Terry Gilliam is one of the great auteurs of modern cinema. Very few directors leave such a characteristic stamp on their films. Here are 5 things that go towards explaining why his films are so worth watching.
Visual Style
Gilliam is interested in the way individuals process the absurdities of the external world inside their minds. Thus, the unique cinematography of his films is inextricable from the surreal imagery of his characters’ subconscious. While other filmmakers have their characters explain the content of their dreams, Gilliam shows us. And not just dreams. Any significant movement of the imagination is made concrete in richly detailed sets and costumes.
The strong symbology of these visuals cut right to the heart of the characters concerns. In Brazil (1985), Sam Lowry escapes the oppression of his waking life in dreams where he flies high above a green and pleasant land. Suddenly huge skyscrapers explode from the fields and shoot upwards. Simple and striking. The violent destruction of the freedom Sam craves and its connection with the bleak world of bureaucracy is immediately established.
Gilliam’s style is best understood when tracing his career back to its origins in animation; as a member of Monty Python, he was relied on to provide snappy links between sketches. It is this animation shorthand transferred to live action that gives his films their distinctive look.
‘I do think that everything I do there has a heightened reality to it, because I’m a cartoonist. I look at the world and distort it as any cartoonist would.’[1]
Championing the Outsider
Any director with big ideas requires funding in order to cover the costs of production. When those ideas are unconventional, that becomes a problem. When they’re transparently anti-business and anti-corporation that problem is nearly insurmountable. Terry Gilliam has a history of fighting with studios to keep his plotlines intact and his final cuts from being tampered with – and that’s if production is approved at all. Is it any wonder he identifies with outsiders?
‘It’s invariably somebody trying to fight against a system, somebody who doesn’t want to be limited. That seems to be the theme in all of them.’[2]
Whether it’s the homeless, the psychologically traumatised, the child, the criminal or the one human soul in a world of machines, Gilliam focuses on the ignored and marginalised – those who slip through (or break through) the net.
Contempt for Authority
True to his Monty Python roots, Gilliam has a strong irreverent streak which colours every film he has ever made. His satire is directed towards authority, especially when money and greed form the basis of the power wielded by cold institutions.
In The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983), a group of elderly workers rebel against the big American Corporation that has taken over their firm. They transform their small office block into a pirate ship and sail it into London’s financial district to besiege the giant skyscrapers of the businesses that have eclipsed them.
In Time Bandits (1981), Kevin’s parents have no time for him. They are enamoured with kitchen appliances and TV but only interact with their son when exercising unjust rules and punishments. In an interview, the specific crime above all others that Gilliam accuses them of is not listening to Kevin – even when he tries to save them. The following clip reveals their fate (it’s the kind of controversial outcome that makes Hollywood bosses sweat – it’s a ‘family film’, remember).
Sinister Comic Twists
That brings us nicely onto Gilliam’s particular brand of dark humour. It’s about laughter in the face of doom. It’s about stacking up laughs against oppressive forces as if they were ammunition. It’s about using an entire film to play a trick on the audience, slowly persuading them that beneath the comedy, a serious struggle is taking place… and then puncturing the illusion at the last minute.
Of course, every Gilliam film is peppered with absurd images and funny moments – it’s half the reason I re-watch them so often. It’s just that somewhere along the way, the plight of the characters become important. Before you know it, you’re seriously rooting for them and it’s usually at the height of your concern that Gilliam delivers the shocking blow – they were never going to make it. They never really had a hope.
The proletarian pirates of the aforementioned The Crimson Permanent Assurance burst into a joyful sea-shanty after their victory over ‘The Very Big Corporation of America’ before the narrator announces that unfortunately ‘certain modern theories concerning the shape of the world’ are somewhat inaccurate. At this, the ship/building sails off the edge of the world into the abyss. It’s very funny visually and rich with metaphor. But it’s also full of pathos.
It’s the kind of ending that says “It was a sweet dream; if only the good guys did win. But they don’t. Never mind” – almost as if suddenly throwing away the hopes and dreams of the characters in a comical way should allow the audience to put it out of their minds and get on with their lives. The thing is, you can’t (and Gilliam knows it). There’s a bittersweet taste that lingers. It’s so persistent that, writing this now, I come to wonder if what I remember as extrovert comedies weren’t all tragedies after all.
Redemption Through Imagination
‘Imagination to me is the thing that you use to reinvent the world daily, to make it worth living in, or even escaping from.’[3]
Although his worlds are often fantastical and dream-like, Gilliam’s advocacy of the imagination runs much deeper than that. He sees it as a means of connecting with reality as much as hiding from it.
In The Fisher King (1991), Jack has to delve into the delusions of Parry, a homeless eccentric, in order to align himself with his skewed perspective. Only then can he deal with his past and help Parry come to terms with his wife’s murder.
Londoners are given the chance to find enlightenment through a travelling stage show in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). Using Parnassus’ mind as a conduit, they enter the world of their own subconscious and are presented with a choice; one is difficult but self-fulfilling, the other is easy but vacuous.
The notion that imagination can somehow save someone from leading a negative, limiting life is ubiquitous in Gilliam’s work. His detailed visual style, surreal storylines and rebellious instinct are evidence of a preserved childlike naiveté. And if all that can remain intact for a man of 70, maybe there’s hope for every one else.
Jon Bates Writes 