The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. (PG.)
Directed by Terry Gilliam. 1988.
Starring John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Jonathan Pryce, Uma Thurman, Oliver Reed and Robin Williams. Available January 30th on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection. 121 mins.
To quote Oscar Wilde, “The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.” Scarred but triumphant (sort of) after the battles with the studio over Brazil, Terry Gilliam decided to spin the wheel again, venturing off to Rome’s Cinecitta studio to make a thrilling adventure fantasy film about the famous liar. The result is one of the great pre-seegeeye spectacles: wild and opulent; joyously silly but just sombre enough to give it a bit of an edge. And what does everyone remember about it? It went wildly over budget and was a flop. Which it did, but what is that your business? It wasn’t your bloody money it lost. Now, at least, this brilliant Baron gets a modicum of justice through this tremendous Criterion double-disc Blu-ray release (triple, if you want a 4K UHD disc as well) which lets you revel in the wonders of the film and marvel at the chaos of its creation.
The film revives the famous 18th century Baron (Neville) in the middle of a city under siege from the Ottoman army, where he interrupts a theatrical performance of his life story by the company of Mr Henry Salt (Bill Paterson.) As the theatre is rocked by cannon fire, he tells them the true story of his life before promising to lift the siege. This involves reuniting with his faithful servants – the world’s fastest runner Bertold (Idle); sharp-eyed crack shot Adolphus (co-scriptwriter McKeown); Gustavus (Jack Purvis) who has superhuman hearing and has tornado breath and strong man Albrecht (Winston Dennis) – a trip to the moon, falling into Mount Etna and being swallowed by a sea monster.
Dropping Gilliam into Fellini’s film studio Cinecitta and pairing him with Fellini’s production designer Dante Ferretti (later Scorsese’s - Hugo, Silence, Age of Innocence) and Fellini’s cameraman Guiseppe Rotunno (Rocco and his Brothers) means that the film looks amazing. It does not though, apart from a few fat-bottomed ladies, mean it looks especially Felliniesque. Gilliam’s visual style is so powerful, so defined, so him, that it asserts itself whatever the material and whoever the collaborators. Though it’s often catalogued as dark or subversive, Gilliam’s look is perfect for children’s films because it’s filled with the joy of making a mess and building stuff out of bits of other stuff. Take the moon scenes. Initially conceived as a great extravaganza filled with extras, after the budget was cut Gilliam had Ferretti’s original designs turned into cardboard cutouts and had them moved around to create a city. For the month or so he’d have lasted before being sacked, he’d have been a hell of a Blue Peter presenter.
As much as the look, the film is made by its performances. Still uncredited, Robin Williams is a blast as the King of The Moon, though arguably less funny than Oliver Reed’s Vulcan, who he plays as a bluff Yorkshireman, smitten with his wife Venus (Thurman.) Uma doesn't get a lot to do in this but her emergence naked from the shell, in the recreation of Botticelli's painting, is more than enough. Best of all though is Neville in the title role. Gilliam cast him, instead of Sean Connery, because he wanted a half-forgotten Shakespearean master of the stage and he brings that slightly seedy air of rep matinees and thespian entitlement to the role.
There is also a kid in it. Sarah Polley appears as the 8-year-old Sally Salt and is inspired. I’d say she was up there with Christian Bale in Empire Of The Sun as the best child performance ever. Polley has subsequently gone on record as saying making Munchausen was a nightmare experience, one where if she wasn't cold or wet or hot or exhausted, she was in a state of terror. I think instinctively those of us with some affection for Gilliam bristle at her carping and dismiss it as po-faced SJW posturing but from what we see here of its making, you suspect she wasn't exaggerating. The flipside of Gilliam's maverick nature is a desire to seek out confrontation, an ideological compulsion to battle against the forces of bureaucracy and mediocracy. Which is fine, unless it is your health and safety that he is being cavalier with.
I love this film but do wonder what message it is trying to send. The villain is The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson (Pryce), who is a bureaucrat obsessed with reason and logic, and is against individualism. (He isn’t all bad – he has Sting executed for being just a bit too full of himself.) The Baron is an anti-rationalist fantasist, a rebel against convention who can pull himself up by his ponytail. This celebration of freedom, creativity and non-conformity all seemed like such wonderful fun back in the eighties; now it seems like a recipe for mayhem.
Supplements and Specs.
Criterion is known for its supplementary features but some discs are more supplemented than others and this is definitely one to get lost in. Gilliam films have become synonymous with Making Of docs, most prominently Lost in La Manca and He Dreams of Giants about his Don Quixote travails but the one here is just as compelling. It dates back to the early noughties and even has contributions from German producer Thomas Schuhly, who Gilliam is keen to cast as the villain of the piece. You'll be amazed that he agreed to appear and he does seem eminently shifty but not to the point where he can be scapegoated as the whole cause of the problem. There is a degree to which Gilliam does it to himself.
Some of the features date back to previous releases but there is plenty that has been made just for this. Over the discs you do get to understand how the film went wrong and have some idea of what the original vision for it was. My only criticism would be that the 1991 edition of the South Bank Show has had the title sequence and the Melvin Bragg introduction edited out.
New 4K digital restoration, approved by writer-director Terry Gilliam, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
Directed by Terry Gilliam. 1988.
Starring John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Jonathan Pryce, Uma Thurman, Oliver Reed and Robin Williams. Available January 30th on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection. 121 mins.
To quote Oscar Wilde, “The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.” Scarred but triumphant (sort of) after the battles with the studio over Brazil, Terry Gilliam decided to spin the wheel again, venturing off to Rome’s Cinecitta studio to make a thrilling adventure fantasy film about the famous liar. The result is one of the great pre-seegeeye spectacles: wild and opulent; joyously silly but just sombre enough to give it a bit of an edge. And what does everyone remember about it? It went wildly over budget and was a flop. Which it did, but what is that your business? It wasn’t your bloody money it lost. Now, at least, this brilliant Baron gets a modicum of justice through this tremendous Criterion double-disc Blu-ray release (triple, if you want a 4K UHD disc as well) which lets you revel in the wonders of the film and marvel at the chaos of its creation.
The film revives the famous 18th century Baron (Neville) in the middle of a city under siege from the Ottoman army, where he interrupts a theatrical performance of his life story by the company of Mr Henry Salt (Bill Paterson.) As the theatre is rocked by cannon fire, he tells them the true story of his life before promising to lift the siege. This involves reuniting with his faithful servants – the world’s fastest runner Bertold (Idle); sharp-eyed crack shot Adolphus (co-scriptwriter McKeown); Gustavus (Jack Purvis) who has superhuman hearing and has tornado breath and strong man Albrecht (Winston Dennis) – a trip to the moon, falling into Mount Etna and being swallowed by a sea monster.
Dropping Gilliam into Fellini’s film studio Cinecitta and pairing him with Fellini’s production designer Dante Ferretti (later Scorsese’s - Hugo, Silence, Age of Innocence) and Fellini’s cameraman Guiseppe Rotunno (Rocco and his Brothers) means that the film looks amazing. It does not though, apart from a few fat-bottomed ladies, mean it looks especially Felliniesque. Gilliam’s visual style is so powerful, so defined, so him, that it asserts itself whatever the material and whoever the collaborators. Though it’s often catalogued as dark or subversive, Gilliam’s look is perfect for children’s films because it’s filled with the joy of making a mess and building stuff out of bits of other stuff. Take the moon scenes. Initially conceived as a great extravaganza filled with extras, after the budget was cut Gilliam had Ferretti’s original designs turned into cardboard cutouts and had them moved around to create a city. For the month or so he’d have lasted before being sacked, he’d have been a hell of a Blue Peter presenter.
As much as the look, the film is made by its performances. Still uncredited, Robin Williams is a blast as the King of The Moon, though arguably less funny than Oliver Reed’s Vulcan, who he plays as a bluff Yorkshireman, smitten with his wife Venus (Thurman.) Uma doesn't get a lot to do in this but her emergence naked from the shell, in the recreation of Botticelli's painting, is more than enough. Best of all though is Neville in the title role. Gilliam cast him, instead of Sean Connery, because he wanted a half-forgotten Shakespearean master of the stage and he brings that slightly seedy air of rep matinees and thespian entitlement to the role.
There is also a kid in it. Sarah Polley appears as the 8-year-old Sally Salt and is inspired. I’d say she was up there with Christian Bale in Empire Of The Sun as the best child performance ever. Polley has subsequently gone on record as saying making Munchausen was a nightmare experience, one where if she wasn't cold or wet or hot or exhausted, she was in a state of terror. I think instinctively those of us with some affection for Gilliam bristle at her carping and dismiss it as po-faced SJW posturing but from what we see here of its making, you suspect she wasn't exaggerating. The flipside of Gilliam's maverick nature is a desire to seek out confrontation, an ideological compulsion to battle against the forces of bureaucracy and mediocracy. Which is fine, unless it is your health and safety that he is being cavalier with.
I love this film but do wonder what message it is trying to send. The villain is The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson (Pryce), who is a bureaucrat obsessed with reason and logic, and is against individualism. (He isn’t all bad – he has Sting executed for being just a bit too full of himself.) The Baron is an anti-rationalist fantasist, a rebel against convention who can pull himself up by his ponytail. This celebration of freedom, creativity and non-conformity all seemed like such wonderful fun back in the eighties; now it seems like a recipe for mayhem.
Supplements and Specs.
Criterion is known for its supplementary features but some discs are more supplemented than others and this is definitely one to get lost in. Gilliam films have become synonymous with Making Of docs, most prominently Lost in La Manca and He Dreams of Giants about his Don Quixote travails but the one here is just as compelling. It dates back to the early noughties and even has contributions from German producer Thomas Schuhly, who Gilliam is keen to cast as the villain of the piece. You'll be amazed that he agreed to appear and he does seem eminently shifty but not to the point where he can be scapegoated as the whole cause of the problem. There is a degree to which Gilliam does it to himself.
Some of the features date back to previous releases but there is plenty that has been made just for this. Over the discs you do get to understand how the film went wrong and have some idea of what the original vision for it was. My only criticism would be that the 1991 edition of the South Bank Show has had the title sequence and the Melvin Bragg introduction edited out.
New 4K digital restoration, approved by writer-director Terry Gilliam, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
- Audio commentary featuring Gilliam and his coscreenwriter, Charles McKeown
- Documentary on the making of the film
- New video essay by critic and filmmaker David Cairns about the history of the Baron Munchausen character
- Behind-the-scenes footage of the film’s special effects, narrated by Gilliam
- Deleted scenes with commentary by Gilliam
- Storyboards for unfilmed scenes, narrated by Gilliam and McKeown
- Original marketing materials including a trailer and electronic-press-kit featurettes, as well as preview cards and advertising proposals read by Gilliam
- Miracle of Flight (1974), an animated short film by Gilliam
- An episode of The South Bank Show from 1991 on Gilliam
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic and author Michael Koresky
- New cover by Abigail Giuseppe
