PLUME: On a personal scale, where would you place Jabberwocky?

GILLIAM: That’s a game that I actually don’t play with myself. I tend not to watch my movies… I don’t know where it is. I think it’s a transitional piece, because I was still doing a lot of Python-ic things in it…

PLUME: Just out of habit?

GILLIAM: Out of habit, I think, because you sort of get used to doing gags and sketch elements – but at the same time I was trying to break through all of that and do something that flowed more and had more of a story and more of a narrative pulling it together – romance, adventure… All of those things as part of the mix. It’s sort of halfway there. The best viewing of Jabberwocky was once at the labs for the Dutch distributors. Somebody had forgotten to bring the soundtrack, so we watched the film without the soundtrack. I really thought, “Oh, it’s a beautiful film.” It’s really wonderful, because I wasn’t doing all of the cheap verbal gags. So I thought, “Maybe it’s a better film this way.”

PLUME: I’ll have to try that next time…

GILLIAM: It’s really lovely. It’s an interesting one… I was just learning at that point. The truth of the matter is that I’m still learning, and I still don’t know how to make films. I’m just getting better at fooling people into thinking I know what I’m doing.

PLUME: Isn’t that the key in the long run?

GILLIAM: I think so. I think that’s it. I know the truth… I’m just getting better at hiding it from others.

PLUME: How did the group dynamic change when you moved on to Life of Brian?

GILLIAM: By then, having done one on my own, I went, “Oooo… I don’t want to go back and co-direct. I don’t like that job.” So I thought I’d design the film. Life of Brian was actually a pretty good experience, generally, but you could begin to see certain things changing in the group. We were spending less time together, but I still think Brian works well. We were all down in Tunisia – we were isolated, so we were just with ourselves… which is a good. By the time we got around to doing Meaning of Life, we all had different lifestyles and different work habits. Meaning of Life is a much more fractured film – it has some of the best things that Python’s done – but as a film, I think it’s less successful.

PLUME: It doesn’t seem as cohesive as Brian…

GILLIAM: Yeah. But I do think it has some breathtakingly wonderful moments that will stand as well as anything else we’ve done – but as a film, it’s sort of sliding back to where we began… it’s a bunch of sketches, basically. Some are better than others. Even then, I was still frustrated. On Life of Brian, I had to do a little space ship sequence – it was like I was moving into special FX and doing little films of my own, so by the time we got to Meaning of Life, I had my own film in it.

PLUME: What was the genesis of Time Bandits?

GILLIAM: We had done Life of Brian, we had formed Handmade Films…

PLUME: Which was the company you all formed with George Harrison and Denis O’Brien, right?

GILLIAM: Right. Handmade Films was Python, George, and Denis – that’s how it began. I was trying to do Brazil at that point, and Brazil was what I was thinking about, but it got no reaction when I suggested it. Then over one weekend, I just sat and thought, “Let’s make something for everybody – the entire family.” Which was an idea at that time that nobody seemed to be thinking about in filmmaking circles. I came up with the idea of this kid who traveled through different times, but I didn’t think a kid would sustain the film, so I surrounded him with people his size. I loved the idea of people who had been part of Creation and who lived and worked in Heaven and weren’t satisfied – who really wanted adventure and money… greed. It’s far more interesting than a Heavenly existence. So that’s how it started, and over the weekend I basically roughed out the shape of the thing. Then I got a hold of Mike Palin and said, “Do you want to work on this one me?” He said yes, and off we went. With Handmade – at that point – we got things off the ground much easier than it is to get things off the ground now. The extraordinary thing was that Denis tried to sell it in America and nobody was interested. In the end, he and George basically put up the money to make the movie. Again, total freedom. We started putting together this team of actors, and off we went and made it. Even with the finished film, nobody in America would buy it – and so George and Denis ended up guaranteeing prints and ads and we released it through Avco Embassy – using their distributing mechanism. The film went out and it’s still the film that’s made the most money in America for me – when you convert the money that it made then with what that money is now. So I suppose that it’s my biggest American success.

PLUME: Although I hesitate to mention this, it’s one of my cherished childhood films…

GILLIAM: That’s what’s so good about it. I think we made a great film for people.

PLUME: And it doesn’t play down at all… it doesn’t play like a children’s film…

GILLIAM: No, no…

PLUME: I remember you describing the gang on the DVD commentary as practically being little bastards…

GILLIAM: Yeah… By the rules of what a children’s film is supposed to be, it isn’t, and yet it did work as a children’s film because families came – the whole lot came. It was amazing. I remember saying in interviews that it was exciting enough for adults and intelligent enough for children – that was the way that I would describe it.

PLUME: And it stays that way.

GILLIAM: I think you can go back and watch that film, and being older, watch it on a completely different level. It works on different levels – without compromising any of the levels, I think.

PLUME: It’s one of those things that I call a “digging film” – meaning you can dig a little, but you realize you can keep going if you want to…

GILLIAM: Yeah…I mean, “Why do we have to have evil?” – “It’s something to do with free will, I think.”… interesting thoughts for a kids film! That’s what intrigues me about it, that you can actually find deep thoughts in it. When Time Bandits came out, it was before E.T. We were the first ones to go into that kind of world and get that kind of cross generational audience.

PLUME: But Time Bandits wasn’t schmaltzy…

GILLIAM: Unlike…

PLUME: I wasn’t going to say that… I would never say that…

GILLIAM: That is the complete difference… I mean, you had E.T. there with those great bovine eyes – how could you not love it? What makes me crazy about E.T., is that it’s the story about a kid learning to love this grotesque and awful thing – and it’s not grotesque and awful! It’s the biggest, sweetest, cuddly toy you’ve ever seen! It’s a very simple, easy thing to love it…

PLUME: Compared to the personalities of the Time Bandits themselves…

GILLIAM: Sure…

PLUME: That was kids learning to love the grotesque…

GILLIAM: Yeah! These awful characters… these little bastards. What’s good about them is that it’s a good mixture of characters, because there’s Vermin – who just eats anything and is the most awful creature – and then you’ve got Fidget, who all the kids love and is played by Kenny Baker – who also plays R2-D2. Then you’ve got Jack Purvis, who is a real heroic, strong character – and then there’s Dave Rappaport, who’s just the biggest little shit leader you’ve ever imagined. So it’s a real mixture.

PLUME: But I think Time Bandits really touched on the true nature of fairy tales, which are wretched little things when you really look at them…

GILLIAM: Yeah, I know…That’s why I hate when I see modernized version of fairy tales. Fairy tales are dark, and the characters are not lovable – they’re real, and they’re much more interesting. They’re flawed.

PLUME: And fairy tales rarely end on a truly good note…

GILLIAM: No… they’re supposed to be moral lessons. We had a big fight over the end – “You can’t have a kids film ending with the parents blowing up” – and I said, “Yes, you can.”

PLUME: Especially those parents…

GILLIAM: Yeah, I mean, every kid understood what that was about – the parents were the ones who got nervous about ideas like that.

PLUME: And as you get older and watch it, the indictment it is even more severe…

GILLIAM: Yes. The kid has a surrogate father in Sean Connery – he’s out there like some sort of fairy godfather who will protect him somehow. It was kind of like, the kid’s old enough – he’s learned enough – he can stand on his own two feet.

Continued below…

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