Q&A With Terry Gilliam

Mr. Gilliam,

if you were a coalminer and your psychiatrist asked you to take his wife (who you were secretly attracted to) to a Terry Gilliam Movie, which one would you choose?

Kind Regards,

Ben Moore

A loyal fan.

George Harrison's company 'Handmade Films' financed 'Time Bandits' and of course 'Life of Brian'. Did he have much involvement in the filming process apart from financing it? Did he visit the set during filming? Why did you cease working with 'Handmade Films'?

Terry, your films all sharply critique the direction our world has taken in the realms of politics, science, and society. If you could change something about our world, say about education or the economy, or technological 'progress', what would you change? I am a teacher and I think on this question all the time, often spurred by your own cinematic explorations.

Mr. Gilliam,

The wonderful skewed take on the world which is glouriously displayed in your work,
was there ever a time that you felt pressured to make your vision or art conform to more mundane standards?

You work features both Fantasy, Scifi and even Urban fantasy (before the term was even coined; The Fisher king)
Do you prefer one of these genres over the other?

Morag.

Terry

I saw your production of Berlioz' Damnation of Faust some years back at the ENO and I am already lined up for Benvenuto Cellini later this year. Have you any plans for further opera productions ?

Have you ever been to the island in the Bahamas that's full of swimming pigs?

Mr Gilliam,

What was the transition like for you, going from childrens animation straight into adult animation with Monthy Python? You're animation work is up there with the best.

Dear Mr Gilliam, with The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus having such a fantastical but tragic journey to the screen, Did it feel like hard work trying to complete it without Heath Ledger???

BeakerJoe

Terry, Frank Darabont has secured the film rights to Stephen King's (Richard Bachman) novel, The Long Walk. Considering your predilection for dystopian stories, could you ever see yourself colaborate with him in bringing this story to life on the big screen.

I personally think you and this story would be the perfect mix.

Considering your unsuccessfull attempts to film Watchmen, have you ever met Alan Moore and how would you convince him to allow you to adapt one of his works for the big screen and which one would it be.

I won't be able to attend the Q&A in person because I'm in Germany here, so I'd be happy with bowing out of the tickets lottery and not block the seat for somebody else. But I've been a lifelong fan of Terry's as my favorite director ever since I came upon his "Munchausen" in a local video rental circa 20 years ago! And that's mainly because of his visual genius in photography and image composition, but also because of his weird, surreal, psychedelic, satirical countercultural views and roots coming through every now and then, as it used to do with all the Pythons way back when (and looking at their individual solo careers, I think Terry has definitely made the most out of it).

(I apologize for my first question being kinda long, as it's what I'm most obsessed about. I leave it to you if and how you think you can condense it in any way.)

Question no. 1: Terry's amazing wide-angle lenses

What's been thrilling me to no end ever since I first got aware of you is your surreal, larger-than-life ultra-wide angle imagery, and it's spoiled me to most other directors ever since. The only parallels in art history I could identify would be certain Mannerist paintings from the Early Baroque period particularly associated with the early spread of a rather self-ironic, philosophical kind of reason, and some psychedelic art styles and caricatures of the 1960s counterculture, whereas the values of the latter I understand to have a certain influence upon you if mostly through Harvey Kurtzman. The overarching theme for these two art movements would be trying to liberate people's minds in a way, a theme which also fits the wide-angle imagery in your movies pretty well, by showing everything in a highly unusual, disorienting field of view, in order to make people reconsider their traditional perceptions and prejudices.

Yet, when looking to the film world, potential influences regarding your particular use of rectilinear wide-angle imagery would be sparse. In fact, the only film that I could name as looking particularly "Gilliamesque" before Python would be Orson Welles's version of Kafka's "The trial".

So my question is: Could you identify any visual influences upon yourself with your use of extremely wide lenses? Your mastery of extreme wide-angle imagery is already there and perfect with your very first feature "Holy Grail", yet the only film theory source I remember you talking about particularly studying before "Holy Grail" was Eisenstein, and he certainly doesn't look like that. You once said that you pretty much "learned the tools of the trade" when working at an ad company back in the 60s, does that have anything to do with it?

Question no. 2: Lenses and early 16mm hobby

I understand you've been toying with 16mm film as a hobby even way before "Holy Grail", were you already prone to using very wide lenses for that back then as well?

Question no. 3: Terry, Francois Schuiten, and The Obscure Cities

Besides being a fan of yours, I'm also a fan of the Belgian steampunk graphic novel series "The Obscure Cities" (aka Les Cites obscure) drawn by Francois Schuiten, which shares with your films aspects of dystopian Kafkaesque satire, a taste for historical settings and (as taken from one of your interviews) old-fashioned mechanical things, and, of course, breathtaking, immensely imaginative and whimsical imagery. So I've been pleasantly surprised when in Schuiten's biography, "The Book of Schuiten", I came upon a photo of you and Francois talking to each other at some conference, taken circa around the time of "Brothers Grimm" and "Tideland".

So I'm wondering, how do you feel about Schuiten's comics if you know them, and would you ever want to collaborate with Schuiten on a future certain masterpiece of a film, maybe even an adaption of an existing Obscure Cities volume or an independent chapter taking place in the Obscure World? Schuiten did work as production designer on a number of international films before, after all.

Question no. 4: Magical Mystery Tour

When your iconic animations first came on the air in the UK with "Do not adjust your set", it was just a few days away from another countercultural premiere on the same airwaves, which was that of The Beatles's telefilm "Magical Mystery Tour", a work which I think many people will agree on would've benefited in many places from better direction and a tighter script by a director who would've been more in tune with their countercultural and psychedelic brainwaves at the time.

With The Beatles, according to your words, having meant a lot in your life and career, would you have liked to have been there, or now go back to 1967 in a time machine, to give the Fabs a hand or two with better photography, direction, and maybe a few script touch-ups, to help shape the "Magical Mystery Tour" film more into what it could've been?

Question no. 5: Homelessness

In a few interviews related to "The Fisher King", you have mentioned in passing that your cinematography and visual language for that film came from having for some time actually gone homeless and living in the street in an American city. Exactly when and where was that, and for how long?

@TlatoSMD : I have seen a documentary about "Magical Mystery Tour" (I believe it's also available in the recent dvd re-release) where Terry Gilliam was interviewed and said he came to the set... I don't know how long he staid but he was definitely there (don't remember if he was already friends with George Harrison or if it was something else).

Have been a lifelong fan, I loved your adaption of the Damnation of Faust.

Have you ever considered adapting an opera for a big-screen release?