November 22
Terrence Vance
Gilliam's Birthday
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Terry Gilliam has had a fascinating and at times cursed life. Many remember his brilliant animation between sketches on the Monty Python television show. Although first hired as an animator, Terry soon became a full-member of the Monty Python gang which included John Cleese, Michael Palin Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and Graham Chapman. When discussing his animations, Gilliam said "There's a side of me that always fell for manic things, frenzied, cartoony performances. I always liked sideshows, freakshows. Jerry Lewis was a freakshow...Absolutely grotesque, awful, tasteless. I like things to be tasteless." . Terry was born in Minnesota, and is the only non-British member of the Monty Python gang. although he gave up his U.S. citizenship in 2006 as a protest against US President George W. Bush, and became a full-time Brit. It was during his Monty Python association that he became a film director and screen writer, and directed several popular films, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Fisher King (1991), Brazil (1985), and Time Bandits (1981). Terry has been cursed on several of his film productions. A few days after he started filming The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in 2001 with Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort, Rochefort developed an intestinal virus that meant he had to return to France for treatment, and shooting was stopped .During the filming of Brazil (1985), Terry became so stressed that he temporarily lost the use of his legs. Problems began to appear in nearly every subsequent film. Warner Brothers refused to hire him to direct Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because of his cussed production even though J.K. Rowling specifically requested him. The curse continued in 2008 when Heath Ledger died during the filming of Gilliam's The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus. Many critics regard Brazil (1985) as his masterpiece. Although a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its initial North America release but has since become a cult film. The plot revolves around a bureaucrat in a retro-future world who tries to correct an administrative error and himself becomes an enemy of the state. Terry once commented, “I’m thinking of suing George Bush and Dick Cheney for making the remake of ‘Brazil’ without my approval,” he told a New York screening audience,.“Their version isn’t as funny, though.” |
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