The movie that made Terry Gilliam punch through a windscreen
Terry Gilliam is almost as famous for the movies he hasn’t made as the ones he has. The director of iconic surrealist films like Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is notorious for his tussles with studio bosses and the unfinished projects that just can’t find funding. The ambitious scope of his movies has often led to productions that run behind schedule and over budget, which in turn has given him less and less leeway in an industry with little tolerance for the wild flights of creative fancy.
Starting his career as Monty Python’s resident animator, he began to transition into directing when he helmed the comedy group’s debut feature, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with fellow member Terry Jones. Although he’s had a few cult classics and critical successes, Gilliam’s career is full of aborted projects and those that never get off the ground. His 1999 production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote shut down after a series of misadventures so unlikely and dramatic that the ordeal was turned into a documentary, Lost in La Mancha. When he did finally manage to get a Don Quixote adaptation over the line in 2018, it was a box office dud.
In interviews, he has consistently bemoaned his lack of financial backing. Most recently, he’s expressed uncertainty about the future of The Carnival at the End of Days, which was set to start filming in early 2025. Citing a lack of funds, he revealed that the film just isn’t in the cards anytime soon despite its impressive cast list that includes Jeff Bridges, Adam Driver, and Jason Momoa.
Given all of his trials and tribulations, it’s clear that Gilliam’s tolerance for conflict is extremely high, so when he says that one particular movie drove him to even greater heights of frustration than usual, it’s a pretty high bar. Speaking to The Guardian in 2003, the director revealed the one movie that was so stressful to work on that it sent him into fits of rage.
“I’ve never hit anyone,” he prefaced. “I hit things. Six weeks into the shoot for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, we’d spent all the money. There was another six weeks to go. The completion guarantor arrived on the set in Spain to find out what was happening. He was threatening to sue me for everything I owned including our house. I screamed at him, and I was dragged away. Downstairs in the car park, I lost it and punched a hole through a car windscreen. I calmed down when I realised it was my car. Violence never pays.”
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is an early example of how Gilliam’s runaway productions can become a liability for those involved. Released in 1988, the film follows the globe-trotting exploits of an 18th-century German nobleman. Not only did the production cost more than twice its original budget, but some of the actors who appeared in it later recounted their own nightmarish experiences on set.
Actor Sarah Polley, who was just nine years old when she played a young stowaway in the film, revealed that the set had been chaotic and unsafe, especially for children. The experience of enduring countless takes in which explosives were detonated right next to her left her scarred emotionally and even, in one particularly disastrous instance, required medical attention.
In a slightly more lighthearted response, fellow Python Eric Idle, who played one of the Baron’s associates in the film, said, “Up until Munchausen, I’d always been very smart about Terry Gilliam films. You won’t ever be in them. Go and see them by all means – but to be in them, fucking madness!”
