But at its best, Python was silly and whimsical, its more pointed satirical moments punching up, not down. We were giving people a lot of laughter.” You see, this is the world I grew up in, and with Python, we could do this stuff, and we weren’t offending people. “I’m just trying to make you start thinking. These are just logical steps.” They don’t seem logical. OK, since I don’t find men sexually attractive, I’ve got to be a lesbian. “I’m talking about being a man accused of all the wrong in the world because I’m white-skinned. But the idea that this is such an important subject you cannot find anything humorous about it? Wrong!” Many women have made very legitimate accusations against many powerful men. It was about the position of power and how people use it.”īeing neurotic and being an alleged rapist are not the same thing, though. One was a really good producer, and the other was a neurotic bitch. I had to work with him and I know the abuse, but I don’t want people saying that all men… Because on Fisher King, two producers were women. We all make choices, and I could tell you who did make the choice and who didn’t. “There are many victims in Harvey’s life,” he adds, “and I feel sympathy for them, but then, Hollywood is full of very ambitious people who are adults and they make choices. “I really feel there were a lot of people, decent people, or mildly irritating people, who were getting hammered. “Yeah, I said #MeToo is a witch hunt,” he says. Now, she works as a model and an escort.Īccess unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign upĪnd then that phrase comes up. He told her she could be a star, but hasn’t spoken to her in the years since, and her attempts to make good on his prediction have failed. Played by Joana Ribeiro, Angelica is a young woman who was in Toby’s film when she was 15. He was trying to make a point with Angelica, though. “‘The male gaze is over,’” he adds, letting his derisive air quotes hover for a moment. “There’s no room for modern masculinity, I’m told,” says Gilliam. Is it about the clash between modern masculinity and old-fashioned ideals of manhood? All these wonderful ideas.” The film flits between the 17th century and the 21st. “Don Quixote is a mad man,” says Gilliam, who has reluctantly deigned to talk about the film for a moment, “but his view of the world is a noble one. And Adam Driver is Toby, an arrogant advertising director who triggered Javier’s delusion by casting him in his student film a decade ago. Pryce plays Javier, an elderly man who believes himself to be Don Quixote. Gilliam’s teamed up with Pryce again for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which finally got off the ground thanks to a large cash injection – which he says came from a woman who identified with “my jihad, mein kampf”. But his masterpiece is surely 1985’s Brazil, an Orwellian dystopian satire starring Jonathan Pryce as Sam Lowry, a low-level government worker trying to find the woman of his dreams (literally). His directorial debut was with them, 1975’s riotous Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and he helped write the equally adored (though not by Catholics) Life of Brian (1979).Īnd when the Pythons slithered their separate ways, he kept on going, making work that was weird and fantastical, shot through with dark comedy and dystopian undertones: 12 Monkeys (1995) with Brad Pitt, for example, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) with Johnny Depp. After starting out as an animator for Monty Python – he’s responsible for those surreal, Dali-esque collages and that famous giant foot – Gilliam soon joined the troupe full time, the only American-born member among five Brits. But his early years were an embarrassment of riches. And his 2013 sci-fi film The Zero Theorem flopped spectacularly. Heath Ledger, the star of his 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, died midway through filming, and was replaced by a handful of A-listers. With grey hair, cut short except for a long rat’s tail around the back, and a weathered face, he looks his age – just about – but he has sharp, keen eyes, and the air, energy and trainers of a man many years younger. “I’m so booored of talking about the film,” he groans, rolling up the sleeves of a maroon overshirt, which has a cut not dissimilar to a posh dressing gown. But the 79-year-old writer, director and former Monty Python member has other ideas. We’re in an office suite in central London to discuss Gilliam’s new film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The more incendiary his opinion – that the #MeToo movement is a witch hunt that white men are the real victims that actually, it’s women who hold all the power – the bigger that smile. It’s not fun anymore.” He seems to be enjoying himself today, though. “People work so hard to be offended now,” he says with a grin. By his own admission, Terry Gilliam is offensive.
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