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This book argues the centrality of hybridity to Terry Gilliam's films. Gilliam had a collaborative approach to filmmaking and a desire to provoke audiences to their own interpretations as other forms of intertextual practice. Placing Gilliam in the category of cinematic fantasist does some preliminary critical work, but crudely homogenises the diversity of his output. One way of marking this range comes from understanding that Gilliam employs an extraordinary variety of genres. These include medieval comedy; children's historical adventure; dystopian satire; the fantastic voyage; science fiction; Gonzo Journalism; fairy tale; and gothic horror. Gilliam's work with Monty Python assured him a revered place in the history of that medium in Britain. As a result, the Python films, And Now for Something Completely Different, The Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life, along with his own, Jabberwocky, Time Bandits, and Brazil, show him moving successfully into the British film industry. Most of his films have been adaptations of literary texts, and Jabberwocky forges an extended tale of monsters and market forces. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen builds on some tales from the original texts, constructing a complex examination of fantasy, representation and mortality. Taking crucial ingredients from medieval and older mythologies, the screenplay of The Fisher King resituates them and reworks them for modern America. Gilliam's complex interaction with Britain and America explains his ambiguous place in accounts of American and British films.
crudely homogenises the diversity of his output. One way of marking this range comes from understanding that Gilliam employs an extraordinary variety of genres: medieval comedy; children’s historical adventure; dystopian satire; the fantastic voyage; science fiction; Gonzo Journalism; fairy tale; and gothic horror. Each genre rejects or reworks the norms of realism, but in distinct ways, so that the
even the writing of a play about John the Baptist in 1547 may not have been an entirely innocent act, given the near-contemporary plays by prominent Protestants John Bale and George Buchanan on the same theme. 14 Yet Grimald does not write a Latin or a medieval comedy. His plays look forward, of course, but with less contemporary weight: the risen Christ promises his listeners that if they wait a little while, they will receive the Holy Ghost, but His words echo Christ's promise of Pentecost, and that is done. The
Style in Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller ’, SEL , 6 ( 1966 ), 43 – 57 . 139 King, ‘In Lieu of Democracy’, p. 100. 140 On the ‘medieval’ comedy of Hamlet ’s gravediggers, see Willard Farnham , ‘ The Medieval Comic Spirit in the English Renaissance ’, in Joseph Quincy Adams Memorial Studies , ed. James G. McManaway et al . ( Washington , D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library , 1948 ), pp. 429 – 37 (pp. 435 – 6 ). 141 See for example Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World , pp. 97–8; and Auerbach, Mimesis , pp. 278–80. Auerbach regards Socrates as a