I'm hardly familiar with all the trouble this movie went through to get made, I'm really, really happy with the main actors that finally got to see it through. Jonathan Pryce and Adam Driver have such great interactions in the small scenes of this movie, and those really made it for me despite the legitimate problems this article brings up.
Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
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Re: Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's one of my all-time favourites too. The Criterion Collection edition I believe contains the final directors cut. The ending is superb, it beggars belief that Hollywood tried to butcher it.
Now I'm worried that I haven't seen the right version. Is there a breakdown of the different versions floating around somewhere?
Well, without spoiling anything in particular, let me just say this. Do you feel it was a happy ending? If so, it is probably not the director's cut.
Re: Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
#73Did the allegations about "never get into an elevator alone with Terry Gilliam" ever go anywhere?
Re: Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
#74Gilliam's "Brazil" is still my favorite film of all time. If you haven't seen it, you should. Note that there are multiple versions of this film floating around. Comparing them makes a very interesting study in film editing. The story of the making of "Brazil" is almost as interesting and fraught as Don Quixote. When watching Brazil it's important to keep in mind that it was made in 1985, before 9-11, before the inte…
Also don't forget "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", another controversial classic directed by Terry.
Re: Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is one of the most prescient films ever made. "People think I am a prophet and that Brazil described the world we’re living in now a few years ago. But we were living in that world then; people just weren’t paying attention the way they do now." https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/magazine/terry-gilliam-is...
Interesting. I'm not sure I agree though. I was in my early 20s in 1985 and so I can tell you from personal experience that things were really very different back then than now. In 1985 it was possible to escape surveillance without to much difficulty. Nowadays it's nearly impossible. Also, in 1985 the stock villains weren't terrorists, they were Russians.
> Also, in 1985 the stock villains weren't terrorists, they were Russians.
They still are.
Re: Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
#76I want to see it but at the same time I don't. Gilliam's Don Quixote had long surged to the pinnacle of "the best picture never made", the clearest manifestation of the genius-destroying hardships of moviemaking. It had become the embodiment of an aristotelian category.
Now it's just another film. Like Duke Nukem Forever, its release has inevitably declassed it.
Re: Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
#77Gilliam's "Brazil" is still my favorite film of all time. If you haven't seen it, you should. Note that there are multiple versions of this film floating around. Comparing them makes a very interesting study in film editing. The story of the making of "Brazil" is almost as interesting and fraught as Don Quixote. When watching Brazil it's important to keep in mind that it was made in 1985, before 9-11, before the inte…
Great movie. When you watch it, you need to pay attention to every little thing. For example, the movie opens with an advertisement for government services. The dittie is hysterical, but its easy to miss. That theme gets expanded quite a bit in the film culminating in a fantastic scene with Robert De Niro as a rogue heating engineer.
I think you forgot the quotes around "heating engineer".
Re: Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go check it out, I was able to see this a couple of months ago. I really enjoyed it, Gilliam has an amazing film style / world building ability. I really feel transported to another universe/world in his films, Zero Theorem/Dr Parnasis/12 Monkeys/Time Bandits/Fisher King. I can only imagine what it feels like to finally release this film after so many hurdles. Love his work, his distribution lately has been rather cr…
I seriously wish they would do a sequel to Time Bandits. That movie was a cult masterpiece.
He did. It was called _Brazil_. And the sequel to that was _The Adventures of Baron Munchausen_.
Okay, they aren't direct sequels but they make a trilogy of related movies: the fantasies of childhood, the fantasies of middle age and the fantasies of old age.
Beside, several of the original band of midgets (little people?) are sadly no longer with us.
Re: Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now I'm worried that I haven't seen the right version. Is there a breakdown of the different versions floating around somewhere?
Well, without spoiling anything in particular, let me just say this. Do you feel it was a happy ending? If so, it is probably not the director's cut.
Ah. The reason I ask is that the ending I saw could be interpreted either way, but I saw the 'happy' ending as obvious satire/irony. I'm just worried that I saw the wrong ending and over-interpreted it.
Re: Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote film finally hits the big screen after 25 years
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
The standard critics have it out for Terry Gilliam for a bunch of reasons not related to the quality if his work.
I love Gilliam films, and I'll watch anything he does, but I think this a stretch: he's _very_ patchy. No-one ever accuses him of not being interesting, of not being full of ideas, not having a unique vision. It's just that those ideas are so rarely fully realised, and his films tend to ramble. They often feel incomplete, more surface than depth, gossamer. As I say, I love his films and I'd happily watch almost anyth…
When they aren't at their best, sitting through his films can feel like watching some captivating person shoot arrows at the moon.