Journal of Undergraduate Research
Keywords
Terry Gilliam, films, fantasy, reality
College
Fine Arts and Communications
Department
Theatre and Media Arts
Abstract
My ORCA project was a study of the films of director Terry Gilliam. I found that the most accessible angle to begin to understand his body of work was by looking through a lens of Peter Wollen’s structuralist auteur criticism. This approach entails looking at the binaries common to many of Gilliam’s films—such as fantasy vs. reality, birth vs. death, individual vs. society, organic vs. machine—and carefully examining how these binaries shift alignment from film to film. The complex interweave of these binaries throughout the structure of a director’s films is, according to Wollen, what establishes a filmmaker as something more than a great director—a great artist.
Recommended Citation
Myers, Andrew J. and Larsen, Dr. Darl
(2013)
"Fantasy and Reality in the Films of Terry Gilliam,"
Journal of Undergraduate Research: Vol. 2013:
Iss.
1, Article 2366.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jur/vol2013/iss1/2366