In a very Orwellian future (even if the film isn’t explicitly based on 1984), a mild-mannered employee who works for the police-like Ministry of Information really does meet the girl he has been dreaming about for a while. She could be an angel or a terrorist, but Sam doesn’t care. Crushed by baroque and labyrinthine sets, submerged in the paranoid nightmare of control and consumeristic monstrosity, one of the most deeply visionary representations of our future, where the surreal humor of Monty Python and Gilliam’s drawings interweave with a desperate sadness.
Biography
film director

Terry Gilliam
(Minneapolis, Usa, 1940) earned a degree in political science at Los Angeles’s Occidental College and then worked as a magazine illustrator and in an animation studio. In 1967, he moved to London. Two years later, together with Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, John Cleese and Graham Chapman, he created the famous comedy group Monty Python. He also appeared and acted in the television series Monthy Python’s Flying Circus. He co-directed the group’s first film, The Holy Grail (1975) and he produced the short film The Crimson Permanent Assurance, which was presented as an opener to the troupe’s final film, The Meaning of Life (Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1983). He then started a long and highly appreciated filmography as a director, with films such as Time Bandits, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King (winner of a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival), 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, presented in competition in Cannes in 1998… In 2011, he made his debut as an opera director with La Damnation de Faust at the English National Opera.
FILMOGRAFIA
Jabberwocky (id., 1977), Time Bandits (I banditi del tempo, 1981), Brazil (id., 1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Le avventure del Barone di Munchausen, 1988), The Fisher King (La leggenda del re pescatore, 1991), 12 Monkeys (L’esercito delle 12 scimmie, 1995), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Paura e delirio a Las Vegas, 1998), The Brothers Grimm (I fratelli Grimm e l’incantevole strega, 2005), Tideland (Tideland - Il mondo capovolto, 2005), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Parnassus - L’uomo che voleva ingannare il diavolo, 2009), The Zero Theorem (id., 2013), The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (L'uomo che uccise Don Chisciotte, 2018).
Cast
& Credits
Terry Gilliam
sceneggiatura/screenplay
Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, Charles McKeown
fotografia/cinematography
Roger Pratt
montaggio/film editing
Julian Doyle
scenografia/production design
Norman Garwood
musica/music
Michael Kamen
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Jonathan Pryce (Sam Lowry), Robert De Niro (Harry Tuttle), Katherine Helmond (Mrs Ida Lowry), Ian Holm (Mr Kurtzmann), Bob Hoskins (Spoor), Michael Palin (Jack Lint), Ian Richardson (Mr Warrenn)
produttore/producer
Arnon Milchan
produzione/production
Embassy International Pictures