and for (most of) their subsequent work. Heck, I even love the way Idle had the brass swingers to play a 21 year old Indian guy for an entire movie at the age of 50, but Gilliam is the only member of the team with a maverick streak thesedays.

That is so sad.

Man, all that work and only this...

C'MON PEOPLE!!!

Terry Gilliam is one of my favorite directors. Every time I sit down to wach one of his films I am entranced almost immediately. It all comes rushing back to me...Ingenious detailed set design, quirky yet magnificent compositions, amazing depth of field work, and unique characters. It's tough to add to the massive amount of information that Holden has psted on his works, so I will just talk about what I like about it.

First off, No director has such a varied and unique body of work as Mr. Gilliam. TimeBandits, Brazil, 12 Monkeys, The Fisher King... The man seems to be able to appraoch any subject he wishes, understand it completely, and then present it to us in a way only he can.

Well, I just had a revelation so, I want to talk about The Fisher King for a bit... I am really starting to pick up on metaphor and symbolism in film these days it seems...

Today at lunch, I popped in The Fisher King, simply because it's the Gilliam film I haven't watched in the longest amount of time (which is only a few months, this is Gilliam folks). 10 seconds in, and I am riveted. You just....know it's a Gilliam film when the first frames hit the screen. A couple minutes in, I realize Jack Lucas is a prisoner, or is soon to be. Gilliam is telling us this with his set design. Watch the opening scene, you will see what I mean. Not a prisoner is the literal since, I mean, the guy has it all..right? Or does he. There is actually a big chunk of Jack that is just missing, just isn't there, a part of him that has been confined...locked away, with no key in sight. That is until Parry comes along, the key to freeing his trapped and repressed soul.

Of course, the Parry that helps Jack wouldn't exist if not for Jack, himself. I think this is Gilliam's way of showing mankind's need for one another. Cause and effect are a main theme, and one off-hand comment has grave effects on both Jack and Parry, but in very different ways. They both end up in some serious need of redemption, which is where the grail comes into play. The ultimate symbol for redemption of the soul, the grail represents to these two men the need to redeem themselves of the terrible events of the past, by which they come to find they are inextricibly linked to one another. Both men led insular lives of ease and wealth until the event, and then both are thrust from those worlds, left to examine what really matters in life, and to attempt to free the lost parts of themselves, their shattered and imprisoned souls.

It's funny, because the prison metaphor only jumped out at me today, and I have seen the films quite a few times, but it got me to thinking about the symbolism of the film and all of a sudden the connection was there. When I get home I am going to scour the film for other instances of the bars when Jack is in the scene. I bet there are more instances of it...

More later, getting busy here at work...