The Hidden Trilogy, Unmasked! Terry Gilliam's Life Story in Metaphor and Symbol in His Films

Hey, you, psst, c’mere. I’m gonna tell ya a well-kept Hollywood Secret. (Though if you’re a fan of Terry Gilliam as a filmmaker, you already know this — maybe.) Y’see, the movies Time Bandits, Brazil (at least Gilliam’s Director’s Cut version), and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, are actually a philosophical “trilogy” of sorts, dubbed so after the fact by Gilliam. The stories of the three films have nothing in common. There’s no narrative thread that connects the films whatsoever. But the reason they are known as a Trilogy is because Time Bandits is the story of an essentially anonymous “Dreamer,” though as a very young man. Brazil is the story of another anonymous “Dreamer,” this time the character of Sam Lowry, as a middle-aged man, stuck in an officious, dark, Orwellian future bureaucracy (making the film take on a sort of “Kafa-esque” glow), while The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is yet another Dreamer, an old man who is part history and part lunatic fantasy, a fantasist who can literally make his own reality by describing it via the stories he tells others. It’s a trilogy, see? Or at least, it functions like a trilogy, which is the important part. It makes sense if you’ve seen (or if you see, in order) all three films, but it won’t if you haven’t or don’t want to. (Duh.) This here is my attempt to recommend you, the filmgoer, that you go out right now and either rent or buy these three films: Time Bandits (the Criterion Collection version), the Extended Director’s cut of Brazil, and (the astoundingly triumphant, in terms of filmmaking in general) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. You will not regret watching all three in a row, in that order. Because doing so will unlock your brain from its ordinary paradigm of reality, somehow, and knock you into a universe where anything is possible. For a little while, at least, which is all we, as creative sorts, can ever hope for. See the trilogy. See the magic of it. See beyond. And do so tonight, no matter how your significant other whines about not wanting to watch a bunch of absurdist 1980’s confections. Just remember that the astounding thing about all three is that they came before superheroes invaded Hollywod, and that the predate, by a number of years, the birth of CGI (which happened with Ron Howard’s Willow, another fantastic fantasy film). And yet, they’re just as awesome as anything with a ton of CGI in it (proving once again that CGI is not the enemy of good filmmaking; it is just another tool in the filmmaker’s toolbox). And they’re, together, all pretty powerful experiences, on the level of the entire MCU or DCEU. . . Yes, I mean Zack Snyder’s DCEU, the one that thanks to the bureaucratic management at D.C. Comics, we’ll never get to see completed. Like Snyder, there is little actual humor in Gilliam’s worlds . . . Yet they are amusing as hell. (That, and extremely well-filmed “moments” or “series of shots,” like both filmmakers have a tendancy to make films resembling, only lots and lots of them one right after another and strung together as a narrative). Yes they’re lightyears apart, Gilliam and Snyder, but this “trilogy” of films—just like I think the Snyderverse does under D.C.’S roof—lets you see what Hollywood was like— in other words, “cerebal” as fuck!—long before now . . . when it was run by actual filmmmakers with competing—and complimenting—visions of the world, of dreams, and of the future of humankind, and not a bunch of corporate demographicians. You can tell I’m kinda bitter about that transformation, can’t ya. Well, so is Gilliam—he’s even more hardcore about it than I am though!—and his Trilogy of Time Bandits, Brazil, and Baron Munchausen practically oozes sardonic commentary on the fact. See the Trilogy tonight, or soon, and have your mind opened to a new level of imagination. And no I’m not exaggerating on that.

A thing Gilliam does here is to use these protagonists as cyphers to decrypt hs own subconscious. Which means that as a person, he must be very in tune wit his subconscious. (And I can tell you now: I’d bet money that Brazil was inspired by Gilliam having a REALLY bad day at the BMV.) But in all seriousness folks: What happens when we try to “psychoanalyze” this trilogy? In my opinion, it marks — and always drives home, with every single film but in a different way, the foolishness of lone practicality practiced in a vacuum, and the heroic triumph of the “fantastist” over the “realist” every time. What Gilliam is trying to say—and perhaps is overstating a bit!— is. that it is the Dreamers of the world who move it forward; not the politicians, the warmongers, the technologists (and from watching Brazil you can REALLY tell that Gilliam hates technology with a living passion). It’s the Dreamers who turn the motor of history, according to Gilliam. Science to him is but a passing exploration of the undiscovered, but once something is discovered, all the romance is sucked out of it. So Gilliam also doesn’t like the restrictiveness of the modern scientific paradigm, either. What does he like? Imagination—what I believe he believes is the. Human race’s only attribute worth preserving and empowering. And if you ask me, Gilliam’s worldview is, when taken in moderation, the right one to have. It’s the right perspective. It’s ironic that the cut of Brazil that he hates the most is dubbed “The Love Conquers All” version. Because that’s exactly what I think he believes. Well, count me among his disciples. Because as Craig Furgueson so astutely put it: “Perhaps that’s it . . . perhaps that’s the answer . . . intellect and romance triumph over brute force and cynicism!” I could not agree more.