Rian Johnson’s Festival of Fakery: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Posted In: Festival of Fakery, Rian Johnson, Terry Gilliam, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
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Terry Gilliam is one of the most imaginative and inventive filmmakers we have, a ringmaster of cinematic oddities. It’s been awhile since he’s had a hit — The Brothers Grimm and Tideland weren’t very well-received — but even in his minor films, you can expect to see something different and challenging, something non-status quo. Later this year, he’s supposed to be releasing The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Heath Ledger’s final film. (He died before they finished shooting; Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell stepped in to complete his role.)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was one of Gilliam’s minor films. But there are many elements in it that make it a worthy addition to Rian Johnson’s Festival of Fakery.
Before they were who they are. Baron Munchausen is a tribute to past lives and personal narrative: they influence who you become and how you’re remembered. Set in Europe during the 18th century (dubbed the “Age of Reason”), it begins with a small theater company performing a show called “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”. The show provides relief for the participants and the audience, as outside the theater a Turkish army threatens to take over their town.
In the middle of the show, an elderly man claiming to be the real Baron Munchausen interrupts the performance. He gains the theater’s attention and insists on telling his story as it really happened. But before he can finish his re-telling, gunfire and explosions erupt. The audience flees, and Baron goes backstage, to lay down and await his death.
Sally Salt, the theater company owner’s young and unsung daughter (the company is called “The Henry Salt and Son Players”) heads backstage and finds him. She convinces Baron to get up and keep on living. Together, they travel above and beneath Earth and sea, to round up Baron’s old gang and save the town. Along the way, many of the characters from the beginning of the story re-appear as characters in Baron and Sally’s new adventure.
The film features a young Sarah Polley playing Sally, as well as a young Uma Thurman and a young(er) Robin Williams. It’s interesting to see the beauty and talent was there from the beginning — and that Robin Williams was always, well, Robin Williams.
1989 design and effects. Talking about Baron Munchausen, Rian Johnson commented on the film’s physical effects and how they made a “special magic” for him. There’s no doubt that the effects are old — watching the film, I wondered if even Gilliam would make it the same way today. But along with its overall design and look, the effects work to create a more theatrical, almost storybook feel.
“It wasn’t just a story, was it?” As a film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a little uneven. It plays long and tedious though it only runs about 2 hours. But it’s a film that gets better as you get used to its storytelling. By the end of it, I realized that there was a strong theme running through it the whole time. And it has a killer ending, where everything comes together, like a musical crescendo.
In the end, Baron and his gang come back to the town and realize they aren’t who they once were: they’re “old and tired”, as Sally says. But they’re not finished. Devoted to his mission, Baron throws himself into capture by the Turks, guaranteeing a quick death — which is what he might have wanted before.
At the moment of his execution, his comrades become inspired to save him, and after that, they triumph in victory over the Turks. They celebrate in a parade, where Baron is shot and killed by a sniper. Is he dead? No he’s not. It’s just another tale being woven by Baron — though this one is the kind with the power to inspire the town to step outside the gates and fight for themselves.
One of the film’s funniest lines comes in the beginning, when, under siege by the Turks, a city official blurts out, “We can’t start escaping at a time like this. What would future generations think of us?” At that moment the comment is ironic. Baron Munchausen demonstrates that the story is the thing worth protecting, because it’s the thing that lasts. It’s how they remember us that stands up, and stands against the challenges of our time.
This, along with Time Bandits are tied for me as Terry’s best films. I love the imagery, and the storytelling.
Plus, Uma… Mmmm
Great post and analysis, as usual. Is next week gonna be a big post tying all of the four festival of fakery posts together regarding his work?
Another interesting aspect of Munchausen (and of all of his films, really) was all of the production problems Gilliam faced. Check it out:
http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams/bmprod.htm
Yes yes, Uma. I have not seen Time Bandits, nor Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas — nor do I remember much about Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I’m thinking to start a segment called “Movies You’ve Seen that I Haven’t Seen” and maybe including some of those.
I still have one more post about the Festival of Fakery next week, with The Man Who Would Be King. Maybe then I will talk about how all these films contributed to The Brothers Bloom. It’s really interesting to see the connections, the influences, the allusions, and the threads that Johnson picked up and incorporated into his work. I wish more filmmakers were as conscious of the medium as he is.
It seems that production problems do follow Gilliam around on all of his films. I usually say “that’s a problem I’d like to have,” but not with him. It’s terrible when your film is taken away from you — by the financial backers no less. On Doctor Parnassus, production was halted, but the film was completed, and apparently screened well at the Cannes Film Festival. I can’t wait to see it.