Terry Gilliam - C/D, S/D

I have to see that film.

Brief NYT blog thoughts on Parnassus:

The movie is Pythonesque but also Gilliam-y, with animated sequences involving giant unfurling tongues, cross-dressing troupes of singing men, burned-out landscapes and lavish dream worlds, and a storyline that hinges on the mystical/philosophical.

“On every level, it’s tragical and magical at the same time,” Mr. Gilliam said, introducing it at the screening at the Crosby Hotel.

“It’s not the film I set out to make,” he added later. “It might be better, it might not be better, but it’s different, and I actually love it.”

Fair enough; the stretch of having four actors play the same part is actually not the biggest imaginative leap that the film asks viewers to make. Surrealness has always been Mr. Gilliam’s best medium.

But “Parnassus” also includes several passages that seem eerie in light of the circumstances, including a parade of dead stars like James Dean and a speech about the virtues of dying young. Even weirder, those references were in the script from the beginning.

the CGI stuff in the trailers looks kind of meh to me.

really on the fence about screening this on Thursday.

I rescreened Baron Munchausen recently (a movie I had fond memories of)--its nonstop screechiness really wore on me.

had a similar experience w a recent rewatch of time bandits. describe it as one of my very favorite films upthread, and that was certainly true in my youth, but i found parts of it a lot more grating and draggy than i remembered (fact that my gf basically loathed it probably didn't enhance my enjoyment either). as much as i like michael palin, vincent and his pansy probably should have been left on the cutting-room floor. and as great as ian holm is, the napoleon section is too long by half. at least.

suppose gilliam's always been that way, though. he's so in love with all the wonderful parts that he seems to lose track of the whole. munchausen definitely suffers from that. trip to the moon is a splendid idea, but again WAAAAY too long. a similar journey to vulcan's underworld isn't anywhere near so brutally off-putting, but does go on a bit.

brazil seems like the only "pure" gilliam flick where he really keeps it all under control. i've seen it probably 8-10 times over the years, and it's still an all-time favorite, soul-crushing ending and all. and while i like the fisher king and 12 monkeys, they feel a little diluted compared to the lunatic work he'd done up to that point. after that i draw a line in the sand. have basically hated all three of his subsequent films.

so, uh, fingers crossed for parnassus!

and i dunno. goddamit, i STILL LOVE TIME BANDITS! goofy jokes and draggy bits included. fuck you, adult perspective!

Parnassus is patchy as hell (not a fan of the CG) but certainly enjoyable, and often surprisingly dark / ambiguous.

do tell!

you mean surprisingly dark/ambiguous for gilliam, or just in general? cuz, uh...

http://www.soundonsight.org/tiff-09-the-imaginarium-of-doctor-parnassus/

but i found parts of it a lot more grating and draggy than i remembered

this sums up my rewatch of Brazil a few years ago, but I can't remember which version I watched...

Those without tolerance for Gilliam’s flights of fancy won’t find themselves as new converts, though it is of a somewhat darker hew than some of his past work.

well, i caught this line, but it's nevertheless a rather surprising claim. i mean, gilliam's got one of the bleakest, most death-haunted and fatalistic filmographies i can think of - especially relative to other contemporary commercial directors. sadistic, even. the gilliam films that do permit a ray of light (the fisher king, the brothers grim) are the exceptions, and stingy with it besides.

i'm just taken aback by the idea that parnassus might seem exceptionally dark in relation to, say, tideland and brazil. (setting aside, of course, the small matter of its star's untimely passing...)

I suppose by "surprising" I meant that it's not nec. in line with the movies it most resembles, esp. Munchausen & Time Bandits, which are both tidier movies from what I recall.

Confession: I've never seen "Tideland," but from what I've read it's always seemed like a bit of an outlier in terms of approach.

in other news, Robert Duvall has just been cast as Quixote.

that's not a good sign

I still love Time Bandits and Brazil and Munchausen especially

http://blogues.cyberpresse.ca/moncinema/siroka/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/54724722_h15633137.jpg

u r kidding

My memory of Time Bandits is just so fantastic and awesome. Kind of scared to rewatch it. Like contenderizer I 'consider' it one of my all time favorite films.

HATED HATED HATED fisher king at the time, but I was almost delusionally depressed at the time so maybe a rewatch is in order after these 18 years.

Pretty psyched for Parnassus-- I love a mess.

he's crouching in that photo.

Not massively keen on Duvall as Quixote. He seems slightly too old and not...troubled looking enough, or something. That said: great actor, could pull it off.

This is a gilliam production, so Duvall might GET troubled soon enough...

my first thought on hearing that Duvall was cast as Quixote "oh shit, Robert Duvall is gonna die soon"

Lisa Kudrow cast as Quixote

so this is out now?

Out and good.

Parnassus? It's deece.

feeling older...

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2559

Good at blaming other people for stuff, isn't he?

Visionaries don't have time for nonsense like budgets and schedules and TIME I mean

"Imaginarium" was really pretty wonderful, aside from the Colin Farrell parts. I recently saw "Fisher King" for the first time and greatly enjoyed that too. Kinda get the feeling he keeps remaking the same story over and over - misfits triumphing against an insane world.

well, not in Brazil so much

Fisher King is allright except for the middle-third love story which comes out of nowhere and is just terrible (and then entirely abandoned for the final third)

just like irl tbh

awww

Well,, yeah Brazil is debatable because the ending is so open-ended. But you could argue that Sam ends it completely free of the Orwellian nightmare by escaping into permanent hallucinatory madness. The whole film was about him wanting to live out his dreams and the real world constantly interfering. So maybe - in his mind at least - he's won.

Yeah, I've heard Gilliam make that argument... He never had to sell that to a general audience.

I seem to recall "triumph" being a relative term in the new one as well?

I love Fisher King, top to bottom...including the love story even. I saw Munchausen for the first time earlier this year and really loved it. I haven't seen Imaginarium...I dunno, I'm kind of afraid of it.

dont be, imo. Pleasantly surprised by it

Munchausen, Brazil and Time Bandits are all the business. quality varies thereafter - am seriously trepidatious about the Imaginarium

a mixture of trippy and bodacious? Fitting, imo.

um

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trepidatious

ur middle name ought to be 'understanding of wordplay'

actually, that is the definition of "mo"

understanding of wordplay money understanding of wordplay problems

dont talk shite

see, you just don't understand wordplay

Parnassus was indeed great, but I liked Tideland too so

(really just made that post in order to throw Tideland into the mix and see what happens)

In future I really am not going to bump the thread of a guy who hasnt made a good film in a quarter-century just bcz he turned 70.