Quotes by Terry Gilliam - Page 2

At the first screening, there were a lot of areas that we went around and around about. Then we had our second screening. It played better. It's almost a reasonable length film now!
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Length
Reasonable
Screening
Copy Quote
I think it's worse for actors, though, because people have to choose you. As a director, I get to choose the actors, but most of the time, actors have to be chosen in order to work.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Order
People
Thinking
Copy Quote
If you really want your films to say something that you hope is unique, then patience and stamina, thick skin and a kind of stupidity, a mule-like stupidity, is what you really need.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Skins
Stupidity
Unique
Copy Quote
I do want to say things in these films. I want audiences to come out with shards stuck in them. I don't care if people love my films or walk out, as long as they have a strong response.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Long
People
Strong
Copy Quote
I got tired of my taxes paying for exciting little wars around the world. Then I discovered that when I died, my wife would probably have to sell our house to pay for the taxes in America.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
War
America
Tired
Copy Quote
I was doing political cartoons and getting angry to the point where I felt I was going to have to start making and throwing bombs. I thought I was probably a better cartoonist than a bomb maker.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Angry
Bombs
Cartoon
Cartoonist
Political
Throwing
Bomb
Maker
Copy Quote
I just like the fact I can make a film which might give comfort to some people who think they are the only crazy person in the world and suddenly they see there are two crazy people in the world.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Crazy
Thinking
Two
Copy Quote
Writers do the self-censoring before they even get to the studio executive, because they know the film will not run that gauntlet. They, because they want to get their films made, they censor it.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Running
Film
Self
Want
Copy Quote
I think that's the problem with kids now. Everything is manufactured. And then they're sitting there watching the television, where all the work is done for them. Radio made me use my imagination.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Kids
Imagination
Thinking
Copy Quote
I'm a cartoonist, it's what I am at heart, so cartoons take reality and deform it and make it grotesque, you make it funny, but you alter it. If it works, it's based on reality. That's what I try to do.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Cartoon
Heart
Reality
Copy Quote
Reality and fantasy, we need both of those to survive. If we don't have fantasy, dreams and all of those things, what's the point of carrying on? And you need to watch out for reality because buses come.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Dream
Reality
Watches
Copy Quote
They make Spy Kids, they make Scream, they make A Scary Movie. This doesn't do that, so it could be a very bad marriage. I'm trying to keep this potential nightmare quiet because we're just finishing editing.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Movie
Marriage
Editing
Finishing
Nightmare
Quiet
Scary
Scream
Spy
Scary Movie
Copy Quote
I keep referring to them in the plural but all I'm dealing with is Bob. I don't know where Harvey fits in the equation. He was very present at the beginning, winding his brother up. I don't know where he is now.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Brother
Harvey
Referring
Dealing
Equation
Fits
Winding
Copy Quote
We took up the offer with the BBC, and that was Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't have to submit my ideas to the group. I used to turn up on the days we recorded with a can of film under my arm, and in it went.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Circus
Film
Flying
Ideas
Monty
Python
Submit
Arm
Bbc
Days
Group
Took
Copy Quote
The forces that run the world always try to keep things under control. The population might be having a wonderful time, buying iPods and going to nice restaurants, but I still feel they're all kind of under control.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Running
Ipods
Nice
Trying
Copy Quote
There's something about living in the country that I think makes you inventive, because nature is full of miracles and wonder and surprises, and if you don't have much money, you have to make things if you want things.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Country
Miracle
Thinking
Copy Quote
Every few years when it's been another five years that have passed and I haven't made a film and the depression starts taking over totally, I allow myself to do a commercial. And then I feel really dirty and get to work promptly.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Dirty
Film
Years
Copy Quote
They all sort of get mixed up in my head, to be quite honest. They're all dealing with similar things. It's about how you deal with reality, by ignoring it sometimes, reinventing it other times, and that's how you get through it.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Honest
Reality
Sometimes
Copy Quote
When it came to slaughtering sacred cows with such crude yet perfect musical precision, there was no one better than Frank. I wonder what songs he's teaching the angels right now? Good luck God! You've got your hands full this time.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Good Luck
Song
Teaching
Copy Quote
Nobody went to see Tideland! I was hoping people would get angry about it but those that saw it didn't want to talk about it. This is the world we're living in, people don't want to discuss things that are actually worth discussing.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
People
Want
World
Copy Quote
There are moments when television systems are young and haven't formed properly, and there's room for lots of original stuff. Then things become more and more top-heavy with executives who are trying to guarantee the success of things.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Executives
Guarantees
Moments
Television
Trying
Lots
Original
Formed
Guarantee
More And More
Properly
Systems
Copy Quote
I do think so much of what I do is reactive to the way the world sees itself, or the way the world is being portrayed. I wanted to offer an alternative to that. Whether it is accepted or not is beside the point, but it's an alternative.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Accepted
Thinking
World
Copy Quote
Fantasy isn't just a jolly escape: It's an escape, but into something far more extreme than reality, or normality. It's where things are more beautiful and more wondrous and more terrifying. You move into a world of conflicting extremes.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Beautiful
Moving
Reality
Copy Quote
My strength, if it's anything, is that I can lure some big-name actors in. That's probably the strength of almost any director now. On your own, as a director, you've only got so much weight. James Cameron, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay... that's about it. Everybody else depends on the star power that they can draw.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Copy Quote
To me, the stories that have always intrigued me are the stories of people leaving my movies and being affected by them. They walk home 20 blocks the wrong way. Or they lock themselves in their office. Or they find themselves weeping when in the shower after the film. And those intrigue me, because I know I've touched something inside them.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Home
Block
People
Copy Quote
I think there's a side of me that's trying to compete with Lucas and Spielberg - I don't usually admit this publicly - because I tend to think that they only go so far, and their view of the world is rather simplistic. What I want to do is take whatever cinema is considered normal or successful at a particular time and play around with it - to use it as a way of luring audiences in.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Successful
Thinking
Views
Copy Quote
I want brave people. Fearless ones. A good actor just goes out and leaps off the edge and develops wings on his way down, hopefully. That's the kind of people I really enjoy working with. Playing safe isn't much fun. I like danger. It's controlled danger, always, and that's why I hope I don't lure too many good actors down into the pits with me, because I hope they maintain their own unique talents.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Fun
People
Unique
Copy Quote
I find Hollywood gives these pat stories, and they're reassuring stories, and I don't really want to give people that. Hollywood does all that work. I'm offering, sometimes, an alternative to that. The answers aren't black-and-white. There may not even be answers in certain instances. The ground is not necessarily solid, either. So you've got to keep awake the whole time, even after the movie is over.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Giving
People
Sometimes
Copy Quote
[Steven Spielberg's films] are comforting, they always give you answers and I don't think they're very clever answers. The success of most Hollywood films these days is down to fact that they're comforting. They tie things up in nice little bows and give you answers, even if the answers are stupid, you go home and you don't have to think about it. The great filmmakers make you go home and think about it.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Clever
Nice
Stupid
Copy Quote
Port Talbot is a steel town, where everything is covered with gray iron ore dust. Even the beach is completely littered with dust, it's just black. The sun was setting, and it was quite beautiful. The contrast was extraordinary, I had this image of a guy sitting there on this dingy beach with a portable radio, tuning in these strange Latin escapist songs like 'Brazil.' The music transported him somehow and made his world less gray.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Beach
Beautiful
Song
Copy Quote
Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy, a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism, whoever invented it – I do actually like it because it says certain things. It's about expanding how you see the world. I think we live in an age where we're just hammered, hammered to think this is what the world is. Television's saying, everything's saying 'That's the world.' And it's not the world. The world is a million possible things.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Age
Magic Realism
Thinking
Copy Quote
Nooo! Leave that to George Lucas, he' s really mastered the CGI acting. That scares me! I hate it! Everybody is so pleased and excited by it. Animation is animation. Animation is great. But it's when you're now taking what should be films full of people, living thinking, breathing, flawed creatures and you're controlling every moment of that, it's just death to me. It's death to cinema, I can't watch those Star Wars films, they're dead things.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
War
Hate
Stars
Copy Quote
What I want to do is make films that astonish people, that astound people, and I hope you want to do that too. It's easy to make money. It's easy to make films like everybody else. But to make films that explode like grenades in people's heads and leave shrapnel for the rest of their lives is a very important thing. That's what the great filmmakers did for me. I've got images from Fellini, from Bergman, from Kurowsawa, from Bunuel, all stuck in my brain.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
Brain
Important
People
Copy Quote
A lot of people seem to get carried away that something that's made out of paper mâché is going to be better than not. And I always thought the original King Kong, that terrible little puppet with its hair going in all directions, was far more magical than Peter Jackson's incredibly beautifully rendered King Kong. So there's something to be said for a more primitive version of things. I think it's because it makes the audience work a little bit more, because you've got to invest it with life and reality, so I like doing that.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
People
Reality
Thinking
Copy Quote
I think [Hollywood] has achieved everything they’ve always dreamed of. The audience now seems to be very dumb. They pay money to watch the same film. Now, you could argue, that's because it makes them feel comfortable. When they go to a movie now, it's almost like hearing a pop song. You know the rhythms, you know when the downbeat is going to come, you know when the explosion is going to come… And so as life becomes more complex, as the economy is in trouble, people cling to what makes them comfortable, so they go again and again to see the same movie.
Terry Gilliam / Screenwriter
People
Song
Watches
Copy Quote

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Terry Gilliam Quotes - Page 2

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