Madman. Crazy genius. Visionary director. All labels that could be used to define Terry Gilliam. A rule breaker from the beginning, the man has had more than his share of problems making films and the last few years seem to have been particularly hard. There was the nightmare of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and the depressingly awful The Brothers Grimm. Then there’s Tideland, a film I really liked although I realize most didn’t feel the same. Above all else with Gilliam, it seems as though if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.
It looked liked things were going well on his new project but disaster hit yet again when Heath Ledger died earlier this year. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus could have ended in disaster but thankfully, the film was rescued with the help of Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law who stepped into the Ledger’s role.
The film, about a traveling theater company, doesn’t open until next year but buzz is already building. Not only will it feature Ledger’s last performance but with Gilliam behind the camera, it will either be a spectacle or a disaster. There’s been a whole lot of secrecy around the production but we finally have a look at what we can expect. Kevin Smith’s Quick Stop Entertainment posted a teaser which is more of a behind the scenes look at the film with a few visuals thrown in for good measure. I’ve never searched out video of Gilliam but I love his energy and the passion he has for the project and listening to him talk about the film made me as excited to see it as any of the visuals. So far, this looks like a Gilliam winner.
Wow.
madman, genius, visionary and chronically over-estimated. Brazil is tedious and Fischer King is terrible.
Fear & Loathing is his only good film.
Interesting that at the end of the trailer they have images of all the actors except Depp, Farrell and Law. Still having some production problems?
As to Gilliam himself, I dig quite a lot of his works. Brothers Grimm was terrible, but then you've got Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing and Time Bandits. Good stuff. Even if the films aren't to your liking, you've got to admit the guy's stamina and insistence on doing his own thing – which I for one think is true art.
Oh and by the way, I like Tideland too.
Oh you are so wrong Rusty. Brazil is one of the most imaginative films out there, Fisher King is as charming as they come, Fear & Loathing is great, Twelve Monkeys is fantastic and I even liked Tideland to an extent.
I'm not a big Fisher King fan and I love Brazil though I've never "got it".
And good to hear I'm not alone in my like of Tideland. I remember having a sort of eye opening experience watching that – there was so much meaning for me in some of the scenes yet, I haven't revisited it since I originally saw it. Will have to re-visit at some point.
Don't get Kurt started on Tideland.
Tideland is tripe, Gilliam at his most self indulgent and vulgar (not to mention pointless and crass). Career worst performance from Jennifer Tilly and Jodele Ferland wasn't all that great as a child performer. The mentally slow character in the film was beyond tedious, along with a lot of his sub-plots.
Basically the only thing good about the film was Jeff Bridges going on about Jutland and Vikings, and the Manitoba wheat-field cinematography.
To cap it all off, the ending rings so false and tacked on. I'm a huge Gilliam fan, and I think Tideland shows what happens to the vigourous director of Time Bandits after he has lost his talent and grip on things.
I do however weep for Don Quixote which will never be. And I'll certainly be watching Dr. Pernassus when it arrives. But tideland's little cult is baffling to me. The movie should have been 40 minutes shorter, at least.
Andrew: Too Late.
Gilliam at his most self indulgent and vulgar
You say this like it is a bad thing….
@Matt Gamble,
haha, exactly! Great response. With a guy as talented and imaginative as Gilliam is I'll take his style of filmmaking any way I can get it.
Here's when that lack of consistency of opinion across the board rearing it's ugly head again, like it did with Kurt a little while ago. What I said above about Gilliam should then apply to everyone else that I love – in this case I'm referring to Woody Allen. I love his style of filmmaking but I thought Match Point was one of the most pretentious and self-indulgent/important (add any similar word you wish…) films I've seen in quite a while.
Don't get me wrong I don't LOVE Tideland like I do most of Gilliam's films I just like it. It's not an easy watch and yes it's a bit on the long side for what it should be but for the cinematogrpahy, the performance of Jodele Ferland (I thought she was great in it!), the imagination on display and of course the "can do no wrong" Dude himself Jeff Bridges – I like it.
OK, lets talk about how cheap, cliched and unnecessary the ending was in Tideland? How Lame. Let's talk about Jennifer Tilly's one-note TROLL-mom. Let's talk about how the scenes with the mentally disabled fellow go on forever, leading nowhere (Thematically, narrative, otherwise).
This was Gilliam as George Lucas. Surrounded by fans and Yes-Men when he worked up in Canada, producing the most self-indulgently bloated mess of his career. The films only strength is that it is vastly ugly with an attractive Manitoba back-drop. Like Lucas who gets all indulgent with his toys over attention to his actors, Gilliam loses the strands of his story with this film, draws terrible performances from his actors, and never gets the story to gel together in any satisfactory way. A mess in the worst sense of the word (Whereas Brazil is a mess in the best sense of the word).
OK, lets talk about how cheap, cliched and unnecessary the ending was in Dogville
Good to see you finally talking sense in this thread Kurt.
Yes, but the provocateur, the auteurist rant, that is Dogville, in so far as American hypocrisy and (in the Bunuel sense) that charity can only go so far, the rage-o-riffic ending of Dogville was damn near perfect.
@ "Here’s when that lack of consistency of opinion across the board rearing it’s ugly head"
you know what they say about consistency Ross; it is the hobgoblin of small minds.
Or is it the Dr Octopus of small minds? Some superman villain.
wait… who mentioned dogville? Where is this thread going?
Matt did on the cinecast and then I think you and me went to great lengths to explain how awesome Dogville is, and that the ending is the film, and is just the right commentary on the fractured American identity
@ "I think you and me went to great lengths to explain how awesome Dogville is, and that the ending is the film, and is just the right commentary on the fractured American identity"
Oh yeah. Except I was saying that the film is actually an old testement spin on the new testement values.