The Terry Gilliam directed, highly acclaimed, opera “Damnation of Faust” which opened with the ENO in London in May has now gotten dates to open in Italy and Belgium. We are in the midst of trying to get more information on these dates/events for you now.
Terry Gilliam's "Damnation Of Faust"
Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo:
Source: Wall Street Journal
Terry Gilliam: ‘Most People Don’t Experience What True Obsession Is’
Eyewear brand Persol, recognizable to style watchers and cinemaphiles alike as the company behind Steve McQueen’s specs and Marcello Mastroianni’s La Dolce Vita chic, debuted an exhibition in honor of cinematic artifacts in Chelsea.
“Persol Magnificent Obsessions: 30 Stories of Craftmanship in Film,” will be open to the public at Chelsea’s Center 548 through Sunday, June 19 before traveling to Paris and Milan. The exhibit features mixed-media looks at past “obsessions,” from sound design (Alan Splet and Ann Kroeber’s soundscape for “Blue Velvet”) to costume design (Milena Canonero’s sumptuous clothes for ‘Marie Antoinette,’ whose color palette was taken from a box of macarons) to set design (Mark Friedberg’s use of Rajasthani craftsmen to decorate ‘The Darjeeling Limited’). The exhibition’s theme is linked to Persol’s message about its products’ artisanal values and the 30 manual steps required to make one pair of glasses.
The opening night’s guest of honor, director Terry Gilliam, was quick to talk about his reputation for cinematic obsessions. “I liked the idea of something about cinema and obsession,” the director said on the rooftop terrace, during a quiet moment before the party kicked into high gear. “It’s a term that gets used a lot but most people don’t experience what true obsession is.”
“Ideas take me over. They possess me,” he said. And once ideas take over, it’s a battle to “clear it out.” When it works, there’s a film to show for it. “Other things, you work on for years and it doesn’t happen. Those are the ones that take a lot of energy out of you. There’s been several of those.”
“I’m not a director for hire,” Gilliam said. “I only do films when I’m obsessed or possessed. I’m always impressed with directors for hire. They take any old thing and show up for every day. I have to be driven, because I don’t like getting up to work every day.” He laughs softly.
That seemed as good a segue as any to ask Gilliam about his most recent work, a short film funded by an Italian pasta company. Trailers for “The Wholly Family” are online, showing a typically whimsical off-kilter Gilliam spectacle, with dancing clowns, a wide-eyed child and puppets. Gilliam said the company, Garofalo, only had two requests: That the film take place in Naples and no one dies. It was not different, the director says, than seeing Warner Bros. before the credits. Last summer, Gilliam directed a web cast of an Arcade Fire concert, which was presented by American Express.
This could signal the start of more corporations moving into funding films that blur the line between ads and films. “There’s no product placement. It’s just a movie,” Gilliam said. “There’s so many commercials coming out. So why not be a patron of the arts?”
“It’s as if we’re moving back into the era of the Medicis, and big corporations are thinking, well, if we can support the arts or something interesting, it will reflect on them,” the director said. And as for the directors: “Wherever the money comes from, we go.”
The director, who jokes that’s he’s currently jobless and looking, was hopeful that “The Damnation of Faust,” his debut as an opera director, now currently playing to London crowds, and with upcoming dates in Italy and Belgium, may eventually have its day stateside.
Persol Press Release For “Magnificent Obsessions: 30 Stories of Craftmanship in Film”
June 17, 2011
PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS.
30 stories of craftsmanship in film
The first in a series of three exhibitions, PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS. 30 stories of craftsmanship in film uncovers 10 stories of obsessive craftsmanship within filmmaking.
The exhibits offer the opportunity to view rarely seen artifacts from some of cinema’s most iconic films, as well as behind the scenes research notes, sketches, video interviews and materials used in the development process by some of the world’s greatest filmmakers.
Curated by Michael Connor, Persol Magnificent Obsessions. 30 stories of craftsmanship in film aims to show whether making a film or a pair of sunglasses, it is only through the uncompromising drive for perfection that one can truly create a work of art. The exhibition will explore the many steps – from an actor’s immersion in character research to the meticulous detailing of a costume designer – to create an icon. Iconic characters, iconic sounds and visuals, iconic scenes, costumes, and props, the exhibition will showcase how each step can take hours, weeks or months of painstaking research and craftsmanship to develop.
This is a theme close to the heart of Persol, a brand that for nearly a century has been linked to the film, art and creative worlds, with a long tradition of Italian design, craftsmanship and engineering. Just as each film emerges from a team of individuals combining their talent, dedication and creativity, at the Persol factory in Lauriano, Northern Italy, every pair of sunglasses passes through the hands of at least 15 highly trained craftsmen, each making their own personal contribution. It takes a minimum of 30 steps to create a pair of Persols, each step carried out by hand.
Among the celebrated stories are those of Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero, who designed hundreds of elaborate costumes for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, taking the entire color palette from a box of macaroons. And director Terry Gilliam, not just for his creation of a timeless dystopian vision in Brazil, but for his dogged battle with the film’s US studio to see its release, and preserve its less than audience-friendly ending. The exhaustive preparation and dedication to the art of award-winning acting, performances by Robert De Niro (unhinged Vietnam War vet Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver) and Sir Ben Kingsley (Gandhi), are also examined through a series of artifacts, video exhibits and a large-scale installation.
The brand was born in Turin in 1917, just as cinema was entering its first Golden Age, and Persol sunglasses went on to play a lead role in some of Italy’s best known films, including La Dolce Vita and Divorce Italian Style. In 1968, Steve McQueen appeared on the set of The Thomas Crown Affair wearing his favourite Persol folding 714 sunglasses, making legends of both the actor and his eyewear. Other notable screen credits for Persol include The Getaway, Casino Royale, Die Another Day, North by North West, The American, Broken Flowers and Ocean’s Thirteen among many others.
Today Persol continues to champion contemporary cinematic excellence as a sponsor of the Venice, Turin and Tribeca Film Festivals, and is working in special partnership with the Museum of the Moving Image.
PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS. 30 stories of craftsmanship in film exhibition in New York will be open to the public from June 17th until June 19th included.
After New York, the exhibition will travel in Paris late June and Milan late September.
Our wishes are answered! Terry Gilliam’s “Damnation of Faust” is coming to television! Thanks to BBC!
Source: Intermezzo
Terry Gilliam’s Nazi-tasting ENO production of The Damnation of Faust is to air on BBC4 this autumn.
The director himself will introduce the work for TV.
In recent years, opera on BBC TV has been the near-exclusive preserve of the Royal Opera House. While ENO have teamed up with Sky Arts for a series of gimmicks like ‘”3-D Lucrezia” and “Multiview Bohème”, I can’t remember when one of their productions last aired on a terrestrial channel. Could this signal a longer-term switch in BBC affiliations?
Check out the trailer to Terry Gilliam’s new short film, “Wholly Family”!
Check out this trailer for “The Monster of Nix” the Dutch animated short featuring the voices of Terry Gilliam and Tom Waits. Gilliam and Waits are an unbeatable pairing. The film should be fantastic!
Source: Dreams
By Phil Stubbs
What personal themes were you able to bung into the script of The Wholly Family?
My love of Pulcinella. My love of dancing in chapels! And my love of dysfunctional families. Garafalo Pasta has sponsored it. The rules of doing this little film were as follows: it has to be about Naples and nobody gets killed in it. There’s a place called San Gregario Armeno, which is a street in Naples which I’ve been fascinated with because they sell all these little carved figures, presepi, which are nativity scenes. They are wonderful elaborate things, and I’ve always liked that street in particular and what they do there.
One of the things they also carve out is Pulcinella, and I have always loved them. We started with that, and I though what better than an arguing unhappy family? One that can be transformed by an experience with Pulcinella.
You didn’t have to show anyone eating pasta
No, but we do. It’s not because I had to, it’s because I wanted to. That’s the good thing about it. I wrote the thing very quickly, and these were just the things that intrigued me.
Was the experience a happy one?
It was good fun. Nicola and I say we must keep making these one-reelers, these short films: 20 minutes long. That’s all we ought to keep doing, it’s good fun – one week’s shooting and off we go, and another one is done. It was great fun, great to be able to spend time in Naples, because I have always been intrigued by Naples, so I got to see a lot more of it and understand a lot more of it: a wondrous place.
You were shooting digitally, how did you find that?
It was fine. It’s got its limitations, but it’s fine. It still looks good. I’m not convinced though… and if I do another film, it’d probably still be on film.
How does it look blown up on to a big screen?
It’s fine, no problem, looks good. We used the Arriflex Alexa which is the best camera out there at the moment.
I understand you used a Canon 7D as well
Yes, Nicola has his own Canon 7D. He just went out grabbed some stuff on a Sunday without the crew, just with the camera. At one point, we needed a Steadicam shot and we didn’t have a Steadicam. We couldn’t afford a proper Steadicam rig, so Nicola built a little basic form of Steadicam. It’s very simple – anyone could have one, probably cost nothing. We did some shooting with that and the Canon – and it looks great. I think Canons are fantastic. That’s what we used when we did the Talledega movie – that was all done on a Canon.
I’ve seen great results from a Canon 7D online
Well, if you blow it up big, it looks really good.
Our chance to see it will be on the web
I think when they release it at the end of May it will be on their website. It’s not the way to see it. But it really looks good on a big screen. You really get absorbed by the whole thing.
In March, it wasn’t available at the Bradford Film Festival as advertised
I was just finishing it… actually we just couldn’t get the DVD done in time. The Wholly Family is supposed to get its premiere in Italy in May. I’m to go to Rome on the May 24 to present it. So that will be its first official viewing.
When the opera is finished, have you anything else in the pipeline?
We’re still battling away at Quixote. In the next few weeks, we might get a better idea of what our chances are of raising it. At the same time I’m just dredging up an old script – the one Richard LaGravenese and I wrote years ago after The Fisher King – The Defective Detective. And we are just snooping around to see if there is any way we can move that one forward.
I’ve just got to get something going, and this opera in many ways has just been standing in the way. I’m only able to do one thing at a time. It’s like until I get it out of my system, I can’t get on to the next thing.
I’ve got another script I’ve been reading, because I just know I’ve got to get moving. It’s April now and if we’re going to do anything this year with Quixote, money has to materialise very quickly.
How much will The Defective Detective cost in its present form?
A lot more than all my other films – but on the other hand, Richard and I have been talking about what will the traffic bear? Is there a way of trimming the script down, changing the way of doing things? One of the things I tried doing with Parnassus tried doing what I wanted to do with The Defective Detective. Particularly in the scene where the drunk goes through and finds himself in the forest and the trees are two dimensional but the space is three dimensional and that’s what I wanted to do in The Defective Detective. I know that kind of thing works.
Can you reveal anything about that script you’ve been reading?
No!
Do you have any ideas for anything that might be low budget, 5 or 6 million? There seems to be more funding at that level.
No – you can have a few people walk around, talk and get in the car, drive and talk. You can do that, but I’m just more interested in trying to get more spectacular imagery up on screen.
There’s something called The Monster of Nix that you have been involved with…
A friend of mine a Dutch animator named Rosto, he does really interesting stuff and he talked me into doing one of the voices on this animated film. I was in there for a day doing voices and convincing him I couldn’t sing the song he had written. I connected him with Tom Waits as well, who has done a voice for it.
Tom and I we keep in touch trying to find something we can do together. I love him, maybe we can find a project we can work on… I think we could do a musical together, a very dark musical. He’s deep into his next album. Like me, he disappears from the world when he’s busy. I won’t hear from him in a while.
You appeared in a film for Christophe Goffette?
Yes, he publishes a magazine in France called Brazil. He’s great, he’s passionate, he’s mad. He beat me into submission. I have no idea what the result will be. I did my duty, let’s put it that way.
What did you do?
I don’t know! I don’t know what his film is?
You must have turned up and worn a costume or something?
I was in Deauville, for this retrospective and they gave me the Hommage award. I called it the Fromage award. Christophe grabbed me one afternoon, and said now you’ve got to do it. We went into this building and shot four different scenes. I still don’t know what it was about!
You are also appearing in Dixiewood
I’m a voice in a telephone conversation. That’s Theresa, I couldn’t say no to her! She’s been such a great supporter!
Our sincere thanks to our friends at Dreams for sharing this great interview with us!
Source: Bleeding Cool
By Brendon Connelly
Terry Gilliam’s new film, The Wholly Family, is to receive a World Premiere “multicast” on the 25th of May. Essentially, it’s going to be streamed to viewers simultaneously, like a world premiere not happening in just one location, but still with just one audience. The multicast, it’s said, will be bringing us all together to enjoy the premiere collectively.
In order to see the stream you’ll need to register in advance at My Movies. There’s a limited number of “tickets”, so I’d suggest signing up soon. Hopefully the limited number of allocations being allowed will ensure a manageable audience with no server problems or hiccups.
As the event is being organised and centralised in Italy, I’d assume the premiere time of 21:30 given will be Italian time – so, 20:30 for me.
UPDATE: To clarify – the film, which I’ve covered plenty of times on Bleeding Cool in the past, is expected to be around fifteen minutes long.
It goes without saying that I’ve signed up, of course. I recommend you do just the same thing yourself.
Thanks to Little Bleeder Anto Blueberry for the tip.
Check out this video of the audience’s reactions to director Terry Gilliam’s new ENO opera, “The Damnation Of Faust”. It’s wonderful!
Congratulations Terry Gilliam and the ENO!
Source: The Guardian
By Andrew Clements
At first sight it seems really perverse to invite Terry Gilliam to cut his teeth as an opera director on a work that isn’t really an opera at all.
Berlioz labelled it a “dramatic legend” and intended it for the concert hall; the pacing of the score, with its extended orchestral interludes and ballads, and character pieces for many of the solo vocal numbers, hardly suggests a living, breathing piece of theatre.
But the hazy dramatic boundaries, and the latitude for interpretation that Berlioz’s recasting of the Faust legend allows, gives a maverick creativity like Gilliam’s the freedom to flourish.
Working together with a creative team of huge experience, he has refracted the story through 100 years of German history and culture, from the 19th century to the Third Reich, from the romantic imagery of Caspar David Friedrich, through the grotesqueries of Otto Dix and George Grosz to Leni Reifenstahl’s film of the 1936 Olympics.
Sometimes too much is packed into each scene – if one imaginative stroke doesn’t quite hit the mark, another is likely to comes very soon after. But the best of what Gilliam comes up with is by turns breathtakingly imaginative and horrifyingly vivid, whether it’s the Hungarian March serving as a backdrop to the outbreak of world war one, Faust’s seduction of Marguerite while Kristallnacht is taking place outside her window, Marguerite’s final scene awaiting the train that will take her to a concentration camp, or Faust and Mephistopheles’s ride to the abyss in motorbike and sidecar.
No punches are pulled, the use of video is perfectly judged, and everything on stage has a musical as well as visual purpose.
Gilliam’s direction of the singers, whether en masse or individually, is detailed and precise too. Christopher Purves, right, as Mephistopheles is the master of ceremonies, by turns suave, demonic or caricature, and commandingly incisve in everything he sings. Peter Hoare as Faust, far right, is a bizarre hybrid between Shockheaded Peter, Friedrich Nietzsche, and a mad scientist; he sings his numbers with great style and sense of line; Christine Rice as Marguerite has two solos, the Ballad of the King of Thule and the Romance, and the still points of beauty. Only the chorus lack of presence disappoints, along with Edward Gardner’s undemonic treatment of some orchestral passages.
Be sure to catch Terry Gilliam when he guest stars on BBC 4′s “Desert Island Disc” this Sunday, April 10, 2011. The episode will be available for download the following week.