And now, here’s the 2005 interview with Terry, done shortly before the theatrical release of Brothers Grimm. Below, you’ll find the original intro for the piece…

Conducted ~8/2005

One of the unequivocal truths of modern cinema is you can always identify a Terry Gilliam film. Like Kubrick, Ford, Capra, and Houston before him, he’s a director who leaves a very identifiable mark – be it mood or visuals – that are as clear as a bell to many a film fan. Heck, even his so-called “flawed” films, like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, are fascinating.

His new film is The Brothers Grimm, which stars Heath Ledger and Matt Damon as the titular fairytale scribes, Will & Jake Grimm, whose traveling con of duping locals by solving their “supernatural” problems for quick cash runs them smack dab into a real supernatural dilemma when the French press them into service to tackle a magical curse in an enchanted forest, where beautiful maidens are disappearing with alarming frequency. Opening on August 26th in theaters everywhere, you can find additional pics, the HD trailer, banners, and more over at the official site, GrimmFilm.com.

Here’s my in-depth interview with the man himself – Director and co-Dress Pattern Maker (with Tony Grisoni), Terry Gilliam (and by the way, his next film – Tideland – premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9).

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KEN PLUME: I’ve noticed there hasn’t been a tremendous amount of advertising push for the film…

TERRY GILLIAM: They’re starting a TV campaign this week, so it’s going to be a fairly heavy blitz for a few weeks, and hopefully that will get some attention. It’s been pretty extraordinary how few trailers have been seen, and even fewer posters.

PLUME: What kind of influence do you have over getting that situation rectified?

GILLIAM: Well, all I can do is say is, “Come on – people are saying they haven’t seen any posters…” All I can do, basically, is complain at this point because it’s in the hands of the Weinsteins and they’re selling machine.

PLUME: It seems like there’s a certain element of “spitting into the wind” at this point…

GILLIAM: There’s a bit, but I think it’s in their interest to make the film successful, but I don’t know if they’ve really appreciated – or if they’re still in denial about it – that the vast majority of their team is no longer there. I think they’re used to being able to do incredible things very quickly, at the last moment, because there was a lot of people available to jump. But most of the place is cleared out, so it’s going to be a very interesting time. I mean, as far as selling movies, these guys are the best. They’ve got a lot on their plate in a short time to achieve this.

PLUME: You praise them in the selling phase of the process, but how were the Weinsteins during the actual production process?

GILLIAM: This is what I’m trying to avoid talking about too much (laughing)…

PLUME: Does that mean we’re no going to speak about Nicola (Pecorini, Gilliam’s DP who was fired by Dimension halfway through production) at all?

GILLIAM: I think we ought to talk about it. He got the sack. He was the final straw as far as I was concerned, because he was doing a great job – it was beautiful work.

PLUME: And you used him on Tideland…

GILLIAM: Yeah. It was very unfair. His take on it has always been that they were trying to cut my support team away so I would be more… I’m not sure malleable is the right word, but that’s his opinion.

PLUME: How would you describe your relationship with Dimension?

GILLIAM: There were several key disagreements at the beginning – casting, makeup, and ultimately Nicola. After that, things went smoothly, because I made sure they did.

PLUME: Would you say it was one of the more tumultuous pre-production periods you’ve had?

GILLIAM: Yeah… But the good thing about the Weinsteins is that they’re very hands-on guys – they’re used to doing what they want to do when they want to do it. They’re not like most of the producers in Hollywood, which are effectively bureaucrats at work – these guys really do get in there. I warned Bob (Weinstein) at the beginning of this thing – I said, “You’re very independent, you’re very successful, you do what you want to do, and so do I. It might not be the best of marriages.” But at the end of it all, we’ve all ended up saying we like the film and everybody survived – there are no bodies lying around the place.

PLUME: At least none you’ve found yet…

GILLIAM: (laughing)

PLUME: As far as producers go, you’ve worked with Arnon Milchan in the past…

GILLIAM: I’ve been very spoiled. When I hear stories about other directors, I’ve always said, “Jesus! How do you put up with that stuff?” It seems to me that my experience on Grimm is closest to what most directors go through, but I’ve just been very lucky and privileged to be able to do what I want to do… Within, as always, the restrictions of the budget, which is always something that I’m pushing against. But that’s it. I’ve always had that kind of freedom, and there are not that many directors who’ve had that. I think I’m just not used to people interfering with what I do – until it’s finished, and then one starts arguing.

PLUME: For you personally, as a filmmaker, how much of a reaction against what happened with Quixote was your approach on Grimm?

GILLIAM: They’re very different things, because with Quixote it was clearly God that I was dealing with…

PLUME: Obviously not a Gilliam fan…

GILLIAM: Obviously not! It’s pretty clear that there’s some sort of karmic justice being meted out… There was something going on. But I was obviously dealing with forces that were beyond the norm.

PLUME: I’m fascinated that you can look at Quixote being the ultimate expression of you, as a filmmaker, tilting at windmills…

GILLIAM: Yeah, definitely…

PLUME: But in Grimm you return to the same kind of material that Jabberwocky and Time Bandits were rooted in…

GILLIAM: It was more back in that world, yeah… The world of fairy tale… I was always influenced by my childhood with Grimm’s fairy tales. They kind of informed everything. Jabberwocky is, no question, a fairy tale. The form of the film is a fairy tale. What’s interesting is that this is more a fairy tale about the Brothers Grimm, so it has very little to do with their reality, but it does have to do with a world that is very, very believable and then enchanting and magical things begin happening within that world. So it’s familiar territory, in that sense…

Continued below…

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