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Adventures of Baron Munchausen, TheOh, the studio fights Terry Gilliam has had to endure. From the 'Battle Of Brazil' (profiled in the Jack Matthews book of that title) to the mid-production collapse of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote - little has come easy to the American-born Python. The upshot of this is that the man universally praised for his unique vision is just as celebrated for his Olympian perseverance.
Between the aforementioned crises, Gilliam experienced his biggest misfortunes making The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen. A shrinking budget, language problems, inefficient execs, large-scale theft - the writer-director had to deal with these and countless other obstacles. And while a special edition DVD rerelease - complete with commentary and feature-length documentary - will heighten the audience's appreciation of what Gilliam had to go through, it also illustrates how an apparent dream project became a rather ragged affair that only occasionally resembles the superb caper film it could have been.
Inspired by the best-selling novels of Gottfried August B?rger and Rudolph Erich Raspe, (and first adapted for screen by Josef Von B?ky in 1943), Gilliam's film is a children's movie masquerading as a study of the importance of myths and myth-making.
Munchausen (Canadian stage actor Neville) is an aristocratic fabulist considered a dangerous loon by the Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson (Gilliam favourite Pryce), the prefect of a city surrounded by Turkish invaders. But the Baron wins the trust of young Sally (future writer-director Polley) and it's with her that he flees the city by air balloon. Can Munchausen prove himself to be more than just the world's greatest liar and save the day? We'll only know once the ignoble nobleman has encountered the King Of The Moon (an uncreditted Robin Williams), the goddess Venus (a 17-year-old Uma Thurman) and a very large fish.
It sounds spectacular and often times it is. This being a Gilliam film what impresses most isn't so much the vistas - ravishing though they are - as the attention to detail. Just look at the opening sequence - from the little bloke trampling on a hanged man's shoulders to the Pythonesque bill posters plastered to the foot of a decapitated statue, Our Tel was big on 'the hamster factor' long before the Louis Pepe and Keith Fulton coined the phrase.
And for a picture big on in-camera special effects, few of the explosions and set pieces can eclipse the parade of cracking performances. Take Oliver Reed as Vulcan - it takes a special kind of genius to play a Greek god as a Northern trade unionist. Robin Williams meanwhile, is at the peek of his improvising powers as The King Of The Moon: "I think, therefore you is."
It's during Munchausen's moon episode that the first cracks begin to appear. Gilliam had envisaged a spectacular luna landscape but when the money ran out, he had to resort to blowing-up the blueprints. The result is quite beguiling but it points up the fact that this was a Hollywood blockbuster made on a European budget. And then there's the ending, which though incredibly clever, manages to undercut everything that's gone before. Not all's fantastic on the performance front either - it's a brave man who gives a key supporting role to Eric Idle, an actor whose ability to divide an audience is so pronounced, he might as well be sponsored by Marmite.
If it's someway short of classic Gilliam, it still boggles the mind that Baron Munchausen should have been such a massive flop at the international box-office - it made back barely $15 million of its $47 million budget. In the final balance, it's the director's resilience that really dazzles. For in following up this large-scale disaster with the double whammy of The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys, Terry Gilliam hinted that there might be something of the Baron about him.
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