t r i u m p h

Designed, Compiled and Written by Jordan Clare-Rothe

Published by Jordan Clare-Rothe

Text set in Tungsten, Archer, and Sentinel

For the film festival I Think Therefore You Is

paying tribute to the work of Terry Gilliam.

Printed in Spring 2010

© Jordan Clare-Rothe

isbn 02644586-AAu

All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or

mechanical, including photocopy or any storage retrieval systam,

withoutpermission in writting from the publisher.

Respect copywrite, encourage creativity.

Limited Edition only.

t r i u m p h

s c u b a

t r i u m p h

“But seriously, without me there would Be nothing, not even you. Cogito ergo es. i think, therefore you is.”

—floating head of the king of the moon, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

1

reality and madness

Gilliam’s work is

about asking questions.

Is the world really as it seems?

p a g e g u b e r n a t o r i a l

2

gill iam’s story

How did this guy escape

from the States and into a

world of his own creation?

p a g e n u m e r a t o r

d r u i d

Contents

3

the films

A collection of the director’s

work surrounding the theme

of reality and madness.

p a g e b e a g l e

4

rushdie interview

The notable author holds

a conversation with

the intrepid director

p a g e w a t e r p a r k

5

england guide

The historic Old Vic Theatre,

and merry old London. What

to do while you’re there.

p a g e p a n t r y

Contents

g u i l t

There is a common sentiment upon leaving a Gilliam film: What the hell just happened. His films can certainly ruin a perfectly pleasant afternoon.

Reality and Madness

g u b e r n a t o r i a l

i l l u s i v e

Reality and MadnessIt is not our problem to have all the answers, and

it is not Gilliam’s job to give them to us. Gilliam

uses various vehicles (time travel, drug use,

childhood) to show the way we look at ourselves.

He challenges us, the viewer, and his world is not

always our own. Gilliam wants to disorient us. To

hold us by our feet and let our hair hang upwards

and see our world from a new angle.

Over the decades, Gilliam is intent to look at the

world in a way it is not usually considered. He

asks the question with his films: What is reality?

How do we understand reality? The heroes in his

films oftentimes have a reality that is strikingly

different than our own. His characters may be

insane, some of them certainly are. And yet

the world is presented to us through their eyes.

Does our concept of reality invalidate theirs?

Does the way a crazy person see the world make

our understanding of reality any less concrete?

Gilliam pushes us to ask these question with the

themes of imagination and madness which push

how we can understand reality. Reality is not a

solid ground from which to stand in his films,

but rather a shifting shape beneath our feet.

1

n u m e ra t o r

p i z z e r i a

Gilliam’s StoryWho is this guy? A perfectly normal childhood led an adequate child to a dirty world of cartoon making, leading to an even more tawdry dip into movie direction. You might say that it could have happened to any of us. Feel lucky that it didn’t happen to you.

2

s t i p u l a t i o n

gGilliam was born in Medicine Lake,

Minnesota, and moved with his family to

Panorama city, California as a child in 1952.

He attended Birmingham High School where

was class president and Senior Prom King, and

was voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” During

High School he discovered Mad Magazine, in

the days it was being edited by Harvey Kurzman.

This would later go on to influence his work.

After High School Gilliam went on to Occidental

College. He began as a physics major, then

switched to fine arts, before finally settling on

Political Science. He contributed to his college

magazine, Fang, and became its editor in his Junior

Year. After graduating college, Gilliam worked

briefly in advertising before being hired by

Kurzman at Help! Magazine. The comic sensibili-

ties of Kurzman had a profound effect on the

young Gilliam. It was also at Help! that Gilliam

became acquainted with John Cleese.

Terry Gilliam started his career as an

animator and strip cartoonist; one of his early

photographic strips for Harvey Kurtzman’s Help!

featured future Python cast-member John Cleese.

Moving to England, he animated features for Do

Not Adjust Your Set, which also featured future

Pythons Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.

Gilliam then participated in Monty

Python’s Flying Circus from its formation, at first

being credited as an animator (his name was

listed separately after the other five in the closing

credits), later as a full member. He was the

only non-British member. He was the principal

artist-animator of the surreal cartoons which

frequently linked the show’s sketches together,

and defined the group’s visual language in

other media. He also appeared in several sketches,

and played side parts in the films but was

definitely always the least visible python.

Gilliam’s animations for Monty Python have

a distinctive style. He mixed his own art, char-

acterized by soft gradients and odd bulbous

shapes, with backgrounds and moving cutouts

from antique photographs, mostly from the

Victorian era. The style has been mimicked

repeatedly throughout the years: in the children’s

television cartoon Angela Anaconda, a series

of television commercials for Guinness stout,

the “Children’s Television Sausage Factory”

openings that inspired opening animator Barry

Blair of Nickelodeon series You Can’t Do

That On Television!, John Muto’s animation

in Forbidden Zone, the political cartoons

that feature on the web site JibJab, the

Rathergood.com animations by Joel Veitch,

a bizarre set of Internet cartoons called

Animutations made by Neil Cicierega, the

television history series Terry Jones’

Medieval Lives, recent episodes of the Alton

Brown’s Food Network television show Good

Eats, and, to a degree, South Park.

Gilliam went on to become a motion picture

writer and director.

His films are usually highly imaginative

fantasies. Most of Gilliam’s movies include plot

d i f f i d e n t

lines that seem to occur partly or completely in

the characters’ imaginations, raising questions

about the definition of identity and sanity. He

often shows his opposition to bureaucracy

and authoritarian regimes. He also distinguishes

‘higher’ and ‘lower’ layers of society, with a

disturbing and ironic style. His movies usually

feature a fight or struggle against a great power

which may be an emotional situation, a human-

made idol, or even the person himself, and the

situations do not always end happily. There is

often a dark, paranoid atmosphere and unusual

characters who formerly were normal members

of society. His scripts feature a dark sense of

humor and often end with a dark twist.

His films have a distinctive look, often

recognizable from just a short clip; Roger Ebert

has said ‘his world is always hallucinatory in its

richness of detail.’ There is often a baroqueness

about the movies, with, for instance, high-tech

computer monitors equipped with low-tech

magnifying lenses in one film, and in another a

red knight covered with flapping bits of cloth.

He also is given to incongruous juxtapositions,

say of beauty and ugliness, or antique and

modern. Most of his movies are shot almost

entirely with extremely wide lenses of 28 mm

or less, and extremely deep focus.

Gilliam has acquired the unfortunate reputa-

tion of making extremely expensive movies beset

with production problems. After the lengthy

quarrelling with Universal Studios over Brazil,

Gilliam’s next picture, The Adventures of Baron

Munchausen, cost around US$46 million, and

then earned only about US$8 million in US ticket

sales. A decade later, Gilliam attempted to film

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, budgeted at

US$32.1 million, among the highest-budgeted

films to use only European financing; but in the

first week of shooting, the actor playing Don

Quixote (Jean Rochefort) suffered a herniated

disc, and a flood severely damaged the set.

terry gill iam started his career as an animator and strip cartoonist; one of his early photographic strips for harvey kurtzman’s Help! featured future Python cast-member John Cleese.

b e a g l e

The Aventures of Baron Munchausen

Brazil

Time Bandits

derrick o'Connor

ian holm

Peter vaughan

Jim Broadbent

Jack Purvis

recurring actors guideGilliam has a few favorite actors who can be seen

recurring in several of his films. This is especially

true in his earlier work.

h i n d s i g h t

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Tideland

Twelve Monkeys

Charles mckeown

katherine helmound

Jonathan Price

simon Jones

Christopher meloni

Brazil

fear and loathingin las vegas

12 monkeys

time Bandits

o c t o g o n

3

Brazil

FilmS

time Bandits

the adventures of Baron munChausen

tideland

f i l t e r

3

EvEntS

Friday 7/16

steadman’s ink Party

s c y n t h e t i c

Sunday 7/18

terry gilliam sPeaks

Saturday 7/17

Panel disCussion with

the Cast of monty Python

c o m b a t

a l t r u i s t

twelve monkeysFri. 7/16

10 PM Main Theatre

time Bandits Tues. 7/13

7 PM Main Theatre

fear and loathing in las vegasSat 7/17

7 PM Main Theatre

BrazilWed. 7/14

7 PM Main Theatre

tidelandSun 7/18

7 PM Main Theatre

the adventures of Baron munchausenThur. 7/15

7 PM Main Theatre

films

p a t r i a r c h

Panel discussion with the cast of monty Python’s flying CircusFri. 7/16

7 PM

Eric Idle, Jon Cleese, and the rest of the gang get together to talk about what made their sketch comedy group of seventies so influential, and why comedy geeks on both sides of the pond continue to say “Nee!”.

steadman’s ink PartySat. 7/17

7 PM

Ralph Steadman, the legendary artist best known for his manic, splotchy ink pieces and his time spent with Hunter S. Thompson hosts a drawing party and will talk about his decades long friendship with Gilliam. Don’t expect to see any “happy trees” here.

gilliam speaksSun. 7/18

7 PM

The Master film maker himself comes to anwer questions from the audience. Tomatoes will be available.

SChEdulE

events

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c h i n e

The short ones are the film’s

namesake, and possess traits that

may be associated with children:

they are immature, rude and greedy.

The dwarves are former hedge

trimmers for the Supreme Being. The group plotted mutiny, stole a map of the universe

(which cites the location of crucial “time holes”) and proceeded to gather the most

valuable loot in history. One such time hole lies in the closet of Kevin, a young boy in

a relatively contemporary England. He is awakened by the abrupt appearance of the

group of bandits and is shortly enlisted in their scheme.

The camera inherits the perspective of the film’s miniature protagonists. It is placed

entirely at low angles to respect its main characters’ stilted height. This technique crops

the faces of many of the taller characters; we see only their feet and their actions. In this

manner Gilliam establishes his film’s subjective approach, and it is clear this troupe of

midgets and their younger sidekick, each vulnerably short, stands heroic.

The very scope of this film is incessant in its sporadic setting — locations are nearly

incidental, a series of comedic opportunities. The famous climax of the Titanic disaster is

seen in over thirty films (and is arguably the subject of many of them) and it is at its least

dramatic in this film.

time Bandits

Time Bandits exhibits Gilliam’s characteristic interest in history. Visible in the film’s periphery are Homeric Greece, the French Revolution, the sinking Titanic and basic ethical manifestations of good and evil (the former—the Supreme Being—wears a pleated gray suit). Time Bandits is at once revisionist history and children’s fantasy. Terry Gilliam’s entire career has been spent as an endearing fight against convention. Furthering this plight in Time Bandits is a principle cast comprised almost entirely of midgets.

p a n t i l e

Despite the fact that the film’s comedy inevitably hinders its philosophy, its thought

is nonetheless apparent. The world Gilliam constructs is one in which age or, more particularly,

maturation prohibits one’s ability to imagine. Much like blood, one’s imagination procures

creative and mental longevity. The midgets resemble children not only in their stature but

in their ability to idealise history — to make it fun.

For Monty Python, The Meaning of Life is a characteristic effort, as it bears the balance

of the sacred and profane, at once excessive and subtle qualities that distinguishes the body

of their work. Similarly characterising is Gilliam’s prologue: it runs ten minutes and in it’s

brief duration exhibits a bold, varied visual scale and resolute climactic action. This scene

possesses unavoidable limits in its length and relation to the film (from which it is

distinctly separate), yet it is an exemplar of Gilliam’s filmmaking tactics.

Article by Rumsey Taylor, sensesofcinema.com

w r i t e r s

Michael Palin Terry Gilliam

r e l e a s e d November 6, 1981

s t a r r i n g John Cleese

Sean Connery Ian Holm

Michael Palin Ralph Richardson

Peter Vaughan

p a n t i l e

if i were Creating the world, i wouldn’t mess aBout with Butterflies and daffodils. i would have started with lasers. eight o’CloCk. day one.

—evil, Time Bandits

s p o o l

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Brazil

s e n t i m e n t

typewriter.) As a gesture of

calamity exclusive to this envi-

ronment, explosions in Brazil

cause showers of paperwork in

their aftermath. They are show-

ers of celebratory confetti, announcing a scar in a system bound in red tape. It is not

necessary that Brazil’s setting resembles a natural one, though such resemblance

forwards the film’s allegorical relevance. A rendition of Orwellian dystopia with the

comic cynicism of Jacques Tati’s masterpiece Playtime (1967), Brazil is a parable of

corporate dominance; it depicts an environment strewn in propagandistic slogans and

is scored with the unending rhythm of typewriter keys. There is no natural horizon

in this location; for the matter, there is no hint (until a brief shot at the film’s end) of

an uninhibited, natural freedom

The film’s protagonist is a blue-collared everyman, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce).

He lives in an automated apartment with the activity and inefficiency of a Rube

Goldberg machine. His corporate setting, dressed in impersonal fluorescent lighting

and shades of grey, is similarly ascetic. As a counterbalance to his “natural” environ-

ment, Sam has dreams in which he is an armoured, winged hero. He glides and flips

through the sky, and protects a beautiful, angelic goddess. Sam’s dreams are in fantastic,

freed environments and become indistinguishable from his reality (a final conflict

Brazil

There is a crucial element of fantasy in Brazil (1985), although it occurs in ascetic, corporate environ-ments: busy, dark offices without an outside view, alleys paved in advertisements and flyers. Legal paperwork (receipts, warrants, order forms) must accompany every transaction and interaction; it is this overwhelming formality for documentation, in addition to the lack of reliability in technol-ogy that fosters the most caustic disruption in the most mundane error. (Brazil’s principle conflict ensues in result of a squashed bug that lands in a

p r o o f r e a d e r

seems to occur in both settings). It is a suggestion that the government is fascistically

contaminative, that even the freedom of dreams has been prohibited.

Peripheral characters are dressed identically in attire that clearly relays their social rank,

forwarding a notion of the individual’s lack of identity — in Sam’s second job, his name is

even replaced with a serial number. His mother is seen distinctly throughout, and in each

sequence is in a subsequent stage of a comprehensive plastic surgery (literally; in once

scene her face is held in saran wrap). By the film’s end she becomes a physical and

soulless replication, an attractive body (or, at least, she matches Sam’s perception of

beauty in resembling his fantasy girlfriend) and no soul. She is present at the funeral

of her own, withered flesh. Superficial material replaces the soul.

Although ironically comedic, Brazil is dense and ambiguous in its comedic intent.

Thusly, biographical references to Gilliam’s affiliation with Monty Python are falsely

suggestive in critiques of the film. Consider a late scene in which Sam is promoted to

Information Retrieval and enters his new office. It is as small as a closet, economically

paired with another so that a desk may be shared between the two. Sam arranges

his papers and office trinkets and lowers his eyebrows in question as his desk slides

slightly into the wall. He enters the adjacent office and distracts its tenant, leaving after

he nudges the desk back towards his space. The scene is a clever and comedic sight gag,

yet it is more useful (and less comedic) as a metaphor, either for Sam’s discomfort

or hierarchal competition.

w r i t e r s Terry Gilliam

Tom Stoppard Charles McKeon

r e l e a s e d December 18, 1985

s t a r r i n g Jonathan Pryce Robert DeNiro

Kim Greist

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there you are, your own numBer on your very own door. and Behind that door, your very own offiCe! welCome to the team, dz-015.

—mr. warrenn, Brazil

f r i e n d

The film is without debate Terry Gilliam’s most ambitious work, referenced keenly in

his prior efforts: Time Bandits includes a exploitative game show that tempts contestants

with elaborate and unnecessary home maintenance equipment; Gilliam’s prologue for

The Meaning of Life involves a mutiny against a consumerist corporation. It is a fascist

and oppressively stark vision (its criticism and recommendation are regularly discrete),

as known for its visual strength as it is for its Hollywood spawning.

Article by Rumsey Taylor, sensesofcinema.com

t r i u m p hy o g i

d e l i c a t e s s e n

The Baron finds an ally, a young

girl called Sally, who encourages

the Baron to imagine a method to

save the city—this involves the

Baron locating his four powerful

friends by flying to the moon and visiting war god Vulcan under a mountain (where

he encounters the pictured Cyclops). He is also swallowed by a large sea monster. The

Baron’s friends are Bertholdt, who can run faster than a bullet; Albrecht, who is very strong;

Adolphus, who can see for miles; and Gustavus who can blow faster than a thousand

winds. However, his friends have aged somewhat, and appear reluctant to go into battle.

Reunited with his friends, the Baron aims to save the city from the Sultan and his army.

But can this really be true?

Baron Karl Friedrich Hieronymous von Munchausen did actually exist in the eighteenth

century. Rudolph Raspe compiled a collection of his apochryphal stories in 1785, which

have enchanted children for generations. The stories were later illustrated by Gustave Dore.

Who lured Terry Gilliam into making Munchausen the movie? In 1979, George

Harrison showed Gilliam his collection of Munchausen stories, and later, Ray Cooper

gave Gilliam a book on the Baron and challenged the director to make a film of them.

On the completion of Brazil in the mid-eighties, Munchausen seemed like an

ideal project. It would be visually rich, and would have an appeal similar to the hugely

In the 19th century, a fortress is under siege from the Turkish Army. While the attack is going on, the town’s people are in the theatre, watching a play based on the life of notorious tall tale teller Baron Munchausen. The real Baron Munchausen arrives at the theatre and claims not only to have started the war, but also to be able to save the town from the siege. He encounters only mockery from an incredulous townsfolk who dismiss the Baron and his stories.

the adventures of Baron munChausen

s a n c t u m

w r i t e r s Terry Gilliam

Charles McKeown

r e l e a s e d March 10, 1989

s t a r r i n g John Neville

Eric Idle Uma Thurman

profitable Time Bandits. The more the idea was developed, the more it became apparent

that such a movie would in fact be the third part of a trilogy, starting with Time Bandits

(fantasist as child), Brazil (young man), and now Munchausen (old man).

Following a collaboration on Brazil, Gilliam developed Munchausen with Charles

McKeown. At the time, Arnon Milchan was interested in producing the movie. However,

the movie was produced by Thomas Schuhly, a German producer based at Rome

studio Cinecitta. According to Schuhly, Milchan was impressed that he had produced

The Name of the Rose under budget, and asked Schuhly if he would like to produce

Munchausen, with Milchan as executive producer. Gilliam loved the idea of making

Munchausen in Rome, and got on well with Schuhly when they met. At this time,

Milchan became less and less interested in Munchausen, and as a result, bowed

out. Schuhly took on the full role of producer. The script was developed and according

to Schuhly’s insistence, was budgeted at $25m. It was assumed that production costs

at Cinecitta would be far below that of London.

A deal was struck with Columbia, then with David Puttnam in charge, giving the

company distribution rights for most of the world. Columbia was to pay $25m, which

included video distribution rights too. Since Columbia would pay no more than this

amount, a completion guarantor was employed, to insure against the movie going over

budget. At this stage, Gilliam’s previous two films were Time Bandits and Brazil, and

Gilliam had a reputation, thanks in part to his modelling skills, for being able to deliver

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your reality sir, is lies and Balderdash, and i’m delighted to say that i have no grasP on it.

—the Baron, The Adentures of Baron Munchausen

s a s h a y

expensive looking films cheaply. It turned out that the agreed budget would prove to be

woefully inadequate. Gilliam was delighted to work in Italy, and Schuhly helped to get

an excellent crew for Terry. The Production Designer was Dante Ferretti, and the Director

of Photography was Giuseppe Rotunno, both of whom had worked with Fellini. Ferretti

compares Gilliam to Fellini, “Terry is very similar to Fellini in spirit. Fellini is a wilder liar,

but that’s the only difference! Terry isn’t a director so much as a film author. He is open to every

single idea and opportunity to make the end result work. Often the best ideas have come

out of something not working properly and coming up with a new concept as a result.

He is very elastic and that’s one quality in a director that I admire the most.” Richard

Conway, who had worked for Brazil, was responsible for special effects.

As in his previous movies, Gilliam used excellent character actors in Munchausen.

The role of the Baron was filled by John Neville—not very well known, but Gilliam felt he

would fit the role of the Baron far better than other established stars. Michael Hordern

was also considered in the early stages of development, but said to Gilliam, “Look Terry,

I’m 73—and I’d very much like to see 74!”. Bertholdt was played by Eric Idle, a fellow

ex-Python, who has worked with Gilliam over the years on many projects. Gilliam was

particularly pleased with Vulcan, played by Oliver Reed as a steel baron from Nineteenth

Century Lancashire. Reed recalled, “Munchausen was about the only time I’ve been allowed

p r o l i x

to do what I wanted with a part. You can be over-directed by people, but Terry let me have

my own way. [When rehearsing], Terry said, ‘You seemed to be having much more fun

with the character yesterday. Could you take it a bit further?’ I didn’t need to be told

twice! Once I realized I could get away with it, off I went!”

Article courtesy Phil Stubbshttp://www.smart.co.uk/dreams

twelve monkeys

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twelve monkeys

c a r a c u l

James Cole (Bruce Willis) is one

such volunteer who is particularly

good at retrieving information. As

a result, he soon finds himself being

sent back in time to find out how the

virus originated and who was responsible. Unfortunately, he goes back too far, arriving in 1990

and is promptly thrown into a rather nightmarish mental hospital. In there, he meets Jeffrey

Goines (Brad Pitt), a fellow inmate with a loopy sense of reality that feeds all sorts of

paranoid delusions of grandeur. Cole also encounters Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe),

a beautiful doctor who sympathizes with him and his plight.

As Cole travels back and forth in time he begins to realize that one of the most

important clues to the source of the deadly virus may lie in the rather enigmatic

underground organization known only as The Army of the 12 Monkeys. Soon, Railly and

Goines begin to play integral roles in Cole’s search as he consistently crosses paths

with them. But is this all taking place in Cole’s mind? Is he really humanity’s only hope

at averting a catastrophic disaster or is he just insane? From the first shot to the film’s

conclusion we are never quite sure of Cole’s sanity or lack thereof. It is just one of many

questions that the audience must think about not only during the film but long after it ends.

Twelve Monkeys is a film that constantly plays with, distorts, and manipulates time. The year is 2035. A deadly virus has wiped out almost all of humanity, leaving the survivors to take refuge deep underground. Only the occasional foray up to the surface in protective gear by a select group of “volunteers” offers any clues as to what went wrong.

twelve monkeys

n o n - f a t t e n i n g

The seeds of Twelve Monkeys lie in an obscure French New Wave film called La Jetee

(1962) made by Chris Marker. The film was composed entirely of black and white

photographs and set in Paris after World War III. It was an apocalyptic vision in reaction

to the threat of nuclear annihilation that became prominent in the 1950s and 1960s.

Writers David and Janet Peoples were approached by producer Robert Kosberg to do an

adaptation of La Jetee. The screenwriting couple wasn’t that keen on the idea, however.

“We couldn’t see the point. It’s a masterpiece and we didn’t see that there was anyway to

translate that masterpiece,” David remarked in an interview. And he was no slouch to

the art of screenwriting, having rewritten the screenplay for Blade Runner (1982) and penned

the brilliant Clint Eastwood film, Unforgiven (1992).

Kosberg got the Peoples to watch La Jetee again and the couple began to see possi-

bilities for a different, more detailed take on the material. “How would we react to people

who showed up and said ‘Oh I’ve just popped up from the future’ and in turn how would

that person deal with our reaction.” With this in mind, David and Janet set out to write a

challenging piece of fiction that not only manipulated our conventional views of time

but that also dealt with the notion of madness. Janet explained in an interview, “We were

very interested in asking questions like ‘Is this man mad? And how about the prophets

of the past, were they mad? Were they true prophets? Were they coming from another time?

What are all the different possibilities?’” The film’s script argues that certain people

who are classified insane by society at large may not really be crazy at all but are in actuality

wr i t e r s

Chris Marker David Peoples Janet Peoples

r e l e a s e d January 5, 2006

s t a r r i n g Bruce Willis

Brad Pitt Kathryn Railly

a n t a c i d

presenting ideas that are way ahead of our time. And perhaps the blame for this misun-

derstanding should be leveled at the psychiatric profession which, as one character in

the film observes, has become the new religion of a society that has deserted traditional

faith for modern technology.

After showing the finished screenplay to Marker and getting his blessing, the

Peoples were faced with the daunting task of finding someone who would not only click

with the material but also have the visual flair that the story needed. The couple figured

that the only director to handle such tricky subject matter was somebody like Ridley Scott

or Terry Gilliam. The theme of madness that plays such a prominent role in the script

fit right in with Gilliam’s preoccupations and so he seemed the natural choice to direct.

As luck would have it the filmmaker was between films and looking for work after

several years of seeing potential projects fall through for various reasons.

Gilliam was also eager to take a lot of Hollywood money (a $30 million budget)

and create a strange art film that would fly in the face of the traditional mainstream movie.

“The idea that someone’s writing a script like this in Hollywood and getting the studio to

pay for it was pretty extraordinary. So I thought let’s continue to see how much money

we can get the studio to spend.” Gilliam’s battles with Hollywood studios is the stuff

of legend — most notably his struggle with Universal over the release of Brazil (1984).

They wanted to revoke the director’s final cut privileges and insert a happier ending

instead of Gilliam’s decidedly downbeat ending. The director’s vision prevailed in the

n o b l e w o m a n

end, but the ordeal left him understandably wary of further studio involvement. He has

since reconciled somewhat with Hollywood by making The Fisher King (1991) which

turned out to be a surprise commercial and critical success.

The film is structured somewhat like an onion. On the surface, the audience knows

very little at the beginning, but gradually as it progresses and the layers are removed,

more and more of the mystery is revealed. However, this is not readily apparent after an

initial viewing. Only after subsequent screenings does the full impact and brilliance of

what Gilliam and his cast and crew have created sinks in. It is this great amount of care

and detail that has clearly gone into this film that makes Twelve Monkeys a truly

challenging, brilliant piece of filmmaking.

Article Courtesy J.D. LaFrance, http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams

“it’s one thing to get lost in your own madness, but to become lost in somebody else’s madness is weirder…”

—terry gill iam

c r u p p e r

i am esCaPing Certain unnamed realities that Plague my life here… are you also divergent, friend?

—J.l. washington, Twelve Monkeys

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s o u r p u s s

Actor Johnny Depp first met

Hunter S. Thompson in Aspen,

Colorado just before New Year’s

Eve, 1995. Depp left that initial

meeting wondering why Fear and

Loathing had not been made into a film. The actor subsequently invited Thompson to

do a one-night gig at Depp’s nightclub, The Viper Room on September 29, 1996 with

the intention of asking the writer about doing a film version of his book. The opportunity

never materialized but the two began corresponding via faxes.

Early one day, Thompson called Depp on the phone and asked him if he would

consider playing Raoul Duke if a film was ever made of Fear and Loathing. “Without

hesitation, I said, ‘You bet!’” Depp recalls. By the Spring of 1997, Depp had moved into

the basement of Owl Farm, Thompson’s home in Aspen in order to do proper research

for the role.

Depp was given complete access to every memento the writer saved from his 1971

trip to Las Vegas. The actor read through the writer’s notebooks (which included an

unpublished chapter entitled, “The Coconut Scene,” which Gilliam placed in the film)

only to realize that “the freakiest thing was that it was all real, that the reality was as

insane as the book.” He rummaged through Thompson’s wardrobe at the time: Hawaiian

shirts, a patchwork jacket, a safari hat, and a silver medallion given to him by Acosta.

Journalist Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his attor-ney, Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro), drive to Las Vegas to cover the 1971 Mint 400 motorcycle race for Sports Illustrated magazine. However, the race is merely an excuse for the duo to abuse their expense account and indulge in a galaxy of drugs. What was initially a simple journey to cover a motorcycle race mutates into a bizarre search for the American Dream.

fear and loathing in las vegas

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Thompson graciously allowed Depp to wear it all in the film. Thompson even let Depp

borrow the red shark: the giant fire engine red convertible that the author took to Vegas,

which was also used in the film.

All of these items only enhance Depp’s performance. In the film, he has literally

transformed into Duke/Thompson, complete with the man’s unusual bow-legged walk,

sweeping arm movements, mumbling speech pattern, and the trademark Dunhill cigarettes

in a holder between clenched teeth. It’s an incredible performance that transcends

simple mimicry.

Depp’s research culminated after a week when Thompson shaved almost all of the

actor’s hair for the film and entrusted him with the very car he used in the trip. The actor

soon became Thompson’s roadie and in charge of security for The Proud Highway (a

collection of Thompson’s letters) book tour.

Filmmaker Alex Cox was hired to direct the film on January 1997. Judging by his past

efforts, films like Repo Man (1983) and Straight to Hell (1987), Cox was no stranger to the

same kind of Gonzo sensibilities evident in Thompson’s books. However, Cox’s idea

of the film seemed to differ from everyone else involved. Johnny Depp remembers that “Alex

had some dream that he could make Thompson’s work better. He was wrong. He had this

idea about animation in the film.” Cox and his writing partner, Tod Davies, met Thompson

at his home and it was at this point that Cox expressed his desire to incorporate animation in

wr i t e r s

Hunter S. Thompson Terry Gilliam Tony Grisoni

Tad Davies Alex Cox

r e l e a s e d May 22, 1998

s t a r r i n g Johnny Depp

Benicio Del Toro Christina Ricci

the film. Thompson took offense to his book being reduced to a cartoon and promptly

kicked Cox and Davies out of his home.

After Cox was fired, the film’s producers approached Terry Gilliam’s agent. There

was an air of desperation because, as Patrick Cassavetti, one of the film’s producers, put

it, “the option on the book was about to expire. Johnny Depp had been waiting around

overlong and we had another project going that we had to launch in 1998.”

Terry Gilliam seemed like the perfect choice to direct this film. The theme of insanity

had always figured into his films but has since taken a more prominent role with his last

couple of projects. As a result, Fear and Loathing completes an informal trilogy based on

madness that includes The Fisher King (1991) and Twelve Monkeys (1995).

When Gilliam had first read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas back in 1971, he “immediately

identified with what Hunter was saying. I’d left the States to move here for the very same

reasons that Fear and Loathing was written -- that feeling the ideals of the ‘60s had died

and that it was all fucked. I was so angry I was going to start throwing bombs. So when I

read the book it was like, ‘Jesus! He’s got it! That’s exactly how the fuck I feel!’” Gilliam

enjoyed the book but didn’t think about it for years afterwards.

Ralph Steadman, who illustrated the book, was a good friend of Gilliam and began

to bug him over the years to do a film version of Fear and Loathing. In 1989, Gilliam

remembers a “script turned up which briefly got me excited about the book again, but

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I was busy with another project and I ultimately decided that the script didn’t capture

the story properly.”

However, in 1997, when Gilliam got the call from Laila Nabulsi, one of the film’s

producers, to direct, the time seemed to be right. Gilliam said in an interview, “she sent

me a script, and it reminded me of how funny and good the book was. I didn’t really care

for the script, but it inspired me to go back and read the book again.”

And so, Gilliam scrapped Cox and Tod Davies’ screenplay and had only ten days to

write another. Gilliam enlisted the help of Tony Grisoni (Queen of Hearts) and together

they hammered out a screenplay at Gilliam’s home in London, England in May of 1997. As Grisoni

remembers, “I’d sit at the keyboard, and we’d talk and talk and I’d keep typing.” Gilliam felt

that the structure of the film should be organized much in the same way as the book:

“We start out at full speed and it’s woooo! The drug kicks in and you’re on speed!

Whoah! You get the buzz—it’s crazy, it’s outrageous, the carpet’s moving and everybody’s

laughing and having a great time. But then, ever so slowly, the walls start closing in and it’s

like you’re never going to get out of this fucking place. It’s an ugly nightmare and there’s

no escape. And then they get out into the desert and it’s light again. But it’s a really

rough ride for a lot of people to climb inside that head.”

Gilliam also felt that the more surreal parts of the book could be transferred onto

film if done right. For example, the imaginary bats that Duke sees on the highway at

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“one toke? you Poor fool! wait till you see those goddamn Bats!”

—duke, Fear and Loating in Las Vegas

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the beginning of the book was one such passage the director felt could be translated into

visual terms.

“Right at the start I thought, ‘Well, we can’t show them in the sky, we can only show

them inside Duke’s eyeball. So in the film we push in really tight on one of his eyes,

where you can see these reflections of bats flapping around. We then cut to a wide shot

that shows Duke waving his arms at nothing. I wanted to some how convey that this was

an internal problem.”

From there, the pace never slackened as Gilliam and company shot Fear and Loathing

on location in a fast 56 days on a lean budget (by Hollywood standards) of $18.5 million.

“One of the reasons I made this film,” Gilliam remembers, “was to push myself and see if

I could still work the way I used to: fast, furiously and cheaply.”

Visually, Fear and Loathing is a masterpiece with a whacked out kaleidoscope of

colours and insanely inventive camera angles and perspectives that make you feel like

you’re actually on drugs. Each drug consumed by Duke and Dr. Gonzo had its cor-

responding cinematic look to simulate its effects on the characters’ perception. As the

film’s cinematographer, Nicola Pecorini points out, the effect of ether was done with

“loose depth of field; everything becomes non-defined,” while the effects of amyl nitrate

were done so that the “perception of light gets very uneven, light levels increase and

decrease during the shots.”

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Robert Yarber, an artist who paints pictures of people inside hotel rooms using fluorescent

colours, influenced the look of Fear and Loathing. As Gilliam remembers, “we used him

as a guide while mixing our palette of deeply disturbing fluorescent colors.” This is

evident in the scenes set in hotel rooms that each have their own garish Las Vegas decor

that Duke and Dr. Gonzo subsequently transform into a twisted disaster area.

Around the 3/4-way mark, Fear and Loathing veers off into some really dark territory

as the horror that accompanies chemical dependency rears its ugly head. I was worried

that this element would be lost in the transfer from book to film and that it was going

to be simply a “straight” comedy. Thankfully, the darker edge of the book has been retained and

reinforced in spades.

To say that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas received a mixed reaction from audiences

and critics alike is a gross understatement. Perhaps Terry Gilliam and Co. did too faithful

an adaptation and it’s a film that only really appeals to devotees of the book. Or, as Gilliam

suggests, people were scared off because they had to think about what they were watching,

“you’ve got to work out what it’s told you, and that’s not what America’s about. They want

their morality clear.”

Gilliam found that the American press refused to “even talk about Fear and Loathing.

They won’t say, ‘Ban the film’—they’re too liberal for that—so instead they seem to have

adopted this attitude of, Oh, maybe if we don’t talk about it, it’ll go away. That’s modern

America all over.” And judging by Fear and Loathing’s quick demise at the box office

m i s a n t h r o p e

and subsequent disappearance from theatres, this strategy worked. While most critics

praised Depp and Del Toro’s performance, most found Gilliam’s film to be a muddled

mess with no coherent structure: just one long debauched road trip.

Regardless of what the critics thought, Gilliam hoped that one person would at least

appreciate his efforts: Hunter S. Thompson. “Yeah, I liked it. It’s not my show, but I

appreciated it. Depp did a hell of a job. His narration is what really held the film together,

I think. If you hadn’t had that, it would have just been a series of wild scenes,” Thompson

remarked in an interview.

Gilliam remembers Hunter’s reaction to the film when he saw at the premiere:

“He was making all this fucking noise! Apparently it all came flooding back to him, he was

reliving the whole trip! He was yelling out and jumping on his seat like it was a rollercoaster,

ducking and diving, shouting “SHIT! LOOK OUT! GODDAM BATS!”

I think that this is indeed some kind of genius film, but in a really demented way

that I would have a hard time verbalizing to someone who didn’t tap into what Gilliam is

trying to do. I can see why Fear and Loathing received a critical shellacking from all the

usual pundits (Ebert et al.). It’s a very odd film—a 128-minute acid trip from beginning to end

with no respite, no rest stops, and no objective distance from which to view the whole insane

picture safely. You are plunged headlong into this weird, wild world along with the characters.

This is the kind of film that people will either really love or hate—there is no middle

ground. Gilliam’s film is going to be one of those movies that’s destined to become an

a 128 minute acid trip from beginning to end with no respite, no rest stops, and no objective distance from which to view the whole insane picture safely. you are plunged headlong into this weird, wild world along with the characters.

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instant cult item. As Hunter S. Thompson puts it in the book, “there he goes, one of

God’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind, never even considered for

mass production. Too weird to live, too rare to die.” Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is

pure Gonzo filmmaking for people who like weird, challenging films.

Article Courtesy J.D. LaFrance, http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams

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tide land

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seemed capable of doing to reach

the public. Too many films to

handle. No time to devote sufficient

energy, or the passion and imagina-

tion required to inspire the public

to take a chance on something different and demanding. They had other films that were

easier to sell. They had to deal with corporate changes. They probably had lives to lead.

So with only a week to go before the film opened in New York, and without a poster or

ad to be seen, I was encouraged by my daughter to take to the streets with a cardboard

sign reading “STUDIO-LESS FILM MAKER—FAMILY TO SUPPORT—WILL DIRECT FOR MONEY”

and a begging cup to draw people’s attention to the impending release of Tideland. Not

only did it work - we managed to get a large enough opening to generate a second and

third week in the cinema - but also I made $25. Welcome to the joys and pain of indepen-

dent film-making.

Tideland has turned out to be a very divisive film. People love or loathe it. Perhaps

“love” is the wrong word, but the film does touch nerve endings that are not too often

reached in the dark of today’s cinema. We didn’t set out to reach everybody, but we

wanted to give encouragement to people with open minds and imaginations in need

of support that they are not alone… or weird.

For most of you, this will be your first opportunity to see Tideland. It popped in and out of the major cities faster than you could pull your socks on, cinch up your belt, find the keys to the car and, once near the cinema, fail to find a parking space.

It seems that without the blessings of sufficient numbers of mainstream critics, there wasn’t much the American distributor, THINKFILM,

tideland

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For me it was a kind of litmus paper test of our current society. Are people able to

think for themselves or are they so overwhelmed by buzz words, manufactured fears,

sensationalized reality that they have lost touch with life? Can they see beyond the sur-

face? Is a child preparing heroin for her father a child abused… or a loving daughter? Does

a child have to wail and weep at the loss of a parent to feel her loss? Is the perceived

vulnerability of a child merely a projection of our own fears?

Those that look beyond the surface find the film very tender and truthful…and

strangely wonderful. Even those uncertain about the film find it stays with them for days

after seeing it. I encourage people to watch it twice. I can guarantee it will be a different

experience each time.

Despite the fact that the film received six nomination for the Canadian “Genies”,

won the Fipresci Prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival, ended up on a surprising

number of Best of 2006 lists, was acclaimed a “masterpiece” by Harry Knowles of

aintitcool.com (and Jodelle Ferland has just received another nomination… this time

for a Saturn Award), it was nowhere to be found amongst the films up for nominations

for this year’s Oscars. You might ask why? Well, it’s back to our good friends at THINKFILM

where it seems there was a teensy-weensy “oversight” on their part. As I wrote them,

“when I opened the envelope containing the Academy Award ballot papers and sat down

wr i t e r s

Tony Grisoni Terry Gilliam

r e l e a s e d March 30, 2006

s t a r r i n g Jodelle Ferland

Jeff Bridges

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w r i t h e

—Jaleeza rose, Tideland

squirrel Butts don’t glow.

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to nominate the Best Picture and Best Director I discovered that Tideland was nowhere

to be seen in the list of qualifying films. It saved me from the always painfully embarrass-

ing decision of whether or not to vote for myself. Many thanks and keep up the good

work.”All said and told, it's a good place to be in.

Perhaps it’s time to give up independent film making and become dependent again.

Article by Terry Gilliam, http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams

wa t e r p a r k

p a r t i t i o n

Salman Rushdie interviews Gilliam

In the following pages, the notable author interviews the intrepid director.

4

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At the 2002 Telluride Film Festival I was asked if I’d take part in a public conversation with Terry Gilliam. I have known Terry a little bit for a long time and admired his work much more than a little bit for an even longer time; so I agreed delightedly to the festival organizers’ request. This was in the aftermath of the catastrophic collapse of Gilliam’s long-cherished The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, scuppered by bad weather and the ill health of the leading actor, Jean Rochefort. Lost in La Mancha, a remarkable fly-on-the-wall documentary detailing the calamity, was screened at the Telluride Festival. What struck me when I saw the documentary was the extraordinary openness and honesty with which Gilliam had allowed the filmmakers free access, enabling them to chronicle what must have been a dreadful time for him. I loved movies as a kid. I grew up in a movie town: Bombay, which makes more movies each year than Hollywood. It makes cheap

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Terry Gilliam movies. Very cheap. You grow up with a kind of fantasy of cinema all around you if you grow up in a town like Bombay. The movies are on every street corner. And people in my family were in the movies, and so on. Also, our generation was a movie generation. When I was growing up in India, there was no television. There simply was not a TV service. So we read books and went to the pictures. And then I came to England and boarding school and went to university, and it was totally impossible to watch television. Movies educated me, and so I feel I’m a creature of the cinema and grateful to the great filmmakers of our time who taught me as much as any novelist did. And so we get to Terry who certainly is, I think, one of the few really spectacular, original talents in the cinema nowadays.

—Salman Rushdie

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SALMAN RUSHDIE: Years ago I wrote an essay about

Brazil. It was called “The Location of Brazil”—and

what it suggested was that clearly Brazil was not

in South America. The Brazil in the movie is more

obviously located in a song, you know, than in a

place. It’s in song-Brazil rather than anywhere else.

And so this got me thinking. What is the relation-

ship of the imagined world to the real world? How

do you get there from here? What is the road to

Wonderland? Where is the Yellow Brick Road?

How do you get to Brazil—and back again? So I

thought I might just start, Terry, by asking you

that. When you were making a film like Brazil,

which is clearly another version of the world, where

did you feel the connection with the world that we

actually are stuck in?

TERRY GILLIAM: I actually preceded Brazil doing

the Python things, Life of Brian, etc. Comedy

seemed to play better—especially political comedy,

or things that we were trying to say that would

bother a lot of people—if we could place them in a

slightly different world. It would be funny if we put

on funny costumes and said the lines rather than

just looking like this. [Gestures toward himself and

audience.]

I never wanted to make naturalistic films. I’ve

always liked the idea that film is an artifice, and

that this is admitted right from the start. So we

create a world that isn’t true to a realistic natural-

istic world, but is truthful…that is the main thing.

I think it also comes from being a cartoonist. I’ve

always abstracted. Cartoons always push toward

the grotesque. You twist, you bend, you shape.

Brazil is that way. Brazil came specifically from

the time, from the approaching of 1984. It was

looming. In fact, the original title of Brazil was

1984 1/2. Fellini was one of my great gods and it

was 1984, so let’s put them together. Unfortunately,

that bastard Michael Radford did a version of 1984

and he called it 1984, so I was blown. And so Brazil

n o n d e s c r i p t

became the title—because of the song. Brazil started

when I was sitting out on a beach in Wales—Port

Talbot, which is a steel town. They bring the coal

in from the ships on these great conveyor belts. So

the beach is pitch black. It’s covered with coal dust.

It was a miserable, awful day, and I just had this

image of some lonely guy sitting on that beach and

tuning in a radio and suddenly [Hums the tune to

“Brazil”] this music he’s never heard before—there

was no music like that in his world—was there.

And that would trigger him to believe there is

another world out there, a better world. And that

was America in the Forties. We were always going

south to Rio, and I grew up in that dream time. And

it seems like the dream world was somewhere in

South America, where everything would be perfect.

At the time Brazil was gestating, governments were

getting really interesting, especially in Germany

where the left-wing urban terrorists like the Baader

Meinhof were in action. The academics had to sign

loyalty oaths and it was a very repressive time there.

It was happening everywhere. In South America I

was reading of cases where people would have to

pay for their incarceration in jail. They paid. You

know, why should the state pay for putting these

people up in these nice places?

I saw an article that Terry Jones had in a book

about witchcraft. Private practices with loved ones.

And there was a seventeenth century sheet—a cost

sheet. If you were arrested and thought to be a

witch, and if you were indeed convicted, you had to

pay for everything along the way. You had to pay

for your food, for the incarceration. You had to pay

for the piles of fagots that were used to burn you.

Everything. You had to pay for a party for the court

that found you guilty. This is extraordinary. The

economics of a repressive regime.

s p e l l b o u n d

One of the great things about the witch hunts in

England, particularly Oliver Cromwell’s witch hunt

in the seventeenth century, was the test they had for

a witch. The test was to weigh suspected witches

down with stones and throw them into a river. And

if they drowned, they were innocent.

Good for everybody else. They can sleep.

One of the early examples of the double bind.

Yeah. [Pause] At the heart of Brazil is a man who

has a privileged background, who is educated,

who isn’t taking responsibility for the world he is a

part of. He is a cog in it, thinks he can do nothing

better. To me, the heart of Brazil is responsibility,

is involvement—you can’t just let the world go on

doing what it’s doing without getting involved. And

of course what he does is he falls in love so he falls

vulnerable, and his whole world starts falling apart.

Never fall in love.

That’s good advice. There were also some issues

with the final version of that film. There was quite a

battle about the cut. Do you want to say something

about how that went?

Well the advantage of being in Monty Python

was that we got away with murder and there was

nobody telling us what we could or couldn’t do. We

just did it. And time after time it was successful

So you build a certain amount of confidence, and

a little bit of arrogance. So when it comes along to

making a film and you’ve spent a couple or several

years on it, it seems to me I have the right to make

my mistakes, and not somebody else’s mistakes. At

the end of the day, the film was released in Europe

with no problem with Twentieth Century Fox, but

with Universal in America it was different. The

great wonderful thing about Universal is it’s housed

in a black tower that looks like the monoliths in

Brazil; it’s not intentional, it just happens to be

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one of the little coincidences that keep occurring

around Brazil.

But anyway, [the people at Universal] were

appalled by the film. They thought it didn’t work.

They wanted me to change the ending, give it a

happy ending, because more people would see the

film and like the film and it would be better for

everybody. I said no, and then they embargoed the

film and they started cutting it. I decided to wage

a campaign and I said to the producer, “Lawyers

are no good—[Universal’s] got all the lawyers in the

world, they’ve got all the time in the world, and they

don’t have to release the film, so let’s go public and

personal.” And that’s what I did. I took out an ad in

Variety, a full-page ad, with little black strips around

the edges like Italian death notices. The very

middle of this big blank page—you know Variety’s

covered with just zeroes, really is all it seems to be:

“Ten million dollars in the first two seconds” And

then there’s the second page with the neat border

and in the middle in neat typing, “Dear Mr. Sid

Steinberg [the head of Universal], When are

you going to release my film, Brazil? Signed

Terry Gilliam.”

It seemed pretty straightforward, but you don’t

do that in Hollywood, and the whole place went

bloing! It was extraordinary. And there was a man

named Jack Matthews who was a journalist for the

LA Times, and he ran with this thing. He basically

kept a dialogue between me and Sid Steinberg

going, even though Sid and I weren’t speaking. He

would come to me and ask me to say something

and then he’d go to Sid and say, “Terry said this,”

and then Sid would react in a stupid way. Because

Sid really believed that if this were allowed to sneak

through—this kind of expression, artistic expres-

sion and directors getting away with murder—that

the whole thing would be over. Hollywood would

collapse. I think he actually believed it. And this

dialogue went on and on. We offered any legitimate

“i became terrified that i was going to be a full-time, bomb-throwing terrorist if i stayed [in the u.s.] because it was the beginning of really bad times in america.

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journalist interested to be flown to London, or

wherever it was showing in Europe, or we could

bus them down to Tijuana, where we would show it.

And what finally happened was we started a series

of clandestine screenings hosted by L.A. critics

and their friends because there was this embargo

saying we could not show that film anywhere in

America—ever. And at the same time Universal is

beavering away doing their version of the film.

And the L.A. critics—eventually I think about

seventy five percent of them saw it—when it came

time to vote for films of the year they discovered

in their bylaws that the film didn’t actually have

to be released—it could still qualify. And so on

the night of Universal’s biggest film of the year,

Out of Africa, premiering in New York—Redford,

everybody’s there in their tuxes—the L.A. critics

announced their winners. Best film: Brazil. Best

screenplay: Brazil. Best director: Brazil. They

[Universal] were in such a flap—they immediately

released it in New York and Los Angeles, and

they had no posters. They had nothing—they had

a Xeroxed copy of the artwork they were going to

eventually make a poster of. That’s all they had.

And it did proceed to do the most business per

theater of any film at that time.

Well it’s a great story about the power

of advertising.

Well the great thing, the irony, was before I left

America, in ’67, the last job I had was in an advertis-

ing agency doing ads for Universal Pictures.

There is an untold story, both about writers and

filmmakers, which is that so many of us started in

advertising. I started in advertising. So did Don

DeLillo. Joseph Heller. When I was working in

advertising in the 1970s, the commercials’ filmmak-

ers were Nicolas Roeg, Alan Parker, Hugh Hudson,

Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Adrian Lyne. I mean, I

made a haircare commercial with Nic Roeg.

r y e

Did you ever buy the product?

It was Clairol’s Loving Care. It was for keeping

the gray out. I didn’t have any gray hair back

then. Anyway, whenever anyone asks me what the

influence of advertising was on my work I say,

“Nothing.” Wouldn’t you say that?

Oh God, I wish I could. I wish I was that pure.

Apart from being good for the bank balance. When

I was writing Midnight’s Children, I used to work

two days a week at an ad agency and five days a

week writing my book, and I thought of it, kind of,

as industrial sponsorship.

It was that. That’s what actually happens. Every few

years when it’s been another five years that have

passed and I haven’t made a film and the depres-

sion starts taking over totally, I allow myself to do

a commercial. And then I feel really dirty and get

to work promptly.

I used to work Thursdays to Fridays, and then

I’d come home Friday night and have a really

long bath. Kind of wash it off. And then wake up

Saturday morning and be a writer.

But it leads me to another question, which is,

you said you came to England in the mid-Sixties.

What did you do in England? Someone said to

me yesterday, after they met you, that it was the

first time they realized that you weren’t English,

that you were in fact American. I guess because of

Python and all that. What do you think took you to

England and why do you think you got stuck there?

Well I know why. I mean, I became terrified that I

was going to be a full-time, bomb-throwing terror-

ist if I stayed [in the U.S.] because it was the begin-

ning of really bad times in America. It was ’66-’67, it

was the first police riot in Los Angeles. I happened

to be with my girlfriend who was a reporter for the

London Evening Standard. We went by on the way

to a party to check out the police riot, and it was

ugly beyond belief. In college my major was politi-

cal science, so my brain worked that way. And also

in L.A. at that time I had long hair.

Oh yes.

Ugh, a foolish, foolish thing. And I drove around

this little English Hillman Minx—top down—and

every night I’d be hauled over by the cops. Up

against the wall, and all this stuff. They had this

monologue with me; it was never a dialogue. It was

that I was a long-haired drug addict living off some

rich guy’s foolish daughter. And I said, “No, I work

in advertising. I make twice as much as you do.”

Which is a stupid thing to say to a cop.

[Laughs.]

And it was like an epiphany. I suddenly felt what

it was like to be a black or Mexican kid living in

L.A. Before that, I thought I knew what the world

was like, I thought I knew what poor people were,

and then suddenly it all changed because of that

simple thing of being brutalized by cops. And I

got more and more angry and I just felt, I’ve got to

get out of here—I’m a better cartoonist than I am a

m o n o l o g u e

bomb maker. That’s why so much of the U.S. is still

standing.

Were you of draftable age?

I served my country, Salman, in the armed forces. I

was honorably discharged.

Oh.

By doing one of the most dishonorable things

imaginable. I was in the National Guard, and when

I went to England I was working on a magazine

called Help with Harvey Kurtzman, who was the

great icon of all cartoonists in the late Fifties and

Sixties; he created MAD comics. Bob Crumb,

Gilbert Shelton, all these guys were working on the

magazine. And the magazine folded and I was fed

up with New York and I wanted to go to Europe to

hitchhike around—which I did. But to help me ease

my way out of the National Guard, on the last bits

of note-headed paper of Help, I wrote that I was

“But with storytelling, we do suspend our disbelief, and we go with it. as long as it ’s truthful, as long as it ’s based on truthful things, we can go anywhere.”

s c u b at u b a

being transferred to the European branch of Help

Magazine. The magazine had now finished, but we

had paper, so I went off to the non-existent branch.

The National Guard then posted me to a con-

trol group in Germany, where I’d have to report

every so often. I ended up in Greece on the Isle

of Rhodes, where a former roommate was living.

And we then wrote saying they’d transferred me

to the Rhodes office of Help Magazine. A long way

away from Germany and everything else. And then

I came back to the States. And we had this long

correspondence where the army would send—from

St. Louis, Missouri—they would send to Germany

whatever they wanted to tell me, which would then

be sent to Rhodes, which would then be sent to the

States, where I was. And I would reply, and put it

in an envelope, and send it to my friend who would

then post it with a Greek stamp.

t r i u m p h

m y o p i c

And this went around for several years. And then

the war was heating up and they closed down all

the control groups in Europe, and everyone had to

come back to the States. And I was not going to

do it. I was seriously going to give up my U.S. citi-

zenship. But I luckily got a lawyer. We then went

around to all the magazines and television stations

I was working for in London, and they all wrote let-

ters saying that were I to leave their employ, their

organization would collapse. And I think out of all

the guys who were coming back to the states out

of the control groups, I was one of six who got an

honorable discharge. By lying, cheating, and behav-

ing in the best American traditions—certainly of

corporate leadership. I could have been the man

at Enron.

So that’s two things America escaped: the bombs

and Enron. And now, are you more comfortable

based in England? Or do you spend more time

here now?

I live in London full time. I can’t say I love England,

but I’m less unhappy there than other places. It’s

partly being a reasonably well-educated, reason-

ably intelligent American. I think there’s such a

responsibility in being part of the richest, most

powerful country on earth. I wanted to have a dif-

ferent perspective, the perspective you’re allowed

to see from where you are.

Yeah.

It’s very important. And so all my films are really

about America in many ways. I used to say my

films were messages in bottles for America,

because I just think I need that different perspec-

tive. [To audience] I think all of you do, frankly.

There was a time when I had hair, too. And about

the time you came to Europe, I made my first visit

to America. Actually, on an advertising gig. I was

being asked to write travel advertising, encourag-

ing people to take their vacations in the United

States. But I had never been in the United States.

So the American government, I guess under Nixon,

kindly sent me on a free trip around America to

have a vacation so I could go home and write about

having one. I arrived in San Francisco with long

hair, no beard, but a Zapata mustache—remember

those? I mean, that’s how long ago it was. And

there was a sign in the immigration office saying

[mimics flat American accent] “A few extra min-

utes in customs is a small price to pay to save your

children from the menace of drugs.”

g u m p t i o n

We’re standing in line, and in front of me there’s

this kind of classic, American redneck guy with a

very red neck about this wide. [Holds out hands

almost a foot apart.] He turned around to me, and

with a complete change of heart, he said, “Buddy, I

sure feel sorry for you.” And he was right. I mean,

I got taken to pieces. I got strip searched, I got

everything. And I arrived in America, you know,

for the first time, trembling. There was this tiny

lady standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus,

and she saw that I was trembling. She said, “What’s

the matter, dear?” and it kind of all poured out.

And—this was the other side of America—she did

this amazing thing, she apologized on behalf of

the United States. She put her hands in the elocu-

tion position. [Holds out hands in front of chest,

fingers interlocking, pinkie to thumb.] She looked

like Grandma Clampett, this tiny old lady. And she

made a formal apology on behalf of the American

people. And it fixed it, you know. Then it was all

right. Then I could go and enjoy America.

Well you’re right. That’s the great thing about

America: American people.

Yeah, they’ll do that. First they’ll search your

rectum, and then they’ll apologize for it.

[Both laugh for almost a full minute.]

Back to the cinema. All right, another question. I

wanted to ask you something about science fiction.

Until Star Wars, science fiction/fantasy films, there

were always two views about them. One was that

they were always very, very cheap.

Yeah.

And you could see the furniture move. When

the rocket door slammed, the rocket shook. And

secondly, the truism was that they were never com-

mercially successful. They were these little shoddy

h i p

“it ’s about expanding how you see the world. i think we live in an age where we’re just hammered, hammered to think this is what the world is. television’s saying, everything’s saying ‘that’s the world.’ and it ’s not the world. the world is a mill ion possible things.”

g l o w w o r m

C or D movies. Then along comes George Lucas

and Terminator and Spielberg and all that, and now

really probably the biggest commercial sector of

the cinema is fantasy/science fiction movies. Now,

first of all I wonder if you have any view on that

huge shift of weight, and then if you could lead

into 12 Monkeys, which is your take on that sort of

science fiction film.

I always grew up liking science fiction films. I never

liked the wobbly ones. But I loved the ones like War

of the Worlds that were technically well done. And

I liked all the bug films as well … the ant and spider

ones. So there were quality ones and then there

were crap ones like Ed Wood’s films. You know, he

was inspired but incredibly untalented. That was

a problem. When 2001 came around, that was the

moment I felt sci-fi was at its finest, because it was

intelligent, and it seemed to be grounded. It wasn’t

fantasy, but it was so wild and extreme, it was like

fantasy, and that intrigued me. And then George

came along and took all the stuff before 2001 and

put it together in one film and made it really glossy,

and off we went. The world changed. We reverted.

But, unlike Star Wars, a lot of the earlier films raised

questions.

Well, science fiction is always a vehicle for ideas.

It’s the form which allows either movies or books to

be an exploration of how we should live.

Exactly. Again, it’s like going back to the ques-

tion of Where is Brazil? In sci-fi movies, you move

beyond the real world so you can abstract it and

then comment upon it. Philip K. Dick was always

my favorite sci-fi writer because it wasn’t so much

about sci-fi as about the human condition.

Yes, do you remember the original title of Blade

Runner—which asks an intellectual question?

s c u b a

But that’s the ProBlem with films we’re seeing now: they give you all the answers, they Plug in all the holes, they don’t make you…

—terry gilliam

t r i u m p h

h i t c h

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I mean, it’s

the difference between 2001 and Close Encounters.

2001 ends with a question. You’re not sure what is

going on. There’s been this strange room experi-

ence, and then the baby. You kind of feel there’s

a rebirth, a new beginning, but you don’t know

what it is.

Close Encounters ends with an answer. And it’s…

little kids in latex suits that come out and go like

that. [Flaps hands.] There’s a moment in Close

Encounters before the kids in latex suits come out

with the wrinkles on their wrists. When the door

first opens, this blinding light comes out and this

strange preying mantis figure rises. I would just

cut to black at that point and [Gasps.] leave the

audience with a gasp. [Gasps again.] And then your

brain has to start working and fill in the gaps.

But that’s the problem with films we’re seeing now:

they give you all the answers, they plug in all the

holes, they don’t make you…

Well, I thought that when…did you see the Kubrick-

Spielberg Artificial Intelligence, AI?

Oh God. [Whispers.] What was that?

[Laughs.]

Mr. Articulate speaks.

Well, you answered the question. There’s a moment

in that film about thirty-five minutes before the

end when the little robot kid decides the world is

not worth living in and dives off the building. Now,

if the film had ended there, it would have been a

lot better—a lot better. And you can’t help feeling

that if Kubrick rather than Spielberg had directed

the film, that would have been the Kubrick ending.

But then there’s half an hour of Spielberg feel-good

crap. Blue fairies.

a c h e

The truth is the successful films aren’t asking

questions, they’re not making you think, they’re not

asking you to consider. I think what the people in

Hollywood think when they look out at the great

American public, they think a sign should say, “Do

not disturb.” Entertain them. Fill them up with

pablum. Hollywood realizes that baby food is easier

to chew than big filet mignons and they make a lot

more money. It seems to be working. That’s what

depresses me.

So much of this fantasy film material now is about

war. It’s about unleashing large machinery against

other pieces of large machinery. It’s not about

people, it’s not about peace. And one of the things I

thought about E.T. for example—which is interest-

ing, and which relates to a wonderful science fiction

film, The Man Who Fell to Earth—is that the alien

is vulnerable. Instead of the alien being something

there’s a moment in Close encounters before the kids in latex suits come out with the wrinkles on their wrists. when the door first opens, this blinding light comes out and this strange preying mantis figure rises. i would just cut to black at that point and [gasps.] leave the audience with a gasp.

c u l p r i t

to be scared of, the alien’s scared of us, and is easily

damaged. I think that makes E.T. kind of different.

No, you’re right.

And made The Man Who Fell to Earth very different.

My problem with E.T., and I think it would be a

better film, are those big Walter Keane moonstone

eyes, because you immediately love that little crea-

ture. There’s a moment in the film when they’re dis-

secting the frogs and they do a close-up of the frogs

with those alien slit eyes. Now if E.T. had those eyes,

then he’s a really grotesque ugly thing and the kid

has to learn to love a grotesque ugly thing. It’s easy

to love E.T. It should have been difficult to love E.T.

As a cartoonist, and animator, what does it feel like

to watch animation secretly taking over the cinema,

but not being admitted as being animated? You go

and see a film like The Perfect Storm, for instance.

Yes.

And seventy-five percent of it is animated. All that

ocean. All of that, that’s a cartoon.

It’s very impressive, but it doesn’t resonate. I

think somehow, subconsciously we can see it

even if we can’t see it. I remember with Jurassic

Park when the first tyrannosaurus rampaged

around. It was incredible. How quickly we got to

realize it was fake when we saw II and III. By III,

I think it’s even more fabulous the things that

are going on, but you kind of don’t believe them

anymore. It’s totally subconscious.

I think Lord of the Rings was interesting because

they use a lot more models. So you have physical

things that react to the physical world. And it’s

always surprising what happens when you do that.

The behavior of real physical interactions is much

more unpredictable than computer-generated

when they came into contact with the steam/dry ice clouds, they would move the clouds in swirls that were just magic, which you could never animate. you would never have that many odd things happen.

p r o n u n c i a t i o n

action , and we seem to empathize with it subcon-

ciously. When we were doing Brazil—for the flying

sequences in Brazil we used a model of Sam in this

flying gear. That tall wing span, about like that.

[With hands he shows a figure about one foot by

one foot large.] He had a little motor in his chest

and he was on wires that went up to a battery pack,

which was then on a track that ran across. We

built these layers of first painted background, and

then we had kapok—this stuff you use in furniture,

this kind of cottony stuff—with which we covered

chicken wire frames, making big cumulus clouds.

In front of that, we had tanks with steam pumping

up through dry ice. So you have real elements there.

And then we would run the model through this. We

had to shoot this at four or five times normal speed.

So we’d get the lights going, get everything going,

and we’d wind up the model and it’d go [Mimics

model going berserk and crashing]. Boom. Shit.

And it was like, Did you get it? Did you get it? Let’s

do another one.

And it wasn’t till the next day that we’d know if we’d

gotten a shot. What was wonderful the next day was

the wings did now slow down [demonstrates wings

flapping slowly]. When they came into contact

with the steam/dry ice clouds, they would move the

clouds in swirls that were just magic, which you

could never animate. You would never have that

many odd things happen.

You know, hearing you talk, it’s exactly how when

I started out wanting to write, it seemed to me that

one of the things that everybody knows about sto-

ries is that they’re not true. That’s why it’s called a

novel. It’s in the fiction part of the shop. So it seems

to me that, Okay, let’s not behave as if it necessarily

is true. I mean, horses don’t fly.

Your Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Fantastic.

t a s t e

Well, you know, there was a time when I wanted you

to direct it.

I know. I was in my own little world.

I thought, you know, I don’t blame him.

But with storytelling, we do suspend our disbelief,

and we go with it. As long as it’s truthful, as long as

it’s based on truthful things, we can go anywhere.

Well, it’s exactly that. It’s the difference between

what is naturalistic and what is truth. And in a way

fiction—movies, books, whatever—allows you to get

to certain truths which you can’t get to so easily by

naturalistic fiction. I mean, the world is not a natu-

ralistic place. Buildings may fall down. The world is

not like kitchen-sink drama; the world is this weird,

operatic place.

Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy,

a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism,

whoever invented it—I do actually like it because it

says certain things. It’s about expanding how you

see the world. I think we live in an age where we’re

just hammered, hammered to think this is what the

world is. Television’s saying, everything’s saying

“That’s the world.” And it’s not the world. The world

is a million possible things.

And the world is about the way in which our dreams

intersect with our real life. Endlessly, the world of

the imagination changes the world.

But the dreams that are being offered are just

whiter teeth, or thicker toilet paper. Things like

that. [Mimics TV voice] Dream of three-ply toilet

paper. After a real bout of diarrhea… But these are

the dreams that are being offered up to us. It’s

appalling. I just feel it’s compressing and compress-

ing. And then when you see sci-fi films they’re not

really doing it. They’re not taking you to a place

where you can really stretch your world. And I think

that’s one of the big problems with Hollywood

t r i u m p h

m e t r o n o m e

dominating the world as far as cinema—it’s slowly

squishing it down everywhere. Except living out-

side the States, it’s easier to rebel against.

It used to be easier. It’s not easy anymore. I think

the reason for that incredible flowering of the

movies between the late Fifties and the mid-Sev-

enties was because or that brief period Hollywood

lost control of world cinema and as a result you

get the French New Wave, you get Fellini, Visconti,

Antonioni, Bergman, Wajda, Kurosawa, etc., etc.

and then Hollywood put the lid back on it.

I think what we should do is just close down all

the television stations and just have radio again.

Because I grew up with radio…

I grew up with radio.

I think radio gave me all my visual skills. Which is

an extraordinary thing—because you have to invent

it, it’s not there. The sound effects are there, the

voices are there, and you’ve got to invent the cos-

tumes, the faces, the sets. It’s the most incredible

exercise for visual imagination.

When Douglas Adams invented The Hitchhiker’s

Guide to the Galaxy, it was invented as a radio

program, and you know, planet Earth is destroyed

to make room for a an inter-stellar bypass in the

first minute. You just go, whoom. No more earth.

This would cost $70 million.

What’s interesting about Hitchhiker’s Guide

is Doug spent his dying day trying to make it

into a film. They made it into a television series,

which I thought very disappointing because the

visuals weren’t as good as you could imagine

from the radio.

Yeah, a man with two heads is not as impressive if

one of the heads is just made with papier-mâché

sitting on the shoulder. Well, I want to come back

to 12 Monkeys. Do you want to say anything about

its relationship to the Chris Marker movie?

It was purely that Dave and Jan Peoples were

asked—the producer and director company had

actually bought the rights to Chris Marker’s La

Jetée. They showed it to Dave and Jan, and they

were like, Well, it’s fantastic, we don’t want to make

a copy of this. We want to maybe be inspired by

it. We want to take it and go off and leap off this

thing. They talked to Chris, and he felt the same

way. It was a blown-up version of the same thing.

And so it was really inspired by it. In fact, it took

us months to get the Writers’ Guild of America to

agree on a new word in the credits—“inspired by”

as opposed to “based upon.” “Inspired by” was the

accurate description of what went on. I purposely

didn’t see La Jetée until the Paris premiere of 12

Monkeys. It was on as the opening short.

Had you never seen it?

No, and I didn’t want to.

No, I mean in the past you’d never seen it?

No, because I knew I’d be accused of ripping it off.

It was the same with 1984 and Brazil. I didn’t read

the book until after. So the film—David and Jan,

p r o p o r t i o n

who are great writers, took it and went with it. La

Jetée is kind of this perfect thing, this tight—like an

acorn—and 12 Monkeys is kind of the oak that grew

out of it after a lot of shit was dumped on it.

I wanted to ask you about Lost in La Mancha,

which a few people have seen here. I wanted to

ask you two things. One is, instead of, you know,

talking about not making a movie, one was, What

was the appeal of Don Quixote? And the other was,

Why did you not want to make Don Quixote itself,

but this variant story of Don Quixote?

Wow. Well, partly because all of the great novelists

of the world just decided recently that the greatest

book ever written was Don Quixote.

That’s right.

I guessed that before you guys voted.

We got terribly trashed for voting it.

Are you serious?

Oh yeah. This list came out—[To audience] I don’t

know if you saw this—for which writers around

the world were asked to… In fact, what happened

was slightly fake. We were asked to choose our

ten favorite books, without ranking. Just our ten

favorite books. And then that was all fed into a

computer. Anyway, Don Quixote came up most,

so it was declared the greatest work of art of all

time, you know. And Hamlet the second. And a

lot of people got very angry. Because you talk to

people in Spain about how you love Don Quixote,

and they say, “That?” Because they’ve all been

given it to read at school and they detest it, as you

would if you were given King Lear to read when

you were fourteen.

I, like most people, had a vague idea of what

Quixote was, and it was the idea that Peter

O’Toole singing “Dream the Impossible Dream”

p a r a l l e l

inspires a man to move forward. I called one

day—this was twelve years ago—I called Jake

Eberts, who was the executive producer on [The

Adventures of Baron] Munchausen, and I said,

“Jake, I’ve got two names for you and they’re each

worth a million dollars. One’s Gilliam, the other’s

Quixote. And he said, “Done.” And so we set off.

And then I sat down and read the book, because I

hadn’t read the book like most people haven’t read

the book. And it’s a big thick…

It’s nine hundred pages.

And I had the nineteenth century Gustave Doré

illustrated edition. [Mimes heaving each page as

he turns them over.] And it took me weeks to get

through this fucking thing. We sat down, Charles

McKeown and I, and tried to write a script of it. And

you can’t. It’s too vast. It’s so extraordinary, and

it’s so wondrous. And we tried. We beat the thing

to death and, ultimately, I wasn’t satisfied. Also

the money didn’t come through. And so in the last

moments before it all collapsed the first time—

because what the film [Lost in La Mancha] doesn’t

quite show is they say it’s the second time. What

you see on screen is the third time—but anyway, I

was working on A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, so I

came up with this thought that why not steal this

idea of the modern man and push him back into the

seventeenth century. Because all along I thought

most most modern audiences don’t know who

Quixote is, and how do you distinguish between

a man who wears funny armor in the seventeenth

century and the guy wearing good armor because

he’s dreaming about an age a hundred years before?

And so [I decided] a modern man would become

our guide. He would be us, and he would go into

this world and it would be filthy and foul and pesti-

lential, and also at the same time he would discover

all these things that are not in his life. So that was

the form of it, and I thought in the end we were able

s q u a r e b a s h i n g

to pick the bits of Quixote that I really liked and put

them together in a formula, and I was arrogant to

think Cervantes would even approve of it.

Cervantes was a wild guy. Cervantes was not

a polite writer. I mean, he’d had one hell of a

life. You know he’d been a slave, he’d been in

a debtors’ prison.

Yup.

I mean the exact contemporary of Shakespeare,

day for day. And they were both pretty much

roaring boys.

There’s a great translation of Quixote. Most transla-

tions of Quixote into English suck. They make the

book seem about as deadly dull as it’s possible to

be. And then at one point, a couple hundred years

ago, the novelist Tobias Smollett translated Quixote

and his Spanish is not perfect. If you’re looking for

a literal translation, it’s not. It’s the only translation

in English that feels as rambunctious as the original

feels in Spanish. It opens up the book completely.

There’s a wonderful sentence at the end of Don

Quixote the novel, where Quixote, old and dying,

has come to his senses and understood that he’s

been nuts all his life. And the phrase he uses to

describe his madness is: “I’ve been looking for this

year’s birds in last year’s nests.” Which seems to me

a wonderful description of both insanity and the

movie industry.

Does it ever feel like that?

It always feels like that. The trick is to be more pig-

headed than they are.

Obstinacy, that’s the thing.

b u s h f i r e

England Guide

p a n t r y

5

For some, this festival is just a few stops on the Underground. Others will no doubt come from further afield. We invite all of you to take in a bit of Gilliam’s London. Let us start out at the Historic old vic theatre, at which our fine festival will take place. We also suggest that you stay at the mad hatter inn. After the festival, we have a few des-tinations that will take you out of London to see some of the reality bending locations around England.

d i n g y

the Old vic theatre

This festival will take place at the Old Vic Theatre,

just south-east of Waterloo Station in London,

England. Giliam moved to England as a young man

and has since renounced his US citizenship. This

is a theater with a great history and a wonderful

look. It was opened in 1818. When it was opened,

it was a “minor” theater and was thus forbidden to

show serious drama. It was badly damaged in The

German Blitz of World War Two. All events will take

place in the main lobby of the theatre.

ra c e m e

h a l f - h o l i d a y

about the old vic

This festival will take place at the Old Vic Theatre, on the South bank of the Thames River in London. This iconic and historic theatre opened its doors in 1818. Its first show included a melodrama, an Asiatic ballet, and a harleqinade. It has been home Olivier’s Hamlet and Ian McKellan’s Widow Twankey. As a venue for plays, it is a stage suitable for Baron Munchausen, himself. Kevin Spacey currently acts as Artistic Director, and is proud to see the work of Gilliam being shown here at this time. The Old Vic survived Hitler’s Blitzkrieg. Surely it can survive a week of Gilliam.

Borough Rd.

Stamford St.

South Bank

Nor

th B

ank

Southwark St.

Union St.

The Cut

York

Rd.

Waterloo Rd.

Bayl

is Rd

.

Blck

fria

rs R

d.

Sout

hwar

k Br

idge

Rd

l o i n

getting here 103 The Cut, London SE1 8NB, UK

f r o m h e a t h r o w a i r p o r t

• Take Tunnel Rd. West

• Merge onto M4

• Continue on A4

• Exit onto Duke of Wellington Pl.

• Continue onto Grossover Pl

• Turn Right at Great George St.

• Turn Slight Left at Bridge St.

• Exit Waterloo Rd.

• Turn Left at The Cut

f r o m t h e C e n t r a l l o n d o n

• Head west on A302/Parliament

• Turn Right at Parliament Square

• Turn Right at Great George St.

• Turn Slight Left at Bridge St.

• Exit Waterloo Rd.

• Turn Left at The Cut

B y s u b wa y

• Take the Gray line to Southwark

station

• Walk Southwest on The Cut to

Waterloo Rd.

h o a r y

—floating head of the king of the moon, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

u n t a x e d

—floating head of the king of the moon, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

“i Can’t say that i love england, But i’m less unhaPPy there than other PlaCes”

—terry gill iam

g u l l y

p i r o u e t t e

Where to

Staythe mad hatter

Behind the nineteenth century facade of this former millinery factory is a modern, 30 bedroom hotel. The Mad Hatter is located close to one of the oldest parts of London, the ‘Borough’, well known to Shakespeare and Dickens. A really popular location for both business and leisure visitors, the hotel is within walking distance of many of London’s attractions—Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Modern, South Bank and the London Eye, National Film Theatre and the Dali Exhibition to name but a few. The Mad Hatter is on London’s South Bank, just a walk away from the events at the Old Vic Theatre.

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unreal England tour

England has a long history of the odd and the insane. After six days of experiencing madness through the eyes of Gilliam we invite you to go out and visit some of the strang parts of the odd and the insane outside of the Theater and outside of London. At each of these locales, take a moment to consider the reality that caused such a place to exist.

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l a n d s h a r k ! Local cinema-owner Bil Heine decided to make a very different statement from the one eery-

one else was making at the time(that is, joining the CND, wearing ataomkraft? Nein Danke!

badges, and sitting in fields outside American air bases). On the forty-first anniversary of

the bombing of Nagasaki, Heine hired a crane to lift a twenty-five-foot, four hundredweight

fibreglass sculpture through a hole in his roof. When the press clamoured for an explanation,

Heine declared, “The shark was to express someone feeling totally impotent and ripping a

hole in their roof out f a sense of impotence and anger and desperation… It is saying some-

thing about the CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki.”

Predictably, the shark caused a huge uproar, Almost immediately, Oxford City Council

inspected the premises to ensure the item posed no no threat to public safety.

Excerpted from Weird England, Matt Lake

f i r e d o g

t h e r u d e m a n o f C e r n e a b b a sOf all the hillside figures, the giant just north of Cerne Abbas in Dorset is the most likely to

raise eyebrows. His outline, carved in lines a foot wide and a foot deep, lies betwee a pagan

earthwork called the Trendle ad a Spring once held sacred to Helith, a goddess of Health;

and te giant certainly appears to benefit from his location, as he s the very picture of health

in one obvious way.

This Character is far more than just a simple chalk outline on a hill; he has a well defined

ribcage, two seven foot wide circles representing his nipples, and raised eyebrows giving

him a rather comical expression of surprise. He’s also gesturing to a point on the top of the

hill where the sun rises on May Day. However, he’s not pointing with his finger.

The giant has spawned many legends, and nobody’s really certain who he’s supposed to

be. Some believe this 180-foot tall figure marks the spot where locals killed a giant for poach-

ing their sheep.Others think this is a cock-and-bull story, and prefer the ideas that he was

a heroic fiure who carried sacred stones to Avebury and Stonehenge, and then Keeled over,

exhausted, on the Dorset hillside to die. He wields a huge knobbly club over his head, which

some take to mean that he is ether a warrior or a god.

Excerpted from Weird England, by Matt Lake

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o n w a r d a n d u p wa r dBehind the pub in a little vilage near Grantham (Lincolnshire), there stands a workshop.

Inside this stone building is a man earnestly plugging away on his latest invention—a

twelve foot electromechanical carrot that looks lke a rocket from 19030s science fiction.

The structure is supposed to provide luxury accomodation for a pet rabbit, complete

with a lift. And as you look at this imposing edifice clad in orance fake fur, one question

comes to mind: ‘What kind of person would invest his time and energy in building that?’

The man in question in is John Ward, an eccentric inventor who has been cranking out

obscure but well-designed machines and art pieces for more than thirty years.

Excerpted from Weird England, by Matt Lake

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s t o p o r g o ?Of course, some public artworks are just plain silly. The concrete and glass merchants who

transformed the run down Isle of Dogs in London’s Docklands into the gentrified Canary

Wharf decided it would be fun to put dozens of traffic lights onto one pole in the middle of a

roundabout. Driving through London is stressful enough, even for seasoned drivers, without

adding contradictory traffic signals into the mix. And there’s an even stranger side to the

Traffic Light Tree: Roundabouts utterly flummox forein visitors, aho can just about handle

driving on the left, but are all too often inclined to steer right at roundabouts and travel

round them anti-clockwise, yet the tree was designed b a French artist, Pierre Vivant. Which

raises the obvious question: Quoi?

Excerpted from Weird England, by Matt Lake

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See you next year!

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