Here’s a great article on Terry Gilliam and his continued fight for little film makers. A fight which as his fans we have all joined with him and believe in so strongly.

Source: Suite 101

Into the new Millennium Gilliam continues trying to make films his way in the face studio opposition and other set backs.

The Second Rise of Terry Gilliam

In 2000 Terry Gilliam made what is probably the most famous non-existent film ever. He began production on a long planned project called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The film starred Jean Rochefort as Cervantes’ character and Johnny Depp as a time-traveling ad executive Quixote mistakes for his squire, Sancho Panza.
Lost In La Mancha

The film was plagued with disasters. Floods, close proximity to a UN plane-testing site stalled filming. Jean Rochefort developed an intestinal virus that meant he had to return to France for treatment, and the financiers’ insurance company shut down the film indefinitely. The entire episode was chronicled in the film Lost in La Mancha by documentarians Louis Pepe and Keith Fulton. Gilliam always tried to keep the project alive, and has recently started preproduction on a new version that will now star Robert Duvall and Ewan McGregor.
Gilliam Versus Hollywood Round 2

Following the failure of his Quixote film, Gilliam didn’t make another film for five years. Since his last movie came out in 1998, it would be seven years in between completed films. The film that came next was another battle with studio heads for Gilliam, but it wouldn’t result in the same victory as Brazil.

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You guys have just got to see this amazing, rarely seen home movie footage of Monty Python. It’s so awesome! Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, John Cleese and all the guys!

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

This video prior to the Arcade Fire concernt is awesome. It’s great to see Andrew Garfield from Dr. Parnassus working with Terry again in the video!

Click the link below to watch the Arcade Fire concert directed by Terry Gilliam which took place at Madison Square Gardens tonight! It’s incredible.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CONCERT VIDEO FROM AMERICAN EXPRESS

Source: MTV Movies Blog

Let’s not rehash the appalling collapse of Terry Gilliam’s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” a decade ago, OK? You can read all about the natural disasters, backstabbing producers and injured actors here.

And, hey, let’s not dwell on his latest stalled effort to bring “Don Quixote” to the big screen with Robert Duvall in the title role and Ewan McGregor as an ad exec who travels back in time to the 17th Century. Instead, how about we just check in with Gilliam for a general update on the long-troubled project, which was quietly moving forward until recently?

Gilliam is quite happy to talk about the film. Maybe that’s because, at the moment, he’s hanging out with Arcade Fire in advance of directing a webcast of their live show at Madison Square Garden on Thursday (August 5). Or maybe, at the age of 69, the director has encountered enough professional hardship to be serene about this latest holdup. Whatever the case, Gilliam opened up about the reasons for the “Don Quixote” delay, the difficulty of making films these days, and how he’s rewritten a great deal of the script.

MTV: So…”Don Quixote.” Where are you at right now? I have my fingers crossed that you’re still moving forward.

Terry Gilliam: We moved forward and then we stepped back a bit. Originally, I thought we were going to be in pre-production right now, but there’s been a little hiccup. And me doing this thing with Arcade Fire is a result of this hiccup with “Don Quixote.” Robert Duvall is still Quixote and Ewan McGregor is still involved — all that stuff is still happening. There’s just been a financial hiccup.

MTV: You were so close this time. After all the craziness surrounding the project, to be so close and hit that hiccup, is it just incredibly frustrating or business as usual?

Gilliam: It’s business as usual. That’s the problem. The sad thing is you get used to this, which is a kind of numbing experience. And to be numb is not the best thing to be creative. You gear yourself up for a certain level of work — and then boom: hiccup. Suddenly the energy had nowhere to go. That’s frustrating. So it was extraordinary to get the call from Arcade Fire. I have to thank them for liberating me from weeks of depression. I’ll get back on “Quixote” after I get back.

MTV: Is it really still going to happen?

Gilliam: I’ll get back to it, but at the moment out there, if you’re not spending a couple hundred million dollars in Hollywood, it’s pretty rough. It’s hard to predict anything. Everyone’s having these problems. I’m not different from anybody else.

READ MORE HERE

Source: MTV

By Eric Ditzian

I’m just a really old groupie,’ the director jokes.

Terry Gilliam had been gearing up this summer for pre-production on “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” — a famously troubled film the director first started shooting a decade ago only to see it collapse — when what Gilliam calls a financial “hiccup” again interrupted work. That’s when he got a call from the Arcade Fire, asking if he’d like to join the band on tour and direct a webcast of their concert at Madison Square Garden.

“I have to thank them for liberating me from weeks of depression,” Gilliam laughed.

And so since late last week, Gilliam has been riding on the band’s tour bus, checking out shows in support of their new album, The Suburbs, and figuring out exactly how he’s going to capture their epic sound for computer screens. The effort is part of American Express’ “Unstaged,” a series of concerts by artists like Alicia Keys and John Legend streamed over the Web.

As he readies plans to film the Arcade show on Thursday (August 5), Gilliam gave MTV News a call to chat about his existential connection with the band, the difference between making movies and making music and why he’s hoping not to inflict “too much Terry Gilliam” on the webcast.

MTV: It was surprising, in a very good way, to hear about an Arcade Fire/ Terry Gilliam collaboration. How’d the whole thing come together?

Gilliam: Less than two weeks ago, I got contacted by their manager asking if I’d be interested. There just happened to be a little gap in my life, and it’s something I’ve never done, and I’ve been a fan of the band since Funeral. I thought, “Why not? Just leap off the edge of the cliff and see what happens.”

MTV: Did they know that you were a fan or something?

Terry Gilliam: I don’t know. It turned out that they like my stuff, and maybe the band and I will develop a relationship, so this really has become a meeting as opposed to anything else. I hate the fact that this word “directing” is being slammed all over the place. I’m not directing. I’m just hanging out with them. I’m just a really old groupie.

MTV: So if you wouldn’t call it directing, what are you doing in preparation and then on the day of the show? Will you be in the control room calling for cameras?

Terry Gilliam: I’m still working it out, which is what is so wonderful. I’ve been with the band since Montreal on Friday night. I’ve seen three shows already. I’m just trying to work out what we’re doing. The reason I’m so relaxed about it is that the show is so good that I don’t have to do anything. You just point some cameras at it and it’ll be great. The cameras and the team that does that are already in place. All I’m trying to do is make sure what they capture is true to what the band is doing. The band has got guys mixing their own cameras up on the screen and pulling in material that they’ve already assembled. When I saw that, I realized, “I don’t have anything to do!” which is good, because they’ve got great stuff, and anything I might do is just unnecessary and may end up being too much Terry Gilliam.

MTV: There can never be too much Terry Gilliam!

Terry Gilliam: Oh, I’ve read the reviews. Come on!

MTV: So what have your conversations been like with Win Butler and the band as you hang out and get closer to the live stream?

Terry Gilliam: It’s all about knowing who they are and how they see things. They come from the suburbs and I come from the suburbs. The music resonated as much with me as it does with contemporary suburban kids or kids trying to get out of the suburbs. There are those that stay behind in this kind of Middle Earth that is neither country nor city, neither good nor bad, but a place that if you’re creative, you just need to get away from. You want to get where it’s painful.

MTV: So are you just going to be kicking back having a beer on show night?

Terry Gilliam: I’m in the middle of it! I don’t know what will happen! They said, “Just come along and we’ll see what happens.” In many ways, if we get on well, there’s something in the future that can be more thought-out. When Win and I first talked on the phone, I said, “Win, when I make a movie, I’m a couple years in preparation so that when I get to shooting, it’s so much a part of my being that I’m not even thinking about it. It’s not like we’re playing music and I’m at the piano and you come in with a guitar and we make a song.” The whole thing is very relaxed and we’ll see what else it leads to if I don’t make too many mistakes.

MTV: Are you guys thinking about a more in-depth documentary?

Terry Gilliam: Those conversations are floating around with other people and I’m staying out of them and seeing where this leads. It’s exploratory for us and for the band.

MTV: Have you gone back and looked at some classic concert documentaries?

Terry Gilliam: Nope! I don’t watch concerts very often. I’ve been in a couple. I was in the “Concert for George.” [Monty] Python was a big part of that. That was such a great night. The atmosphere was astonishing. When you see the DVD, it’s fine for people that weren’t there, but it was not what we experienced. That’s the problem with DVDs and webcasts — it’s just a fraction of the experience of being in the room. It’s always difficult to capture that. That’s why theater is theater. It’s that moment and no other moment.

MTV: You sound so chilled out! I think it’s great that you’re just going with the flow on this whole thing.

Terry Gilliam: It’s been so much fun. We’ve had a documentary camera running around following me when I’m talking to the band. I have no idea what that will end up being. When I work on a film, everything is so controlled. So the idea of someone with a camera, wiggling it around at us when we’re talking, I’m hoping it might be liberating. Because I don’t care!

Source: Variety

BRUSSELS — Annette Bening, Terry Gilliam and Gregg Araki will be guests of honor at the Deauville American Film Festival, which unspools Sept. 3-12.

All three will have retrospectives at the fest, with Bening and Araki presenting new work in advance of general release in Gaul.

Bening has “Mother and Child” in competition plus “The Kids Are All Right” as a preview. Helmer Araki will introduce “Kaboom.”

Scribe Joyce Carol Oates will also guest in Deauville, collecting fest’s literary award for “Blonde.” Originally published in 2000, her book about Marilyn Monroe has a new edition out in Gaul.

Announcing further program details Monday, fest claimed a world premiere for John Madden’s “The Debt,” also slated to play at Toronto in September.

Thriller stars Sam Worthington, Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain as former Israeli agents haunted by a 1965 mission to capture a Nazi war criminal.

Other previews include Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” Joel Schumacher’s “Twelve” and the locally dubbed version of “Despicable Me.”

Indie fare getting exposure at the fest without a Sundance stamp of approval includes Richard Levine’s “Every Day” with Liev Schreiber and Helen Hunt, and Keith Bearden’s “Meet Monica Velour” with Kim Cattrall.

Fest’s factual program, Uncle Sam’s Docs, has an introspective feel, with Leon Gast’s “Smash His Camera” and Adrian Grenier’s “Teenage Paparazzo” both lifting the lid on the celebrity press.

Meanwhile, Elijah Drenner explores U.S. exploitation pics in “American Grindhouse” and Don Hahn looks at Disney’s revival in “Waking Sleeping Beauty.”

Terry Gilliam will be directing the YouTube webcast from Montreal based indie rock quintet Arcade Fire at Madison Square Garden on August 5, 2010. Check out the details below:

Source: Consequence of Sound

By Alex Young

We already have the details, but now we know who will be putting them all together. Terry Gilliam — best known for his work as a member of the Monty Python comedy troupe and as director of such films as Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and, most recently, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus — will oversee the YouTube webcast of Arcade Fire’s August 5th performance at Madison Square Garden.

The performance, which is said to be featuring “special guests,” will be broadcast live, starting at 10:00 PM EST via a special YouTube channel. Viewers of the webcast will have the ability to select multiple camera angles as well as submit photos of their own “suburbs,” which may be featured on stage during the band’s performance of one song.

The broadcast will officially kick off “Unstaged,” a new online concert series being launched by American Express and streamed on YouTube. It’s the first in a planned series of five live streamed concerts, with John Legend and The Roots to follow. Others will be announced later.

In other news, Arcade Fire has a new album due out on August 3rd. It’s quite good.

I couldn’t wait to share this great new article by Brendon Connelly with all of you. Brendon has been such a great supporter of our goals at the Support Site and it is my privilege to call him friend. He is one of the best, most knowledgeable film journalists out there and has been a fan and student of all things Gilliam for years. Take a moment to read the new article he has written about the Terry’s big changes to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote below:

Source: Bleeding Cool

By Brendon Connelly

If everything goes to plan, Terry Gilliam will commence production this September on his new, improved, second version of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. It’s a full decade now since cameras first turned on the project, and as the tragicomic documentary Lost in La Mancha so painfully showed, quite quickly stopped turning again.

There’s quite a few differences this time: Robert Duvall is the new Quixote, Ewan McGregor is the new “Sancho Panza figure” Toby Grosini and – as a result of Johnny Depp no longer being involved, I’m sure – the budget has been tightened up a little. Perhaps the most dramatic change, however, is one to the very concept at the heart of the film.

Last time around, it went something like this: Advertising ‘creative’ Toby Grosini is in Spain shooting a Quixote-themed commercial. He’s introduced to a man who claims to be the real Don Quixote. A little later, in the midst of a little trauma, Grosini finds himself transported to Quixote’s Spain by a little gypsy magic – either in reality, or by his imagination. Or indeed, in reality by his imagination.

The first big change has already been reported: McGregor’s Grosini is to be a screenwriter of movies, not an ad man. Here’s the second, fundamental difference though: this time, there’s to be no scenes set in period Spain. All of the scenes with Quixote and Grosini as his Sancho Panza are to be set in the here-and-now. READ MORE HERE

Source: Daily News Online

Terry Gilliam takes up an artistic challenge from BBC Front Row’s Kirsty Lang. Watch this video to see his visual interpretation of BBC Radio 4. You can listen to his Front Row Interview www.bbc.com