A successful cartoonist who first met John Cleese while working at Help! magazine, Terry Gilliam subsequently became the resident animator with Monty Python's Flying Circus. He also performed with the troupe and wrote several sketches, moving to the big screen with "And Now For Something Completely Different" (1971). After co-directing "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975), he made his solo directing debut with "Jabberwocky" (1976), a grisly medieval interpretation of the Lewis Carroll poem which set the tone for much of his subsequent work. A Terry Gilliam-directed film will have several hallmarks: fantastic visuals, both in production design and camerawork; a soupcon of the surreal; and strong acting.
Born and raised in Minnesota, Gilliam relocated with his family to L.A. when he was 11. After college, he worked in NYC at HELP!, toiled briefly in advertising in L.A. and finally found his home as an illustrator and animator in London. Gilliam began to contribute animated sequences to such British TV shows as "Marty" and "Do Not Adjust Your Set". Hooking up with Eric Idle and becoming reacquainted with Cleese, they eventually joined together as the performing troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus. After branching out into filmmaking, Gilliam and Pythoner Michael Palin collaborated on the script for "Time Bandits" (1981), a delightfully "adult" children's film that features a group of dwarfs who come to the aid of an English schoolboy, traveling through various epochs and encountering such historical personages as Napoleon and King Agamemnon.
As he moved away from Pythonesque material with "Brazil" (1985), Gilliam encountered critical praise but problems with the Hollywood studio system. He publicly clashed with Universal over the release of the film. The studio balked at the length of this darkly comic look at a futuristic society resulting in two versions, a European cut that ran 142 minutes and an American one that clocked in at 131 minutes. After months of squabbling, the matter was forced when the Los Angeles Film Critics voted their Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay prizes to the unreleased film. At the time of its initial release (and in part because it had become a cause celebre), "Brazil" was a money-maker in its limited venues. Once it opened wider, with little support from the studio, it proved less successful. The studio cut, which runs nearly an hour less, has been aired on American TV, but it lacks Gilliam's trademark fantasy sequences. His vision of an Orwellian future was eventually restored and a director's cut was released in 1998.
Following such a dark tale, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1988) was a visually stunning spectacle that combined state-of-the-art special effects with a resplendent production design, impeccable cinematography and fantastical costumes. Despite its beauty, there were structural problems with the story--as with much of his work, pacing, particularly in the second half, was uneven, causing the film to flag in spots. Still, John Neville in the title role offered a fine performance. After a three year absence, Gilliam returned to features with another imaginative fable. Working from a strong script (by Richard La Gravenese), he fashioned "The Fisher King" (1991), which featured Jeff Bridges as a callous talk show host who encounters a homeless man (Robin Williams) who used to be a college professor. With several wonderful set pieces, particularly a fantasy set in Grand Central Terminal, the film tied the director's visual flair to a more heart-warming and accessible journey. "12 Monkeys" (1995) was a return to futuristic fare. In adapting Chris Marker's "La Jetee" as a sci-fi thriller, Gilliam created another eye-catching view of a world to come that was well-acted by Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.
In 1998, he tackled a long-aborning project that had seen many try--and fail--to translate to film: Hunter S Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". While critics and audiences were divided over just how successful he was, it was clear that Gilliam had come the closest to at least capturing some essence of the spirit of the work. If nothing else, he had once again managed to do what on paper seemed impossible. However, Gilliam was not always able to pull off minor miracles, as was proved with his disastrous attempt to fulfill his long-held dream of filming his take of Cervantes' venerable romantic tale Don Quixote in 2000. Gilliam's "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" was a $32 million film financed primarily by intertantional investors, set star Johnny Depp as a modern-day hero who is transported back in time and finds himself acting as Sancho Panza to old Don Quixote. The movie was plagued by minor and major catastrophes from day one, most significanty the loss (due to an on-set injury) of French actor Jean Rochefort, who was cast in the title role, and a torential storm that wrecked havoc on sets and props, causing the Madrid-based filming to slam to a screeching halt in its second week of shooting as investors and insurance bondsmen sought to end the film's financial hemmoragging, leaving Gilliam creatively frustrated and, much like Quixote himself, tilting at windmills and a battle he could not win. The cameras would never roll on "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" again, but the entire experience became the basis of a second non-fiction film "Lost in La Mancha" (2003), which used footage intended for a DVD feature to tell the painful but fascinating story of Gilliam's struggle, and ultimate defeat, in his attempt to make his film. "Lost in La Mancha" was an enlightening peek at the behind-the-scenes battles that go on during the movie-making process, as well as a cautionary tale for aspiring filmmakers, and the documentary received strong critical reviews as well as several documentary awards and nominatrions.
Gilliam intended his next effort, the adventure fable "The Brothers Grimm" (2005), to serve as a major comeback, but again the visionary and frequently embattled director found himself too often sparring with the film's producers: Dimension Films' formidable Weinstein brothers--the norotiously hands-on (some say meddling) Bob in particular, who clashed with Gilliam over issues ranging from the casting of Samantha Morton as the Grimm brothers' love interest (Dimension insisted English actress Lena Headey get the part) to eliminating a prosthetic nose intended to give Damon's character a less "movie star" look. The film starred Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as a totally fictionalized version of the Bavarian brothers known for their famous fairy tales, casting them as a pair of con artists who trick simple-minded villagers into paying them to solve the faux-supernatural curses that the brothers themselves have rigged, only to be tasked with solving a genuine magical curse that has befallen a local village. Their subsequent bizarre encounters then inspire the legendary stories they would later hand down to future generations. The film was visually rich, as expected, but--perhaps due to the creative compromises Gilliam had to relent to--it lacked the substantial panache of his more involving, imaginative fare and failed to fulfill the promise of the script, which was a highly sought-after property in Hollywood. |
