Bienvenidos al caótico circo de un director iconoclasta. Guionista, dibujante, actor e integrante de los Monty Python, Terry Gilliam escudriña sus memorias en un ejercicio de introspección surreal que abarca desde su llegada al planeta en el gris Medicine Lake de Minnesota, hasta la producción del filme Teorema zero (2013). Gilliamismos. Memorias prepóstumas (2016) es el rocambolesco viaje que cualquier admirador del visionario director esperaría: en 15 capítulos, se atraviesan situaciones más cercanas al fracaso que al éxito en las filmaciones de Jabberwocky (1977), Brazil (1985), Doce monos (1995) y Tideland (2005); los inicios en la animación, los viajes a Europa, el encuentro con Monty Python y el inesperado éxito en el teatro, todas, situaciones narradas con el habitual humor ácido del visionario artista que en algún momento, decide renunciar a la nacionalidad norteamericana para convertirse en británico. El libro, presentado en una bella edición ilustrada por el propio Terry Gilliam, presenta fotos y storyboards inéditas, confesiones inesperadas y anécdotas conocidas que aquí se expanden cuando el narrador decide sincerarse y levantar su propia tapa de los sesos (literalmente, en la portada). El descenso a una de las mentes más excesivas y puntillosas de nuestros tiempos, el culpable del barroquismo de Las aventuras del barón Munchausen (1989), la locura de Miedo y asco en Las Vegas (1998), el juego hilarante de Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) y el manual cinematográfico para superar la adversidad que representa The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). Dueño de un estilo inconfundible, repleto de acercamientos acelerados, planos imposibles y cámaras tambaleantes, Terry Gilliam no se detiene y describe fuertes agarrones con las altas esferas de los estudios de Hollywood, siempre a favor de la libertad creativa para llevar sus proyectos a la pantalla justo como los imaginó; también queda tiempo para hablar del amor, los hijos y las dudas existenciales, sobre todo, de la muerte que acecha constante. Dos años después de la edición de Gilliamismos. Memorias prepóstumas, se presentaría en el Festival de Cannes El hombre que mató a Don Quijote (2018), el célebre proyecto de Gilliam que 20 años antes, había quedado hecho pedazos debido a circunstancias inesperadas. Aquel doloroso descalabro quedaría resumido en el documental Lost in La Mancha (2002), con un triste Terry Gilliam pensativo que se funde a negros. En su libro de memorias, el cineasta vuelve a ese momento y reflexiona sobre una de las ideas que rigen su deambular en el arte: persistir sin esperanza. ( )

Gilliamesque: me me me me me {2015}

Anyone who has seen any of Gilliam's work won't be surprised by this inside look at his bizarre mind. Sure, he will continue to make stunningly visual films, with very strange plotlines, but many of his films seem to get lost in themselves and forget where they originally wanted to take the viewers ... if he really ever had a firm structure in mind. But I do love his work. My favorite phrase from college: BIZARRE. BIZARRE. BIZARRE ( )

"Gilliamesque: A Pre-posthumous Memoir" seems something like an episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus." There are episodes of wild, funny and often disjointed narrative with regular interludes of off-the-wall artwork by Terry Gilliam.

Yet Gilliam strikes me as a bit too angry for his book to be as much fun as Monty Python. He neither forgets, which is good for someone writing an autobiography, nor forgives, which is not so good from someone looking back on a long and productive life. He can laugh about his own failures, however.

He writes of a "shockingly happy childhood" in Minnesota and later Southern California. He went to church and Bible school, read Mad magazine, attended summer camp, loved Disneyland and received a scholarship to a Presbyterian college. Yet though he boasts at one point about being a non-conformist, simply because he never took LSD, he soon conformed to the spirit of the radical Sixties and has never looked back. Interestingly, however, he twice decries the fact that people today are "losing touch with the Bible." Bible stories, he says, are the "building blocks of culture" and children, his own included, suffer by not being more familiar with them.

Gilliam has lived in England for most of his life, from even before the Python years, and denounced his U.S. citizenship several years ago, although he continues to depend on U.S. audiences to make his movies profitable. He refers to Osama Bin Laden and George Bush as two of "the world's most irrational despots," but he has nothing good to say about Margaret Thatcher either.

He doesn't discuss Monty Python or the many movies he has directed as much as we might like, although I did greatly enjoy reading about the making of my two favorite Terry Gilliam films, "Brazil" and "12 Monkeys." Something I never realized is that Gilliam worked with Harvey Kurtzman on Help! magazine right after college. That magazine was a favorite of mine during my teen years.

As interesting as the text of the book is, I suspect Terry Gilliam, being Terry Gilliam, devoted most of his attention to the illustrations, which alone are worth the price of the book. ( )