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The Introduction to Terry Gilliam for This Year’s Film Club
Here is my intro for the film:
If watching a movie critically is a richer experience than watching a movie passively, than Terry Gilliam is a good place to start because every choice he makes is strong. His artistic process is among the most transparent of any film maker. It’s very easy to spot his bold choices and it might not be too much of a stretch to reach into his head.
The former animator for the Monty Python troop sees the world as a children’s storyteller of sorts influenced by mythology, science-fiction, and absurdist humor.
Pretty much nothing about the way his films are made are ordinary from the internal logic of his films, to the way his actors act exaggerated and can even be seen as live-action cartoons, to the close-ups and Dutch angles by which he will film his actors, to the artifice of the art direction, to the overwrought scores. But does it all add up to the sum of its parts? Is it enchanting?
Terry Gilliam might best be described as a children’s storyteller with adult sensibilities. Gilliam’s stories are sincere and have a strong enough sense of world-building that these aren’t stories meant to be enjoyed ironically (like Family Guy or Pixar), but I could see Gilliam to be seen at home with the Disney Rennaissance. As a former cartoonist, Gilliam’s influences range from the…
