Gilliam on Gilliam

An intimate look at the films of Terry Gilliam, visionary director and animator

Terry Gilliam is a famously candid commentator on his own work, and in these specially recorded interviews, he reflects on how his Midwestern childhood and early career as an animator--including his work as the only American member of Monty Python--prepared him to undertake his extraordinary adventures in cinema.

His films are distinctively dark, fantastic, and strangely hilarious. From the medieval mock-epic Monty Python and the Holy Grail to the mythic, paranoid worlds of The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gilliam has pursued a totally personal, uncompromising vision. This has led to legendary battles with studios and financiers, notably over The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Brazil, which is now widely considered a classic.

The book includes Gilliam's storyboards for the films--a unique glimpse at his creative process--along with his original cartoons and black-and-white photographs throughout.

Ian Christie is the co-editor of Scorsese on Scorsese and the author of Arrows of Desire: The Films of Powell and Pressburger.