ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996 TAG: 9601100012
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
Director Terry Gilliam is no stranger to controversy.
After the surprise success of ``Time Bandits,'' he engaged studio executives in a public fight over his ambitious futuristic comedy-drama, ``Brazil.'' They wanted to tack a happy ending onto his Orwellian tale. He won that battle, forcing the release of the film as he wanted it, but ``Brazil'' didn't find the success with moviegoers that it enjoyed with critics.
Then his wildly imaginative (and expensive) ``The Adventures of Baron Munchausen'' met with a similar lack of success at the box office. But just when Gilliam was about to seal his reputation as a director of brilliant commercial failures, he made ``The Fisher King,'' a profitable hit that earned five Oscar nominations and a Best Supporting Actress Award for Mercedes Ruhl.
These days Gilliam is on the promotional trail for his new film, ``12 Monkeys,'' though he doesn't seem to take this side of the movie business with complete seriousness. At a recent stop in Washington, he began an interview with a roomful of writers by saying, ``On tour, you talk and talk and talk. Everybody records every word and writes them down. Then you go home at the end of all of it, and people say, `Shut up. Take out the garbage; make yourself useful.'''
At the same time, he insists that there is a legitimate reason for his involvement with publicity. ``One of the things these interviews are useful for is trying to get people to understand that we've created a puzzle. We haven't created - what's the word? - `a futuristic sci-fi thriller.' That's not what this film is, and yet there's a tendency to try to sell it that way.''
Gilliam thinks that the relatively slow pace of his work - seven films in 21 years - began with his association with Monty Python's Flying Circus.
``It used to be because I was flip-flopping between my films and Python,'' he said. ``The irony of this whole thing is that after `Fisher King' I was going to start making films quickly, and four years elapsed.
``It was one of those wonderfully ironic situations. After all the years of avoiding Hollywood, of plowing resolutely on with whatever project I was working on, I suddenly let the doors open up and they came flooding with all sorts of offers. I was running over there and I was running over there and then there was another one over here. It was crazy and it was a total waste of time because none of them happened.''
In the language of the business, Gilliam became ``attached'' to several projects: an adaptation of Alan Moore's ``The Watchmen'' comic book, a new version of ``A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,'' and a long involvement with a big-budget production of ``A Tale of Two Cities,'' first set to star Mel Gibson and then Liam Neeson before it finally lost financial backing.
Those were frustrating years for Gilliam, but Janet and David Peoples's script for ``12 Monkeys'' is a natural fit for his inclinations as a director. It combines elements of the classic quest that have been so important in Gilliam's work with the bleak beauty so evident in the Peoples's screenplay for Clint Eastwood's ``Unforgiven.''
More importantly for Gilliam, it had solid studio backing. This was a movie that was going to be made, not a deal subject to a thousand roadblocks.
The story also reflects Gilliam's decidedly non-rosy view of the world.
``I think we watch movies that are frivolous, and our view is distorted by this. Look out there, folks,'' he said with the dire enthusiasm of an Old Testament prophet warming to his subject, ``I don't think the world is either as violent as we see it on television or in the movies, or as silly and light. I think the real world is somewhere in between, if we can only find it.
``I live in a really nice house. I have a beautiful garden. I love the countryside and I'm fascinated by cities. I find it all extraordinary, and at the same time I think, `What foolishness!' We're walking down paths that can only lead to bigger and bigger problems. We all march forward, grasping onto whatever we can as we head toward the abyss!''
Visions of the abyss notwithstanding, Gilliam risked jinxing yet another project by admitting that he's about to begin to work on a sequel to ``Time Bandits.'' Presumably it will balance the silly and the violent by being a comedy about the Apocalypse, complete with the Four Horsemen.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB