In your humble opinion, why can't Terry Gilliam...

…make a decent movie anymore?

Gilliam’s strengths and weaknesses both come from his eccentricities. As Mr. Gilliam’s successes piled up, perhaps he was given more and more leash, since each success owed greatly to his unique vision. Unfortunately, personal eccentricities have to be reined in very tightly, or at least tempered by other priorities, lest they take control and make something only 1 person can love.

Unfortunately, he’s probably not going to recover his touch for making good ones…

Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones are different people.

I reject the premise of the OP, except in the respect that Gilliam still has a hell of a time actually getting movies made.

It’s pretty much true.

Except that Zero Theorem was great.

:smack:

And I KNOW the difference, too…I just convinced myself it was Gilliam I’d read about.

Let’s be clear, he’s done four actual real movies in around the last 20 years, I’ve not seen Tideland, but Imaginarium and Fear and Loathing were ok, and Zero Theorum was like a bad Gilliam Inspired movie, like Brazil with all the humour and charm removed…

He does seem to struggle to get things made nowadays, funding specifically. The attempt to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote discredited him as an efficient film maker, a reputation he had previously from turning out the likes of Brazil, Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys, making things on time and budget and excelling with what he had.

It’s possible some of his quirky style has been matched by the likes of Wes Anderson in recent years, and he’s got the type of scripts which might have fallen to Gilliam. Even at that, that sort of style did go a bit out of fashion in the late 90’s anyway…

Well, he’s getting on a bit, now age 76. Maybe that’s it?

Gilliam had too many failures and not enough successes. He always was considered risky in Hollywood, and, other than the Python films, his hits were few. Since 12 Monkeys, his films have not even had the comfort of being critical successes, and with Hollywood moving to a sequels-and-blockbuster mentality, Gilliam’s vision – though visually fascinating – doesn’t fit the mold.

Gilliam always was no more than pedestrian in his plots, and his best work was when either someone else wrote the script, or when he worked with a good scriptwriter.

I’d love to see more by him, but it probably would be best if he directed someone else’s script.

Oops I actually posted this in the Monty Python thread by mistake, related threads at the same time:

Let’s be clear, he’s done four actual real movies in around the last 20 years, I’ve not seen Tideland, but Imaginarium and Fear and Loathing were ok, and Zero Theorum was like a bad Gilliam Inspired movie, like Brazil with all the humour and charm removed…

He does seem to struggle to get things made nowadays, funding specifically. The attempt to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote discredited him as an efficient film maker, a reputation he had previously from turning out the likes of Brazil, Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys, making things on time and budget and excelling with what he had.

It’s possible some of his quirky style has been matched by the likes of Wes Anderson in recent years, and he’s got the type of scripts which might have fallen to Gilliam. Even at that, that sort of style did go a bit out of fashion in the late 90’s anyway…

The 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha basically tells you all you need to know about his filmmaking issues.

He gets incredibly absorbed in complex insane details while completely ignoring major points such as is the star playing Don Quixote capable of and healthy enough to ride a horse? Is the shooting location near an air force base for that authentic 17th century fly-over feel? Etc.

It’s like he has OCD and ADD at the same time.

Remarkably someone has given him money to try this again. And it’s going about as well as you would expect.

Really watch Monty Python again, the real question has he ever made a good film.

He wants to make movies which are visually stunning and which use a lot of special effects to accomplish it. But, for that sort of movie, you need a script that puts butts in seats or else you’re not going to make your money back. He’s not willing to take on projects with worse scripts and he’s not willing to reduce the visuals he wants in accordance with the probable box office of the scripts that he wants to make.

That leaves him in Orson Welles Land. He’s stuck spending most of his time trying to find funding for his projects and, with funding being sporadic and limited, he’s stuck trying to film in the gaps in other peoples’ schedules who are willing to come work for him temporarily. And while he doesn’t have the problem that Welles did with film decaying in storage, he does have problems like storing props and getting them to the filming location and back, because he’s not able to shoot everything in one go. Getting everything assembled, moved into position, and moved back takes a lot of time and extra cost when you’re having to do it over and over again. And there’s always the chance that everything will get destroyed, decay, etc. and so need to be remade or repaired. On top of trying to make a big budget film, he ends up spending more for trying to do it piecemeal, which means finding even more backers, and spending even more time searching for funding.

It’s a never ending cycle that doesn’t lend itself to good products. Many corners have to be cut to try pulling this off.

And of course, even a great director mostly produces duds. So if you’re only turning out one film per 5 years, you’re not going to have many recent successes to point to. Put out a film a year and every few years you’ll hit it out of the park.

He’s probably due to make another great film. It’s just a question of whether he can actually get everything to come together to allow for it, and not have any actors die or whatever other issues might intrude.

Didn’t he used to get his funding from George Harrison’s production company? I wonder if Harrison’s death had an impact on Gilliam’s ability to get funding for movies along with the freedom to make them the way he wanted…

Doesn’t look like it. They stopped making his films around 1980 but went on to produce a large number of films for another decade (it looks like they mostly stopped after 1990, but not completely).

Can’t answer the OP (certainly haven’t really rated anything since 12 Monkeys)

That said seeing as he was responsible for Twelve Monkeys, Brazil and (part of) the Python movies. I will happily fork out to watch any dross he puts out as those movies contributed more to the art form than about 80% of Hollywood combined.

Also in the process of googling this I noticed…

  • Zero Theorem is by him and out on Amazon Prime. I had no idea, must watch it, despite lukewarm review.
    -The Brothers #$ing Grim, is by Terry Gilliam! Really Terry? Really? What were you thinking?