September 06, 2005
Terry Gilliam Blames "Narrow-Minded" Audience For His Bad Movie
Terry Gilliam has been loosing some of his luster in my eyes over the last 8 weeks or so. First throws a temper tantrum like a 4 year old child not getting his own way and almost refuses to finish The Brothers Grimm because Miramax made 2 small changes to the project (Changing one of the actresses and getting a new Cinematographer. Then Brothers Grimm sucked (and the suckage had nothing to do with one actress or the cinematography) and now it's coming out that Gilliam is blaming to audience of being too narrow minded to understand and appreciate his movie.
That's an old sounding trick. If your movie sucks, start spewing some artistic rationale about your film and lament openly that people just "don't get it". The good folks over at M&C; give us this:
Terry Gilliam is convinced The Brothers Grimm has been critically slammed because an adult audience is too narrow-minded to appreciate his fantasy-driven work.TO MR. TERRY GILLIAM: Dear Sir, you are a great director and have shown us may times that you know what you're doing. However, you just choked on The Brothers Grimm. It was a poor and sloppy movie... and we know you can do better. The fault does not lie with us, the audience. We did not fail to "get it". The fault lies with the movie. It was terrible. The fault sir, lies with you."One of the things I enjoy about my films is that children really love them. They are open-minded. As we get older we seem to close in. We limit the size of the world we limit everything about it. We have to break that shell open sometimes and Grimm is just a desperate attempt to do so."
And that's ok. Everyone in every profession has a bad day at the office. We believe your next film will be great. Just don't blame us if it's not. ~ John Campea
Posted by John Campea at September 6, 2005 11:31 AM
Comments
Posted by: T-Jax at September 6, 2005 12:00 PM
So why is Jack Nicholson's photo being used to illustrate this entry?
Posted by: Franklin at September 6, 2005 12:35 PM
Man I was really looking forward to seeing this movie but maybe I'll wait for dvd. Sucks because it looked good but word of mouth is killing it.
Posted by: crackerjack at September 6, 2005 01:29 PM
Hmm. Looks like all he did was bring out the kid in himself by making comments like these!
Posted by: Edward Lee at September 6, 2005 02:41 PM
THE BROTHERS GRIMM reminded me of SLEEPY HOLLOW in that the protagonists were realistic city types that didn't believe in the supernatural, but were made to solve a supernatural crime in a quaint country town. At the end, they give up their modern methods and solve the crisis using supernatural traditions of that time. However, THE BROTHERS GRIMM differed from SLEEPY HOLLOW because THE BROTHERS GRIMM was dull and meandering. It had nice sets, but they lacked the scary and magical atmoshere that SLEEPY HOLLOW was able to achieve.
By the way, what makes Gilliam think that kids love THE BROTHERS GRIMM? I know kids that love TIME BANDITS and BARON MUNCHAUSEN, but I'll bet they would be very bored with THE BROTHERS GRIMM.
Posted by: John N at September 6, 2005 04:13 PM
I really hate the blaming the audience excuse (see Star Trek: Nemesis and Rick Berman), but I would hardly call changing the cinematographer on a film a "small change".
Vic
Posted by: Screen Rant at September 6, 2005 11:50 PM
I agree that blaming the audience is the wrong career move. As I said in an earlier post, the person most to blame for me is Ehren Kruger. His script was terrible and not funny. I also blame the producers for meddling somewhat. And yes I also blame Gilliam. You are right, sometimes people have a bad day. We have seen films with Oscar winning writer and Director and actors that have SUCKED!!! it happens sometimes. Get over it!!! Sometimes things look good on paper and when the film is complete they no longer look that way.
Besides, you shouldn't blame the audience for low attendance. Critics were tearing this movie apart long before anyone paid money to see it!!! So obviously something was wrong with it!!!
Posted by: Jason Presti at September 7, 2005 09:28 AM
So adult audiences can't appreciate fantasy-driven movies? Someone alert Peter Jackson!
Posted by: Christina at September 7, 2005 11:29 AM
The audience is an interesting game to play and many people have very divided opinions on it. Some think they are stupid, some think they are smart. I've seen it work in both schools of though, but one thing you don't want to do is tell your audience that you think they are stupid.
Posted by: Independent Film at September 9, 2005 06:20 PM
So the stupid blaming game has started, as expected. I'm unpleasantly surprised, though, that he's blaming the audience now. If he wants to point a finger, he should blame himself, the screenwriter and the Weinsteins (as Gilliam stated in an interview, they had different visions of what the movie should be, so I don't believe that the Weinsteins had something to do only with one actress and the cinematographer).