The Adventures of Baron Munchausen [20th Anniversary Edition] [2Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Director Terry Gilliam adroitly applies his Monty Python sensibilities upon the "career" of famed German prevaricator Baron von Munchausen. Played herein by John Neville, the baron is seen quelling a war that he himself started, flying into the stratosphere on the back of a cannonball, ballooning to the moon, exploring the innards of a volcano, being swallowed by a whale....In short, all of Munchausen's fabulous lies are here presented as "truth," played out in full view of nonplussed witnesses Eric Idle, Charles McKeown, Jack Purvis, and Sarah Polley. Fringe benefits include several loving medium shots of jaybird-naked Uma Thurman as Boticelli's Venus and an extended unbilled cameo by Robin Williams -- that is, by the head of Robin Williams -- as the King of the Moon. Filmed under considerable duress on a budget eventually exceeding 45 million dollars, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen never quite caught on with moviegoers, though it has enjoyed a lucrative afterlife on videocassette. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 2
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Features:
  • cc
  • Commentary woth director Terry Gilliam and co-writer/actor Charles McKeown
  • The Madness and Misadventures of Munchausen: an all-new 3-part documentary on the making of the film
  • Storyboard sequences with all-new vocal performances by Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown
  • Deleted scenes

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Art Direction - 1989 (Francesca Lo Schiavo, Dante Ferretti)
•     Nominated Best Costume Design - 1989 (Gabriella Pescucci)
•     Nominated Best Makeup - 1989 (Fabrizio Sforza, Maggie Weston)
•     Nominated Best Visual Effects - 1989 (Richard Conway, Kent Houston)

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Won Best Makeup - 1990 (Fabrizio Sforza, Pam Meager)
•     Won Best Costume Design - 1989 (Gabriella Pescucci)
•     Won Best Production Design - 1989 (Dante Ferretti)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       John Neville - Baron Munchausen
       Sarah Polley - Sally
       Eric Idle - Berthold
       Jonathan Pryce - Horatio Jackson
       Uma Thurman - Venus/Rose
       Oliver Reed - Vulcan
       Sting - Heroic Officer
       Charles McKeown - Rupert/Adolphus
       Winston Dennis - Bill Albrecht
       Robin Williams - King of the Moon
       Jack Purvis - Gustavus
       Jack Purvis - Jeremy
       Valentina Cortese - Queen Ariadne/Violet
       Bill Paterson - Henry Salt
       Peter Jeffrey - The Sultan
       Alison Steadman - Daisy
       Ray Cooper - Functionary
       Andrew Maclachlan - Colonel
       Mohamed Salem Badr - Executioner
       Kiran Shah - Executioner's Assistant
       Ettore Martini - First General
       Jose Lifante - Dr. Death
       Tony Smart - Gunner
       Don Henderson - Commander
       Franco Adducci - Treasurer

• Director:

  Terry Gilliam

• Producer:

  Thomas Schühly

• Screenwriter:

  Terry Gilliam, Charles McKeown

• Book Author:

  Gottfried Burger

• Cinematographer:

  Giuseppe Rotunno

• Composer (Music Score):

  Michael Kamen

• Editor:

  Peter Hollywood

• Production Designer:

  Dante Ferretti

• Art Director:

  Maria Teresa Barbasso, Massimo Razzi

• Co-producer:

  Ray Cooper

• Supervising Producer:

  Stratton Leopold

• Executive Producer:

  Jake Eberts

• Set Designer:

  Francesca Lo Schiavo

• Costume Designer:

  Gabriella Pescucci

• Makeup:

  Maggie Weston

• Special Effects:

  Richard Conway

• First Assistant Director:

  Michele Soavi, Lee Cleary

• Stunts:

  Tony Smart

• Choreography:

  Pino Penesse, Giorgio Rossi

• Casting:

  Margery Simkin, Irene Lamb

• Line Producer:

  David Tomblin

• Short Story Author:

  Rudolph Erich Raspe

REVIEW:

• The fabled Baron von Munchausen appeared in a number of live-action and animated screen incarnations prior to 1989, including Josef von Baky's 1943 UFA-funded, Goebbels-produced Munchausen. Yet Terry Gilliam bravely resisted the temptation to rework any of those prior screen versions. Instead, his film is twofold. On the most rudimentary level, he uses the Munchausen stories as a kind of loose framework on which to hang an assortment of the most audacious visual fireworks ever to illuminate the silver screen. And on that basis, the work is truly extraordinary, bringing to light effects unlike any created before or since in a Western feature, which defy all boundaries of form, dimension, and logic. Consequently, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen -- like Ray Harryhausen's 7th Voyage of Sinbad 30 years prior -- held captive the imaginations of those viewers who were fortunate enough to catch this film as children, during its initial theatrical run. From the "animated constellations" that swirl and gyrate through the celestial fabric, to the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper who bursts forth from an inert stone statue, sending stone shards flaying off omnidirectionally, to the glimpse of a white sand-filled sea of tranquility with the half-buried stone head of some obscure lunar monarch in the foreground, Gilliam plunges breathlessly and rapturously into a preadolescent visual dreamscape. If the film only functioned as a collection of visual pyrotechnics (as many assumed), it would indeed be disappointing; instead, Gilliam intuitively plunges deeper, and the film gains longevity from its thematic level.
  
  With Baron, Gilliam completed a planned screen trilogy on the theme of imagination as it triumphs over stiff-necked reason and logic. This thematic triumvirate began some eight years prior with Time Bandits, continued with 1985's only fitfully successful but equally ambitious sci-fi tragicomedy Brazil, and wraps with Baron. And that theme is the glue that holds this massively overscaled, freewheeling production together, ingeniously justifying every one of Gilliam's deliberate logical and temporal lapses (particularly in the confusing denouement). With -- as an added bonus -- the one-of-a-kind Pythonesque humor that flavors the majority of Gilliam's screen works providing much-needed lunacy and comic relief, the film earns its right to masterpiece status. Unfortunately, Western audiences did not agree. This outrageously expensive film (presumably greenlit during David Puttnam's tenure at Columbia) confounded many American viewers and slipped by others, bringing untold financial loss for the studio. Gilliam survived, however, rebounding to box-office gold two and a half years later, with the Christmas 1991 blockbuster The Fisher King. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi