Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam and the Munchausen Saga

by Andrew Yule

Book Overview

Mix one American director with a German producer on a period extravaganza, set the locations in Italy and Spain and start the cameras rolling without enough money to do the job. Then sit back and watch disaster strike. That is the scenario Andrew Yule has painstakingly reconstructed. The more problems and reverses, the greater our interest: costly postponements, overwhelming language difficulties, elephants and tigers turning on their trainers, illnesses,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 155783346X
• ISBN13: 9781557833464
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Applause Books
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

"Surely this time there is no escape...." for Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam is the first to acknowledge that for each of his movies, he becomes the main character and their struggle in the story becomes part of his struggle to make the film. This overlap set an ominous tone that then went from bad to worse, from the frying pan to the fire and somehow a film came out the other side.The making of the movie "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" is told via Andrew Yule's interviews and research, almost a post-mortem after the near-death experience of the filmmaking process. Director and producer fought, crews walked or were fired, accountants and accusations flew, and tigers and elephants literally got out of control. Compared to "The Battle of Brazil" that was a skirmish and this was a world war.For Gilliam fans, join the director in all his pain as he attempts to surmount and juggle language barriers, lethargic crews, bad weather, financial disputes, mysterious accidents, casts of characters fictional and real, and his own visions.

A darn good book about the troubles with Munchausen

If you happen to like this movie or just Gilliam in general then I would suggest finding this book. The author, Andrew Yule, takes around thirty interviews from people related to the movie and encompasses all of the delays and pitfalls associated with it. From trying to cast Marlon Brando as the King of the Moon to the self centered producers (Thomas Schuly) total lack of concern for the crew or anyone in general this book shows how one of the most over-budgeted films of its time($20 million over) became a flop.