Program Notes

Program note for Pinewood Dialogue with Terry Gilliam and screenings of 12 Monkeys and Brazil
January 6 & 7, 1996
Series: Fairy Tales for Adults: A Terry Gilliam Retrospective

By Terry Gilliam:

TERRY GILLIAM
(his life)

1940: Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 22nd

1951: Goes West to Los Angeles. Finds no Indians.

1958-62: Attends Occidental College, Los Angeles. Edits college humor magazine. Eventually majors and graduates in Political Science.

1962-65: In search of the Big Time moves to New York. Becomes Associate Editor of Help! Magazine, brainchild of Mad Magazine's originator Harvey Kurtzman. Also does freelance illustrating for a variety of publications. Decides film schools are a waste of time.

1965-66: Lost somewhere in Europe.

1966: Back in Los Angeles, fails as a freelance illustrator. Tries advertising as copy writer and art director. Gets bored.

1967: Moves to London, England. Does freelance illustrating for Sunday Times, Nova, Queen, etc. Pretentiously becomes the artistic director of the Londoner magazine. Magazine soon ceases publication.

1968: Sells two short sketches to Do Not Adjust Your Set. Is ignored by Mike Palin and Terry Jones. Befriended by Eric Idle, buys first round of drinks. (The last time he did. You thought Jack Benny was tight, eh?- J.C.) Becomes a resident cartoonist on We Have Ways of Making You Laugh TV series. Does first animated cartoon to help show out of a nasty spot. Strangely enough, is asked to do a second animation. Does full-color animation sections on Marty (BBC-2 series). Makes three animated films for second series of Do Not Adjust Your Set.

1969: Monty Python begins. Doesn't think it will be successful.

1970: Does animation title sequence for Cry of the Banshee. Film a dud. Python continues with 2nd series.

1971 Twenty-five minutes of animated sequences for The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine. And Now For Something Different, first Monty Python film, made in London

1972 Title sequence for William, a CBS special on Bill Shakespeare. Goes commercial with an animated campaign for the British Gas Board entitled The Great Gas Gala. Python Canadian Stage Tour. 3rd series of Flying Circus.

1973 Python UK Stage Tour, otherwise no memories of this year.

1974 Python Stage Show at City Center, New York. Co-directs Monty Python and the Holly Grail. Decides filmmaking is slightly less a waste of time than film school.

1975 Recovers from previous year.

1976 Illustrates a little-purchased book, Sporting Relations. Directs Jabberwocky- definitely not a Python film- written by himself and Charles Alverson.

1977 Spends a year promoting and defending Jabberwocky-definitely NOT a Python film. Decides film festivals are a waste of time.

1978 Publishes Animations of Mortality-a book that lays bare the dark and tortured wealthy and successful animator. Signs two copies. Designs (whatever that means) Monty Python's Life of Brian.

1979 Writes brief biography for earlier press kit. Begins writing new film script pausing only to travel around promoting Life of Brian. Abandons above-mentioned script project in November, when suddenly struck by a different film idea.

1980 Convinces Michael Palin to join him in writing a script based on last November's inspiration-project is given working title of Time Bandits. Produces and directs Time Bandits throughout the summer, completing shooting just about in time to make it across the ocean for Python stage show at the Hollywood Bowl.

1981 Time Bandits is released and is a FAR BIGGER SUCCESS than Chariots of Fire, and should have won at least thirteen Oscars as well as a self-sufficiency badge (Girl Guides).

1982 Picks up a previous script idea (see 1979) and begins writing again, this time with Tom Stoppard. Describes story line as something like "Walter Mitty meets Franz Kafka- to the rhythm of Latin Sambas" (whatever that means). Takes breaks only to plot U.S. re-release of Jabberwocky. Takes English lessons.

1983 Monty Python's Meaning of Life released (UK). Invited to be included in The Who's Who of Intellectuals, unfortunately can't complete the form.

1983-84 Film and editing of Brazil continued throughout the year.

1985 Februrary 22nd: Brazil opens in UK, followed by the rest of Europe.

Summer: Long battles with Universal over the release of Brazil in America. Universal wanting to re-cut the film and change the ending to a happy one.

November: Brazil wins Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay Awards at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards without being released in the U.S.A.

December: Universal rush releases Terry Gilliam's version of Brazil so that it can qualify for that year's Academy Awards.

1986: Brazil wins 2 BAFTA Awards, a London Standard Award, a British Film Institute Special Award, and is the only British film nominated for an Oscar (two in fact), which everyone in England managed to ignore … except Terry Wogan!!!!

November: Traveled to Japan to promote opening of Brazil. Visited Moscow and Leningrad with British Council and Michael Palin for British Film Week to show, among others, his films Time Bandits, Jabberwocky, and Brazil.

1987 January: Starts pre-production for his new epic The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, to be filmed at Rome's Cinecitta Studios in the summer with an enormous budget and a cast of thousands!

September: Filming of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen commences at Cinecitta Studios, Rome, with locations shooting in Spain.

1988 B: Principal photography of Munchausen finishes. Post-production commences at Pinewood Studios.

1989 Spring: Munchausen opens in USA, Britain, and Europe. Later in Japan in Australia.

Autumn: Thinking about future film projects!

October: Munchausen gets BFI Award for Technical Achievement.

1990 March: Munchausen wins BAFTA Awards for Production Design, Costume Design, and Make-up. Four Oscar nominations.

May: Director, The Fisher King, starring Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges, filming May to July, USA, for Tristar

Autumn/Spring 1991: Editing The Fisher King, due for release mid-1991.

1991: The Fisher King released.

1992 February: The Fisher King nominated for four Oscars.

Terry writing new film The Defective Detective

1993: Wrote The Defective Detective with Richard LaGravenese.

1994: Nobody made The Defective Detective.

Executive Producer of CD-Rom Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time.

1995: Still nobody made The Defective Detective.

After an absence of four years behind the camera, got behind it again...
January: Director, Twelve Monkeys

Real (!) Suggestions by Universal Studios for a different title for Brazil:
If Osmosis, Who Are You?
Vortex
What a Future!
The Ball Bearing Electro Memory Circuit Buster
The Works
You Show Me Your Dream…
Arresting Developments
Lord of the Files
The Staplegunners
Forever More
Explanada Fortunata Is Not My Real name
Chaos
Disconnected Parties
Erotic
Some Day Soon
Day Dreams and Night Tripper
Litterbugs
Skylight City
Access
Nude Descending Bathroom Scale
Dreamscape
Progress
The Right to Bear Arms
This Escalator Doesn't Stop At Your Station
All Too Soon
Where Were We?
Blank/Blank
Shadow Time
Maelstrom
Forces of Darkness
Sign on High
Can't Anybody Here Play the Cymbals?
The Man in the Custom Tailored T-Shirt
The Girl in the House on the Truck That's on Fire
Fold, Spindle, Mutilate
Lady Bug, Lady Bug
Gnu Yak, Gnu Yak, and Other Bestial Places

The Pinewood Dialogues, an ongoing series of screenings and discussions with significant creative figures in film, television, and digital media, as supported with a generous grant from The Pinewood Foundation.

American Museum of the Moving Image occupies a building owned by the City of New York. With the assistance of the Queens Borough President and the Queens delegation of the New York City