12 Things We Learned From Terry Gilliam’s Wild Memoir
Over the past half-century, Terry Gilliam has lived several lifetimes — first as the mastermind behind the surrealistically satirical animations on Monty Python’s Flying Circus and then as a filmmaker with an unparalleled, singular imagination. His oeuvre contains everything from literary flights of fancy (Jabberwocky) and kid-friendly fantasies (Time Bandits) to dystopian epics (Brazil and Twelve Monkeys), kaleidoscopic romps (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and the occasional slightly warped drama (The Fisher King, Tideland).
Now 74, Gilliam looks back on his life achievements, as well as his early years growing up in rural Minnesota and L.A., in his recently released, beautifully illustrated autobiography, Gilliamesque: A Pre-Posthumous Memoir. It’s chock-full of revelations about the Pythons’ relationship with the Beatles, the fragility of Fisher King star Robin Williams, the insanity of Hollywood’s studio system and much, much more. Here are 12 of the best.
1. He crossed paths with Woody Allen and R. Crumb in his pre-Python years
In the early Sixties, while working at New York–based Help! magazine (run by Mad man Harvey Kurtzman), Gilliam made fumetti strips: paneled comics made with photos. One, titled The Unmentionables, featured Woody Allen when he was still best known as a stand-up comic; another starred his future Python colleague John Cleese, whom he met when he was in New York as part of a fringe theater troupe. While at the magazine, he also took illustrator Robert Crumb up to Harlem for an early illustration. “It was obvious from very early on that Bob was going to be a star,” he wrote of the iconic underground cartoonist. “The funny thing was, he seemed to think I was the cool one.”
2. An early idea for Brazil came from visiting Disneyland
Gilliam and British journalist Glenys Roberts visited the theme park on a press trip to check out the just-opened Pirates of the Caribbean ride. “When we arrived at the special place where the special people enter, we were told that the head of security would have to come down and vet my [long] hair, because [this] guy…who looked like an FBI agent had put in an alarm call,” he wrote. “As I waited, seething at the gate, I became aware – for the very first time – of the barbed wire around the entrance.” Gilliam also noticed that “it was only on the privileged fringes that the subliminal Auschwitzness of the place started to become apparent, especially when we were informed that we weren’t going to be allowed in because ‘the company has a grooming policy.’ The idea for Brazil was born out of several different moments of extreme alienation … and this was definitely one of them.”