Tideland

[brockly]

well i think the composition is wonderful, and necessary for the preposterous look this will have on.... fuck it, i just think it looks awsome

[Pozer]

whats not to love about that trailer?

how bout that it seems to have been shot by this guy..

OUTSTANDING!   

[modage]

[Just Withnail]

That's a great poster and (especially) tagline. Too bad the advance buzz isn't very positive.

[cron]

 good old brown , blue and cream for a kickass poster:

a friend saw tideland at a recent festival over here and she liked it so much she ended up seeing it two times. it was the only movie i really wanted to see 

[MacGuffin]

International Trailer here.

[MacGuffin]

Gilliam out to disturb with film about childhood

Terry Gilliam tends not to make life easy for audiences, and his new film about a 10-year-old girl who prepares heroin for her father to inject and seeks to seduce an older simpleton is out to make them squirm some more.

The 65-year-old filmmaker is unapologetic for the provocative scenes in "Tideland," which follows Jeliza-Rose and her addict father on their journey to an isolated farm house where her imagination is let loose.

"I just felt we are constricting the way we look at the world and the way we think, particularly about children," said the Monty Python veteran, who has directed such critically acclaimed films as "Brazil" and "Twelve Monkeys."

"I knew full well when we were making it there would be a lot of adults who would really squirm and be very uncomfortable, but that's because of what goes on in their heads, not because of what children are about," he told Reuters by telephone.

Jeliza-Rose's down-and-out father, played by Jeff Bridges, spends much of his life "on vacation," under the influence of heroin that he injects after it is prepared for him by his daughter.

Her companions are four dolls' heads removed from their bodies, and she wants to have a baby with Dickens, a deranged 20-year-old who mistakes passing trains for giant sharks.

Gilliam also throws stuffed animals, a rotting corpse and warped religious beliefs into the mix.

"Tideland," based on a novel by Mitch Cullin, seeks to explore children's budding sexuality, a topic Gilliam believes has become taboo because of associations with pedophilia.

"What's going on is clearly a sexuality that's bubbling under the surface. That's the way children have always been. But somehow we're not allowed to talk about that any more because the next leap is into what the newspapers are selling."

IN NEED OF A HIT?

Gilliam is increasingly cast as the maverick genius and Hollywood outsider.

His last film, "The Brothers Grimm," cost an estimated $90 million and fared poorly with critics and at the box office. In 2000 "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" was ditched due to illness and floods.

"I have a foot in both camps," Gilliam said, when asked if he considered himself estranged from Hollywood. "I need to, because some of the things I want to do demand Hollywood money."

"Tideland" was not among them. It cost $12 million, but Hollywood was "too nervous" to back it.

"We went out to talk to people initially and they all ran away so those doors were closed to us."

Its performance at the box office may be affected by the controversial content.

As well as drugs and children's desires, the character Dell clings to fervent religious beliefs when her life falls apart, reflecting, Gilliam argues, the trend toward conservative Christianity among some Americans.

"I just find, in particular in America, it's getting so crazed, the fact that church-going is so high and it's not just the old, relaxed church-going. It's much more intense."

But Gilliam's next projects may require him to convince the big studio bosses that he can land them a commercial hit.

He plans to adapt fantasy writer Terry Pratchett's "Good Omens," which would cost around $80 million, and is also hopeful of resurrecting the ill-fated Don Quixote project if he can persuade Johnny Depp to commit.

[grand theft sparrow]

I saw this last night at the American Museum of the Moving Image, not too far from my apartment.  Gilliam was in attendance.   

Put simply, Tideland is Gilliam's Eyes Wide Shut.  It's his least accessible film ever and the most quintessentially Gilliam since Munchausen (which I guess would be his Barry Lyndon).  It's not going to make any money, it's going to prompt a LOT of walkouts and it's going to polarize even his most steadfast fans.  But in a few years, it's going to be one of his most talked about films.  I only hope he gets to make another one after this. 

He filmed another disclaimer for this one.  "A lot of you are going to hate this movie."  He goes on to talk about how the audience should view the film from a child's point of view and remember that children are resilient and designed to survive.  "If you drop them, they will most likely bounce."  It was a funny intro, and he said that he's gotten a lot of positive feedback from viewers who were thankful for the lead-in.

The little girl who plays the lead role is fucking magnificent.  Gilliam has had luck with Canadian girls before and I hope Jodelle Ferland winds up going the Sarah Polley route, rather than... almost every other child actor in Hollywood.  She's really something special and it would just suck to see her settle for shitty rom-coms when she grows up rather than actually act.  That all being said, she is roadblock number one in enjoying this film.  If you don't like her, you're going to hate the movie because she is the focus of literally every scene.  I was afraid at first that she would be grating and I can see how some people will find her to be exactly that but I warmed up to her quickly.   

As far as Gilliam films go, it's very reserved in terms of the effects.  I would have though that Gilliam would be the first person to show us everything in the girl's imagination but that very rarely happens.  We're in her head the whole time but we're seeing what is actually around her, which is why the girl's performance A) is so brilliant; and B) is primarily what the viewer's enjoyment of the film will hinge upon.  Her imagination is so vivid that you don't need to see what she is imagining (which I'm sure was a budgetary choice but it works out better in the long run).  It's a great counterpoint to Time Bandits. TB was about a boy whose fantasies came true and rescued him from his dull life, whereas Tideland is about a girl who has to contend with an excess of bad things in her life and she rescues herself from it by immersing herself in a fantasy world of her own creation.

There's a touch of all the films he made in the last 25 years in this one and you more or less need to know and love those films back to front before even trying to get into this one; I can't imagine what audience would go to see this without being duped by a misleading trailer.  It does have a draggy third act with a bit of a rushed ending, is unsettling throughout, and questionable actions and reactions of the characters are never acknowledged as being odd or wrong and so are likely to turn off most people but if you just let it take you where it's going, you'll enjoy it.

The Q&A was fun but nothing really new.  People were asking questions that, if they just read other interviews with him, they'd know the answers to.  The inevitable "how would I break into the business?" question came up and Gilliam's answer was the inevitable "Just pick up a camera and do it."  The inevitable "which is your favorite of your movies?" came up as well.  No one asked anything about Don Quixote or Good Omens at all, which was surprising.

He made a semi-sarcastic quip about Brothers Grimm which made the audience laugh but he defended it, saying that he is very proud of it but just hates the Weinsteins for making it such a horrible filming experience.  The fact that they had him edit Grimm when he was editing Tideland was frustrating but at least when he got sick of one film, he could escape to the other. 

The most interesting information he gave was about directing the girl, or that he didn't direct the girl.  He felt it would have taken away from the spirit of playing if he told her what to do so he kind of just let her go, which really makes her performance that much more impressive.  In particular, there is one scene towards the end, which is probably the most uncomfortable scene in the film, where the cast and crew were just completely stunned by how she played it.  If I still gave a shit about the Oscars, I'd say that she needs to win.  If the girl from Whale Rider can get a nomination, this girl really needs one.

After the Q&A, he just sat out in the lobby and signed things for everyone.  I only brought my Time Bandits Criterion thinking it would be a longshot to get him to sign anything at all.  Now, I'm regretting not bringing anything else.  He's also the nicest guy.  As he was signing Time Bandits, I told him that I was three when my parents took me to see it and that it's one of my earliest memories.  He looked at me and said, "Three?  That's too young!"  The man lives for telling stories that scare the shit out of kids and he was taken aback by that?  It was definitely a highpoint of my life.  I am the happiest man alive right now. 

[modage]

aw, me, meatwad and reinhold were all there too.  we should've met up.  (i got Fear & Loathing and Month Python and the Holy Grail signed.  it was awesome). 

for any NYCers who still need their Gilliam fix he will be at the Film Forum presenting Time Bandits tonite & at the IFC Center tomorrow showing one of his favorite films.  (a surprise).

[grand theft sparrow]

Fuck!  I knew I should have posted something about it yesterday!  And I have class tonight and tomorrow so I can't make either of the others. 

What did you think of the movie?

[meatwad]

What did you think of the movie?

i loved it.

it seemed more pure gilliam then maybe i've ever seen. his sense of humor was all over this movie. this was my second time seeing the film, and i enjoyed it even more. i believe gilliam told modage, or maybe somebody in front of him, that the movie gets better the more times you see it. and i agree. i got my fear and loathing criterion dvd signed as well, right after modage, and gilliam told me he didn't realize it was such a popular film, and said he could have used us when the movie was in theaters. i felt bad for him 

[modage]

i saw fear and loathing opening weekend so i dont know what he's talking about!  i feel mixed on the film, it was well done and i want to love it but the subject matter was SO DARK i dont know that i do.  i also feel like at 2 hours its just too long.  i think the message might come across clearer in 1 hour 40.   

but i feel like it makes a good "kids escaping into imagination trilogy" with Millions & Pans Labyrinth.

for any NYCers who still need their Gilliam fix he will be at the Film Forum presenting Time Bandits tonite & at the IFC Center tomorrow showing one of his favorite films.  (a surprise).

and apparently he'll also be wandering the streets... 

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30291

[grand theft sparrow]

gilliam told me he didn't realize it was such a popular film, and said he could have used us when the movie was in theaters.

i saw fear and loathing opening weekend so i dont know what he's talking about!

I saw it opening day as well and Gilliam said something to that effect to the guy and girl in front of me (meatwad?).  But I'm looking at boxofficemojo for F&L and it only made $3.3 million that weekend and only $10 million total.    I'm sure that Tideland will suffer the same fate.

You know, I'm not terribly hot on the whole Bubble, theatrical release/pay per view/DVD on the same day thing but I think Tideland, and any future Gilliam films where he's not a hired hand, would benefit from it more than just a straight theatrical release.

[MacGuffin]

IGN Interview: Terry Gilliam Rides the Tide
The director talks up his "filthy, perverse, disgusting, and un-filmable" picture, Tideland.
Source: IGN

The Coffee Shop in Manhattan's Union Square hasn't changed much in the years since this reporter used to hang out there as a college student (FYI: Hung out for the booze, not the coffee). Overpriced drinks, a long line to get in, "beautiful-people" staff that look down on anyone with a less than perfect physique... yup, still the same place. The only real difference with today's Coffee Shop experience is the company: famed director Terry Gilliam. Oh, and the gin and tonics are being served at 12:30 p.m. rather than 12:30 a.m.

Gilliam is in town to promote his new film Tideland, an indie picture of sorts that is being released by TH!NKFilm. Hence the break in form from the typical press day, which would usually have reporters stuck in a fancy hotel room having to talk to a whole bunch of cast and crew before finally getting to the true prize that is Gilliam. As the helmer behind classics like Brazil, Time Bandits, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gilliam is a cherished interview to get. And this time, it's just me, him, and the snooty wait staff.

Tideland is a film that many people are going to hate, that much is certain. Its tale of a little girl lost in a depraved version of Middle America has already turned off several critics, and it has been considered barely-releasable by most film pundits. All of which seems to only delight the director, who says he knew the project would get this reception ever since he first read the book on which it is based.

"It was filthy, perverse, disgusting, and un-filmable," laughs the director of the novel by Mitch Cullin. "I just was skimming the beginning of the book, and I got hooked on the voice of this little girl. And then it just took me down... that's why I felt Alice in Wonderland was the right [theme for the picture], because suddenly it's like, 'Where am I going in this thing? It's getting darker and stranger and more wondrous and more terrifying and more disturbing and more everything!' And I just went with it. I thought, 'This is the kind of movie I like making.'"

The Alice in Wonderland connection Gilliam mentions pertains to the little girl's detailed imaginings, much of which is of course portrayed by Gilliam in the film with his usual panache and visual style. The girl, Jeliza-Rose (played by Jodelle Ferland), uses her imagination to escape from the dreariness of her real life, but her daydreams aren't as cheery as one might expect — and that's an element of the book that was of great interest to the filmmaker, regardless of its marketability (or lack thereof).

"I just thought we were pushing the envelope a bit, and I knew we were going to push a lot of buttons with people too," says Gilliam. "That's one of the advantages of making a lower-budget film: You don't have quite those same [commercial] worries. When you're going to spend $80 or $70 million, you have to start thinking in those terms. This one, no. This was like, 'O.K., we managed to raise the money to do it. I hope it breaks even. It's not going to make anyone rich, I guarantee it.'"

The film is barely mainstream, and it does approach the indulgences of an art house picture at times (many critics have complained that Gilliam should have cut about 30 minutes from the running time to make it more palatable). Still, the helmer says he's been getting bad reviews his entire career, and he's long since stopped sweating them.

"My films get bad reviews," he says. "The ones that didn't get bad reviews were: Fisher King got really good reviews; Twelve Monkeys got mixed reviews. Fear and Loathing got shitty reviews beyond belief. It's one of the most successful films I've done. My films tend to get bad reviews. In retrospect, I'm loved; it's 10 years later that suddenly everyone likes [me]."

One plot thread in Tideland that will have many people hating Gilliam has to do with Jeliza-Rose's relationship with Dickens (Brendan Fletcher), the girl's mentally-disabled neighbor. Though Dickens is an adult, he and Jeliza-Rose become fast friends, eventually developing a quasi-romantic connection that is squirm-worthy, to say the least.

"Only in an adult's mind, only in your mind," points out Gilliam about the audience reaction to Jeliza-Rose and Dickens' relationship. "Doing those things, I'm very aware of the effect they have, but that was in the book and that's what it was about. And that's what intrigued me. My wife says the film is shocking because it's innocent. I've actually done an intro for the film that's going to be on the release version that will be like, 'Hello, my name is Terry Gilliam. Many of you are not going to like this film. Many of you luckily are going to love it. And then the great majority of you are not going to know what you think of it.' And I basically say, put away all the things you know, all the things you've learned, all your prejudices and fears, the preconceptions that an adult has, and try to be an innocent, as difficult as that is."

That said, Gilliam is acutely aware of the possible backlash Tideland could suffer from if the wrong parents' group or some wannabe Ann Coulter decides to target the picture.

"I said, 'Mitch Cullin, you live in America, I don't. When the mob comes, I'm giving them your address,'" laughs the director. "But it's part of the reason to do this stuff, to confront what's going on out there. Nobody's confronting anything. So you put this out there and go, 'F***! It's in your f***ing minds. Your dirty f***ing minds!' One of the reasons I want to do this is to show a truly innocent thing. People get upset about the heroin scenes [in Tideland]. It's not about heroin; it's about a relationship between a daughter and a father. And I stage it as a dance between the two of them — the two are exactly the same. She knows the moment his arm is going to drop. [If he was a diabetic and] doing insulin, would that be O.K.? To a nine-and-a-half-year-old kid, what's the difference? Insulin, heroin, aspirin, it's all the same. It's what her parents need to get through the day. She's a good daughter. That's why I make these things — to get that kind of discussion going, so people start thinking more clearly about things."

Then there's also the fact that Tideland would never have gotten made at a major studio, or at least not in a form that would be faithful to the book. For Gilliam, the difficulties of making a smaller scale picture (the budget on this one was a relatively meager $12 million) are outweighed by the creative freedoms such a scenario offers. He had no interfering Weinstein brothers to deal with on Tideland, for example, as he did on his previous film The Brothers Grimm. But distributing a picture like this is a whole other challenge as well, and one that might make a man wish for the assistance of the Weinstein brothers.

"This truly is independent. Most [indies] are not really independent; they're sub-studios, so they have the muscle of the studio behind them, even on the small films. This one has got nothing behind it, and you suddenly realize what you're up against," he says, adding that the picture has proven successful already in some international territories. "The fact about films is how you release and market them. In Japan, it's been playing 12 weeks. They released it small, found the right cinema, and let it build. That's the only way this film will work. It needs time; it needs the right venues. And I don't know what will happen here."

[MacGuffin]

Will I date I myself if I use the phrase "We're not worthy"? There is almost nothing to be said when introducing SuicideGirls to Terry Gilliam, because at this point if you don't know who he is, I wouldn't cry if you killed yourself. But for those who don't have the guts to throw themselves off a bridge, Gilliam is the brilliant film auteur behind such classics as Time Bandits, Brazil, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He is also a founding member of the best sketch comedy troupe ever, Monty Python's Flying Circus. Gilliam's latest film is the very heavy Tideland, the story of a young girl whose junkie parents die and leave her alone in an empty house only with her imagination.

I got a chance to interview Gilliam when he was in New York City. When we spoke of a possible Python live tour he seemed to imply that we could be seeing some new sketches.


Daniel Robert Epstein: First of all, I didn't recognize Jeff Bridges at first. I thought that was Lemmy [of Motorhead].

Terry Gilliam: [laughs] That's the thing, Jeff, like all the actors in my films have no vanity.

DRE:Yeah. [laughs] Well, its interesting that you say that about the vanity because this is a film that doesn't have a lot of vanity.

TG:No.

DRE:Was that a result of the book or the budget?

TG:It's just what it is. The book is what it is. The budget was what we needed and the actors weren't afraid. I hate working with actors who are worried about what they look like other than the character that they should be playing. Everybody there just dove in and they were all very fearless and nobody had any qualms and off we went.

DRE:Did you know from the beginning that this film was going to be as difficult as it was?

TG:No, when I read the book I thought, "Oh this is fantastic. This will be great." [Tideland co-writer] Tony Grison said, "Fantastic, let's do it." Jeremy Thomas the producer said, "Terrific, let's go to work." But then we couldn't raise the money [laughs]. It seemed that some people thought it was not quite the jolly little jaunt that we thought it was [laughs].

DRE:When you first got the book, did you know that eventually you wanted to turn it into a movie?

TG:No, [Tideland author] Mitch Cullin is the one that actually sent it to me. It was sitting on a stack of books and scripts that I never look at. One day I was just frustrated or bored, I can't remember, and I picked it up off the top of the pile and I go, "What's this?" Started reading and said, "Hello? This is really great." A few pages in, I was hooked. All Mitch was trying to do was get a blurb for the cover of the book. He didn't expect to make a movie out of it [laughs]. But I said, "No, I'd love to have a go at this thing" and off we went. It was very interesting because when we were raising the money, that's when we began to realize that it was dealing with subject matter that a lot of people found difficult. Somebody said, "Well, it's men that control the money and men find this more disturbing than women." I said, "What we need is a woman with a lot of money." Ultimately that's what happened.

DRE:In Canada.

TG:In Canada, yeah, they finally turned up.

DRE:I've interviewed David Cronenberg a number of times over the years. I always thought that you guys had some thematic crossover.

TG:Yeah.

DRE:I asked him if he ever puts things in his films just to tweak the audience. He said, "If I was to do any tweaking then I would be doing it to me." But it sounds like you may feel a little differently about that.

TG:Yeah, I was intrigued and excited by everything in there but at the same time I'm not a fool. I know a lot of people are going to go "Whoa." Here's a little scene where the girl is preparing heroin for her father. Somebody's going to go. Here's a scene where the girl's beginning to kiss a retarded 20 year old, something's going to happen there. So I know full well what's going to happen but all those scenes were absolutely fantastic. That's what I liked about the book. I think they were honest. I think they were something I hadn't seen before and I thought "Here is a child that is being treated like a child and not some romanticized, sentimentalized version of an adult's version of childhood." That's what I liked about it. I was getting really tired of hearing non-stop tales of child victimization until it wasn't even victimization after a while. There are all sorts of difficult things in life but this was just a way of selling newspapers and doing television shows. I was really getting angry. I said, "Here's a chance to show a really tough, strong, child. What children really are. They're designed to survive and she's put through some very difficult situations and she comes out alive and well."

DRE:Smelling like a rose.

TG:Exactly. I didn't say it you did [laughs].

DRE:Just because it's you making films, you're never sure how much is going to be reality versus fantasy. But with Tideland there seems to be a strong delineation between reality and fantasy.

TG:Oh yeah, I think it's clear. To me this is real and the moments when she goes into full fantasy, there's no question that it is fantasy. But somebody the other day was saying, "So, at the end is that her imagination? Is that really happening? Is the whole film really a flashback?" I said, "No, it's exactly what it is. It's telling the story and when we go into fantasy it's very clear it's a fantasy thing." I can't see a single moment where you don't know that it's real as opposed to fantasy. She's distorting the world. When Dell turns up I shoot it from Jeliza-Rose's point of view so Dell is a giant. But then Dell is a real person. So Jeliza-Rose is trying to make things more interesting than they really are.

DRE:Otherwise she'd be bored.

Did you have to resist putting more fantasy?

TG:No, I was just doing the book. This is Mitch Cullin's world and I'm just trying to translate his world honestly and that's exactly what I did. But there are a couple of things. When she goes up the stairs and starts crawling through the trunks and all the clothes that were in there. I don't think in the book it was an endlessly long trunk of clothes so that was me. I thought we should make this idea of this little girl amongst all of her granny's clothes endless. That's me expanding the book. I'm the Jeliza-Rose that's taking Mitch dull, banal mundane world and turning it into something magical [laughs].

DRE:Brendan Fletcher who played the retarded person was just fantastic.

TG:Extraordinary performance. Absolutely wonderful. That was the first time I've ever cast an actor without meeting him in the flesh. He sent this tape in that he and his girlfriend put together. I said, "Fuck, this kid's amazing! He's got the job." But it is very funny because in the flesh he looks like Sting.

DRE:Yeah, I've seen him in other films.

TG:He's a great actor and he is also very funny and sweet. A lot of the other actors who were auditioning for the role, could bring out the humor but it wasn't believable, it wasn't real. I was at a film festival in Germany a few weeks ago and the guy in the front row said, "Where'd you find that kid?" I said, "He's a wonderful actor." He said, "You're kidding because I work with retarded kids all the time and he's spot on. There wasn't one moment of falseness in that performance." I said I'll be glad to tell Brendan that because he'll be very proud and pleased.

DRE:Was there anything that you asked him to do?

TG:No, I don't direct actors like that. I sort of work with them. I encourage them to go wherever they want to go with these things. I think the one thing I did was the thing he does with his tongue. I thought that would be interesting because the audience would squirm. So that will have an affect and it's very good because the audience is behaving exactly right. But he moves his tongue like he has a goldfish in his mouth and that scene's stunning. There's another moment that I did when they swim through the grass. She reaches for his hand and I said, "Let's do that because there has got to be moments when the audience might think you're a potential danger to her." It's not that you're trying to do that, but it just gets so dark and I don't rush away from that because it will make the audience feel, "Where is this going? Is this girl in jeopardy?" So in that sense I'm playing with the audience but there are very slight moments. I'm not pushing it. I'm not trying to make it a horror film or anything like that but in almost every one of those moments it's only a beat, that's it, nothing more.

DRE:There's always festival screenings or press screenings where if someone doesn't like the film they might walk out.

TG:Or in many cases, a lot of people don't like the film and they walk out [laughs].DRE:This is the first time I've seen this many people walk out of one of your films.TG:I know.

DRE:I'm like, "Why don't you sit through the whole thing and see what happens at the end?"

TG:Do you remember where they walked out? Did they all walk out at specific points?

DRE:One person walked out about a half hour into the film and then once Brendan and Jodelle started kissing more people walked out.

TG:It was getting too much for them.

DRE:Do the walkouts surprise you?

TG:No, I expected people to walk out. I said that if they didn't I've failed. I don't mind people walking out. What I mind is when reviewers walk out and then write about it.

DRE:Oh, that's horrible.

TG:I've seen too much of that going on. Don't touch it if you didn't see the whole film, don't write about it. But you don't have to like it. But don't sit there and write a piece about it and I've read a few unfortunately. I don't mind people walking out. I'd say it's the closest to Brazil of any film I've done in that sense and Brazil used to have huge walkouts but for very different reasons. In Tideland it's obvious I'm getting to people and they don't like what they're seeing and they don't want to confront it. They don't want to deal with it. They just want to get out of there. That's fair enough. I was hoping this film would actually create a lot of dialogue between people, those who don't like it or have questions about it or are disturbed and those that love it. What I find so interesting is that those who don't like it can't see how anybody could like it.

DRE:Oh, I know a lot of people who have said that.

TG:And those who like it or love it can't understand why people have a problem with it.

DRE:I can see that too. There are a lot of people that say you love it or you hate it. It's hard for me to say that I love this film. I think the feelings I have for it are on the level of love.

TG:Good, that's fine.

DRE:But I can't say I love it.

TG:No, I know. But there are some, and they tend to be women, come out just beaming saying, "Yeah!" Those are the people who really love it. There's more ambivalence than that for most people. I know I'm touching things, I'm getting to them. They can't quite explain what it is or why they like it. There was one girl at a screening the other night that said, "The film, like so many of your films at the end I feel nauseous. But I loved it. It was a positive nauseousness. I'm in a place that I haven't been before." We had a thing when we were cutting it. Normally every couple weeks I get groups of people together to show the film because I'm just trying to find out, "Am I communicating what I want to communicate? Is it boring them at points? Can I tighten it?" I just don't want to bore people too much, but they didn't know what to say at the end of a lot of them. I said, "Here's what, I'll give you my email. When you're ready to talk about it email me." Then some people would take a week before they had got their thoughts in order. I thought, "Well, that's great." It's shifted their parameters, the way they think, we jumbled up the boxes and maybe something interesting would come out of that. People are saying, "I really reconsidered the way I look at the world." "It's made me do this." "It's made me think like that." I thought "Fuck, that's great. I'm happy."

DRE:Every film of yours is so packed with detail within the frame. Tideland is detailed in a different kind of way.

TG:Everything you see in there has been considered. On a simplistic level it was really about two worlds. One was the open space out there and the freedom of nature. It was big skies and grass and then the other was inside this house, which is decaying and rotting like the corpse itself. So there is that contrast and by juxtaposing those two things people come out and say "How did you shoot those exteriors? They're so beautiful." They're not any different than any other exterior. They just happened to be contrasting what's going on inside. We found the house. I added the porch on the front of it, that wonderful but weird porch, but the house was there.

DRE:Wow, I totally thought you built that house.

TG:I know. That porch was on another house about a mile away. I said, "I like that porch, let's stick it on that place." We did build the inside but they related to the outside. Andrew Wyeth's paintings were very much a part of it from the beginning. When I read the book, I said, "That's fucking Christina's World." Then I called Mitch Cullin and said, "Did you have a picture in mind when you made it?" He said, "Well, I had Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World in mind." So I knew we were in good company and we looked at a lot of Wyeth's paintings. Also my editor, Lesley Walker, is a woman. [production designer] Jasna Stefanovic is Canadian and a woman. There are a lot of women working on this film because that's important to me when you're doing this kind of story with a little girl. I wanted women's takes on these things. Jasna got the job because she spent the night before we met putting all these scraps of images and photographs together. When I looked at that I said, "You've got it, you understand this child. You understand the world." That's how I work. It's a totally collaborative little world of probably about eight or nine really critical people in the design and then we go from there.

DRE:I remember an American Cinematographer article on Twelve Monkeys where you said you're not as super detail-oriented as you were with Time Bandits or Brazil just because you're finding people who you collaborate with so you leapfrog over each other creatively.

TG:It's totally like that, yes.

DRE:Has it advanced more?

TG:No, it's just that you work with different people so you leapfrog in different ways [laughs]. But you try to find people who have the right sensibility for the project. I worked with so many new people on this one because I had to work with a Canadian crew and we just found the right people. They understood it.

DRE:Last night you introduced a screening of Time Bandits at Film Forum's Pythonalot festival. What made you choose that film?

TG:Well, it's 25 years since I made it.

DRE:Oh my God, now even I feel old.

TG:Yeah, I know, and I'm older. Tideland is another story about a child and their imagination, 25 years gone. Have I changed? Has the world changed? [laughs]

DRE:How does what went down The Brothers Grimm change your view of what films you're going to do?

TG:It's the same view I had before I started that project, not to work with the Weinsteins. I had always said I wouldn't work with them. They came in at the point where MGM pulled out. We were in preproduction so it was out of the frying pan and into the fire. It's not that the Weinsteins are the worst people on the planet. They are who they are and I am who I am and I know it was always going to be a bad marriage. We're going to head butt. At the end it got interesting because we got to the point where I thought the film was done but they kept going with it. Then Jeremy Thomas managed to raise the money for Tideland so I said, "I've another film to make so why don't you go away and do whatever you want with Grimm?" That was instead of fighting, which is my normal mode of operation. I realized that those guys love a fight. They're bigger, more brutal fighters than I am so I ran away. Tideland was a great escape from all of that. "Free at last." Then what was interesting, was that when I was editing Tideland, I got a call from the Weinsteins to finish Grimm my way. So I was editing both films at the same time. I'd won by not fighting and it was really interesting doing both films because when you're editing you're watching the film constantly and you learn to hate it at a certain point. You can't make it better, you get frustrated. So we'd run down the corridor and start working on Grimm until we reach that state and then we go back and do Tideland. It was fantastic [laughs].

DRE:If there is a Monty Python tour, would you want to do short films or animations for it?

TG:There may come a point where I'm just tired of all the difficulties of getting money and making movies. When I do animation it's just me and the computer now. About five or six years ago, there was a 35th Python reunion for the BBC. It was a crap show because we all like each other too much now. But I did one little bit of animation on my computer because now I can do everything I did before, easier. The computer has caught up with my really crude technology. I can do the same cutouts because they are easy to move around on the computer. So that's always that fallback position if I get in trouble.

DRE:What sketches would you want to do on the tour?

TG:Ah. [laughs] You mean existing ones.

I think we ought to get the dead mother in the bag at the crematorium scene. You could burn her or you could eat her. That was one of the worst; most tasteless sketches ever written and that would be number one on my list of things to do [laughs].