Unfortunate and sometimes seemingly cursed filmmaker Terry Gilliam received some much-needed good news last week when one of the world’s biggest bands — or at least most hyped in North America — the Arcade Fire asked the fabulist helmer to direct a livestream from one of their upcoming Madison Square Garden concerts in New York (one of their biggest shows ever; it takes place August 5).
When asked by the band’s management if he was interested in the gig, Gilliam told USA Today that he was game, but with typical candor admitted he was inexperienced at a TV-like livestream gig. ” ‘I’m clearly completely incompetent, I’ve never done it before,’ ” he said in his self-deprecating way. “I still don’t know what I’m doing. ‘Directing’ shouldn’t be the word that’s applied to any of this.”
But the real nugget of info in the recent interview was the fact that the Arcade Fire would like to do more with the filmmaker and this livestream gig is intended as an appetizer into something more substantial.
“We talked about a future idea, which is really what I think this is aiming towards. We’re trying to find out [what that is exactly]. We know there’s a future, but we’re not sure what it is. (Laughs) And this is kind of a way of hanging out and getting to know each other. Of course, their music has always entranced me, it’s blown me away”
Having already shot a short sci-fi film for one of their upcoming music videos with director Spike Jonze, we suspect that the Montreal orchestral rockers will bypass the traditional music video route and instead collaborate with filmmakers they admire and make more short-form films. And bring it on, we think it’s a terrific idea (if that’s indeed what it is), especially if you’re like the Arcade Fire and possess the juice to pretty much work with who they like. Maybe David Fincher is next? He did use their music in a ‘Benjamin Button’ TV spot in 2008. Or Jonathan Demme? The band was supposed to make a “music-driven” documentary with him in Haiti before the earthquake struck. Maybe the Arcade Fire could score ‘Quixote’? Ok, now we’re obviously getting ahead of ourselves (and hey, where’s that “The Box” score on CD already?)
With Gilliam trying to secure financing for his long-gestating and once-abandoned take on “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” the beneficial press this brings couldn’t be more well timed (and both the New York Times and MTV also interviewed the filmmaker this week, so it seems to be working). But as we wrote last week, the Arcade Fire have been longtime fans of Gilliam’s work and he’s perhaps the first filmmaker they publicly expressed adoration for when they covered the “Brazil” theme song in 2005.
‘Quixote’ has Ewan McGregor and Robert Duvall attached to star if/when the production finds money so every little bit of attention helps. Is ‘Quixote’ still struggling? Possibly, Gilliam told MTV that he has to “thank [the Arcade Fire] for liberating me from weeks of depression,” which doesn’t exactly sound positive. Gilliam wins our heart back by trashing modern day indie-rock (boring!) in his New York Times interview and also says that George Harrison and Sting both asked him to direct their music videos back in the day, but he wanted to concentrate on his filmmaking projects instead and politely declined.
When asked point-blank what’s next by the New York Times, Gilliam didn’t even mention ‘Quixote’ by name, perhaps not wanting to jinx it.” I’ve got lots of things in there, and all of them are just all possibilities,” he said. “I’ve always made the mistake of talking about my possibilities as reality, and invariably I’m wrong. So I don’t talk about it anymore. I’m getting better at keeping my mouth shut, because I’ve made a fool of myself too many times in the past.”
