Having spoken to Terry Gilliam twice over the past year (read our Venice Film Festival interview is in two parts here and here as well as our Marrakech Film Festival chat here) and following the filmmaker for much longer, we’ve learned that when he speaks it pays to listen. Unguarded and honest, there are few questions he won’t answer with candor, and it has gotten him into some hot water from time to time. But at 73 years old, and having done everything from big Hollywood films to low budget indies, Gilliam has seen it all and it’s no surprise that when he recently stopped by the Romanian TV show "Garantat 100%" he didn’t hold back.
One of the filmmaker’s longtime targets has been Steven Spielberg (he recently explained why "2001: A Space Odyssey" was better than "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind") and in particular his holocaust drama "Schindler’s List." This time around, the interviewer on the show pretends to be Spielberg and allows Gilliam a chance to further explain his criticism and as always, he’s candid.
"I’m just very jealous of you, your success, your talent, your skills, you’re brilliant. I just think your ideas are a bit simplistic, that’s all. I think you’re the best storyteller out there, I just think your stories are not completely grown up and honest," Gilliam said to "Garantat 100%" host playing Spielberg.
"What Stanley Kubrick said—and it wasn’t my quote about ‘Schindler’s List’—Stanley Kubrick was the one that said the problem with ‘Schindler’s List’ is that Steven made a film about success, [but] the holocaust is about failure," Gilliam continued. "And that is so perfect, Kubrick said it better than anybody."
Over the course of the conversation, what emerges isn’t that Gilliam is being petty about his colleagues, but rather that he wants everyone (including himself) to raise the bar. "Film and media is such a powerful tool. If we’re not educating people, making them think, making them look at the world with fresh eyes, what are we doing?" But from his perspective, things are grim, with Hollywood already having trained audiences to expect pre-fabricated films.
"I think [Hollywood] has achieved everything they’ve always dreamed of. The audience now seems to be very dumb, I mean they’re watching the same film again and again," he said. "They pay money to watch the same film. Now, you could argue, that’s because it makes them feel comfortable. When they go to a movie now, it’s almost like hearing a pop song. You know the rhythms, you know when the downbeat is going to come, you know when the explosion is going to come… And so as life becomes more complex, as the economy is in trouble, people cling to what makes them comfortable, so they go again and again to see the same movie. "
And for Gilliam, he believes it’s come to a point where audiences don’t question the moviemakers but themselves if they don’t engage with the latest big thing. "There was a time when I saw ‘Batman [Returns],’ the second one. I just happened to be in Los Angeles at the time, and I went an 11 o’clock evening screening, it was the opening of the film. Everyone was so excited because Tim Burton‘s first one had done so well. The second one, it really didn’t work quite honestly. You could feel it in the audience…," he shared. "[But] This is the thing that really disturbed me. I heard somebody say,’Maybe it was me, maybe I was the problem.’ I wanted to say, ‘No, you were fine, the film didn’t work.’ "
And again, it boils down to Gilliam hoping and wanting more from the movies and audiences. "I’m glad people talk about films, but how many people talk about the ideas in the films? Or what did the film mean as opposed to, ‘Oh the lighting was brilliant’ or ‘Did you see that camera move in that one shot.’ That shouldn’t be what the audience is talking about, you should be arguing about, ‘What does it mean?’ "
So we’ll see what ideas Gilliam puts forth in his upcoming "The Zero Theorem," and his long-developing "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" which he now says has a start date. In a recent interview with La Stampa, he said that filming will begin on October 3rd in the Canary Islands, and while he has an actor lined up, he’s keeping the name under wraps for now. He also adds that funding is in place from a Spanish production company, and that everything is ready to roll.
Will Gilliam finally get "Don Quixote" mounted? He seems confident. Until then, check out the rest of his 40-minute interview right here including his thoughts on the hair in "American Hustle," what his favorite "Harry Potter" film is and much more.
