#2,673. Jabberwocky (1977) - The Films of Terry Gilliam

 

Terry Gilliam’s solo directorial debut (he co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail a few years before), Jabberwocky stars Michael Palin as Dennis Cooper, an eternally optimistic peasant who finds himself out of a job when his father (Paul Curran), a renowned barrel-maker, disowns him moments before dying of a heart attack.

Determined to make his way in the world - and thus win the hand of his beloved, Griselda (Annette Badland), daughter of local merchant Mr. Fishfinger (Warren Mitchell) - Dennis sets off for the big city, which is currently being terrorized by an enormous dragon (the Jabberwocky of the title).

Anxious to rid his kingdom of this horrible monster, King Bruno the Questionable (Max Wall) stages a tournament to find the greatest knight in the land. If the winner of this tournament manages to slay the dragon, he will be married to King Bruno’s daughter, The Princess (Deborah Fallender), and awarded half of the entire kingdom.

Dennis, whose only interest is landing a job, finds himself unwittingly swept up in the quest to destroy the dragon, and in the end may prove the only person capable of accomplishing this very dangerous task.

Sporting a look and feel reminiscent of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Jabberwocky gets off to a grand start; as the movie opens, a poacher (played by Terry Jones, who was Gilliam’s co-director on Holy Grail) is emptying his traps when he is suddenly attacked by the dragon. This opening is both shocking (though his head remains intact, the poacher’s body is stripped down to its bones) and hilarious (we never see the creature – the entire scene plays out from the dragon’s perspective, and we watch as he lifts the Poacher a hundred feet in the air before dropping him).

In fact, “shocking” and “hilarious” pretty much sum up the rest of the film as well, which features barbarity (the king’s tournament is particularly bloody) interspersed with side-splitting humor (the royal advisor Passelwe, played by John Le Mesurier, tries to convince the King that, instead of having the knights butcher one another, they stage a friendly game of hide-and-seek to determine the winner).

Unlike Holy Grail (which maintained the skit format that the Pythons had perfected in their BBC television program of the early ‘70s), Jabberwocky focuses more on a single narrative – i.e. the misadventures of Dennis Cooper. Still, a number of different characters and side-stories are introduced along the way, from the city merchants and their desire to keep the dragon around (business has never been better) to the Squire (Harry H. Corbett) who would rather bed another man’s wife than serve his master, the Knight known as Red Herring (voiced by Max Wall).

By “bridging the gap” between Terry Gilliam’s Python roots and his later fantasy adventures (Time Bandits, Brazil, etc), Jabberwocky provided the dark humor many had come to expect from a Monty Python alum while at the same time giving the world a glimpse into the mind of a highly imaginative filmmaker.
Rating: 8 out of 10

#2,485. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) - The Films of Terry Gilliam

Directed By: Terry Gilliam

Starring: Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, Tobey Maguire




Tag line: "Four Days, Three nights, Two Convertibles, One City"

Trivia: Benicio Del Toro gained forty pounds for his role as Dr. Gonzo









“I want it to be seen as one of the great movies of all time, and one of the most hated movies of all time”. 

This is what director Terry Gilliam said while promoting 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and based on the reactions of critics and audiences alike, I’d say he got his wish! 

While a few pundits undoubtedly enjoyed the film (Empire Magazine went so far as to rank it 469th on their list of the 500 Greatest Movies Ever), some reviews were positively scathing. Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, gave Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas one out of four stars, and called it “a horrible mess of a movie”, while Mike Clark of USA Today declared it “simply unwatchable”. 

There were audience members who agreed with the critics; a co-worker at the time told me it was the worst film he’d ever seen, and the only movie he ever walked out on. 

Without a doubt, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is unusual and, at times, even off-putting, but Gilliam throws enough at us to keep us engaged throughout, building suspense as we wonder what sort of mischief his depraved leads will get into next. 

Based on the book by Hunter S. Thompson and inspired by his own experiences, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is set in the early 1970s and centers on the exploits of journalist Raoul Duke (Thompson’s alter ego, played by Johnny Depp), who, along with his Samoan lawyer Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) and a trunkful of illegal narcotics, heads to Las Vegas to cover the Mint 400, a dirt bike race that runs for several days. 

But truth be told, Duke doesn’t give a damn about the race; he instead spends his time in Vegas ingesting cocaine, acid, ether, mescaline, and even a human adrenal gland! 

Along the way, Duke and Dr. Gonzo encounter a variety of people, including a hippie hitch-hiker (Toby Maguire), a teenage artist (Christine Ricci), and a pretty blonde reporter (Cameron Diaz). They even crash a DA’s convention, sitting in on attorney L. Ron Bumquist’s (Michael Jeter) impassioned speech on how best to spot a drug addict. 

Haunted by hallucinations and paranoia, Duke experiences everything that Vegas has to offer. But will he make it out of the city alive?

With Time Bandits, Brazil, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Terry Gilliam established himself early on as a master of the bizarre, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas went a long way to strengthen that reputation. In what is one of my favorite sequences, Duke and Dr. Gonzo – having just arrived in Vegas - are checking into a hotel. As they enter the lobby, Duke, who is already hopped up on drugs, begins to hallucinate; the face of the desk clerk, played by Katherine Helmond, morphs in front of his eyes, and the tacky patterns on the rug leap off the floor and climb the walls. The horror continues when Duke and Gonzo make their way to the bar, where every patron transforms into a hideous reptile. This is but one of many strange scenes scattered throughout the film (a visit to the Bazooka Circus Casino is a definite highlight), with Gilliam constantly turning and tilting his camera, keeping us off-kilter as we experience first-hand his main characters’ warped view of reality. 

Depp and Del Toro are perfectly twisted as the two leads; the distorted manner in which they move while under the influence is often quite hilarious (At one point, Del Toro’s Dr. Gonzo slowly leans backwards, continuing to walk until he finally falls over). In addition, the film contains a number of memorable cameos. Aside from Maguire, Ricci, and Diaz, Ellen Barkin appears briefly as a waitress threatened by Dr. Gonzo, while Gary Busey portrays what is arguably the oddest highway patrolman in cinematic history. 

It’s easy to see why some people have a strong negative reaction to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Its structure is chaotic, and it doesn’t so much tell a story as present the experiences of two individuals who show us time and again that they aren’t exactly pillars of the community (a scene in which Depp talks about prostituting Ricci’s teenage character catches us off-guard, though I’m sure that was the point). 

Still, despite its more aggressive elements, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an effective critique of ‘70s excess, and even though I’ve seen the movie a few times now, I still get a kick out of it.

#45. Time Bandits (1981) - The Films of Terry Gilliam

Directed By: Terry Gilliam

Starring: Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall, John Cleese




Tag line: "All the dreams you've ever had and not just the good ones"

Trivia:  49-year-old Ian Holm plays the 26-year-old Napoléon Bonaparte

Released in 1981, Time Bandits was my introduction to the wonderful world of Terry Gilliam, which, over the years. has been an intensely imaginative place, a land where the impossible is commonplace, and nothing can be predicted.

While lying in bed one evening, young Kevin (Craig Warnock) is startled by a gang of little people emerging from his bedroom closet. Employees of the Supreme Being, they've just stolen a valuable map from their boss, and are running for their lives. 

The map is a special one, revealing the exact locations of a series of time portals, which the diminutive thieves plan to use to plunder the riches of past civilizations. Led by Randall (David Rappaport), the group inadvertently pulls Kevin into their adventure, allowing the starstruck boy to meet some of history’s most influential people, including Napoleon (Ian Holm), King Agamemnon (Sean Connery), and Robin Hood (John Cleese). 

But what Kevin and his new friends don’t realize is someone else also wants the map: the Supreme Being’s arch-enemy, Pure Evil (David Warner), who will stop at nothing to snatch it away from them. 

The exploration of centuries past, from Ancient Greece to Napoleonic Europe, is impressive enough, but it’s the worlds Gilliam creates from scratch: the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness where pure evil resides; and the house boat belonging to the ogre (Peter Vaughan) and his wife (Katherine Helmond), that reveal his true creative genius. 

Even Gilliam’s version of the “real” world is a bit surreal, or, at the very least, highly exaggerated. Kevin’s parents (David Daker and Sheila Fearn) spend hours discussing appliances, all the while watching an insipid game show titled Your Money or Your Life, with a host (Jim Broadbent) who takes pleasure in inflicting pain. 

Time Bandits is more than a fun movie; it’s an exercise in originality.