The adventures of Baron Münchhausen

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Movie
German title The adventures of Baron Münchhausen
Original title The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 1988
length 126 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Terry Gilliam
script Charles McKeown ,
Terry Gilliam
production Thomas Schühly
music Michael Kamen
camera Giuseppe Rotunno
cut Peter Hollywood
occupation
synchronization

The adventures of Baron Münchhausen is a British-German fantasy film by director Terry Gilliam from 1988. The film is loosely based on the stories about the so-called baron of lies Hieronymus Carl Friedrich von Münchhausen . The world premiere took place on December 8, 1988 in Germany.

action

The Age of Enlightenment: A nameless European city by the sea is besieged by the Turks in the late 18th century. The fight seems hopeless, but the mayor, who is constantly raving about logic and reason, does not want to give up. To distract people, a group of traveling actors plays a play in a destroyed theater: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen . Münchhausen's stories are strongly ridiculed until suddenly an angry old man storms into the theater and demands that the stage performance be stopped. Because the strange old man claims to be the real Baron Munchausen, and his adventures never really happened as shown in the play. In addition, only he can settle the conflict with the Turks, because he is also the cause.

Then the baron begins to tell of the past, and during his narration all present listeners are immersed in the story: while staying with the Turkish sultan, the baron once made a bet that he could get a better wine than the sultan owned. Bertold, one of the Baron's servants, played by the actor Eric Idle , and the fastest man in the world, ran from the Orient to Vienna as fast as an arrow to get a wine from the imperial estate within an hour. As a reward for the bet won, the baron was then allowed to take as much from the sultan's treasury as his strongest man could carry. The Baron's servant Albrecht, a tall giant, was so muscular that he could carry all the gold in the treasury on his broad shoulders. This infuriated the sultan and has been chasing the baron ever since.

At this point the story is interrupted - the Turks' bullets hit the theater and drive away the audience. The baron, however, promises to get help. He makes a hot-air balloon out of the women's underwear, with which he flies off together with the daughter of the director of the theater group, Sally. The balloon flies to the moon, where the two meet the giant lunar king. But he has gone mad because of his split: He can separate his head from his body. His head prefers to do spiritual things - and his body physical ones. The head, floating alone, is convinced that he is the "king of everyone and everything" and lets the baron be locked up in a huge bird cage.

Then his body approaches, together with the queen. His body catches the head, and immediately the king only thinks of "physical things" and disappears into bed with the queen. In the cage the baron finds another prisoner: his old servant Bertold. Then the queen's head approaches and frees the three. She leaves a meter-long lock of her hair to the baron so that they can abseil back to earth on this strand like a rope. Gradually a cross-generational friendship develops between Baron Münchhausen and the juggler girl Sally. After the prisoners break out, the angry Moon King hunts the baron and his companions with a three-headed griffin. However, since they run in three different directions, it tears the griffin because its three heads each want to chase another fugitive. The king falls, floats from the crater of his crash - finally freed from body - the head and proclaims that he is omnipotent and can live without the body. But he already gets into trouble when his nose itches and his body's hands are missing to scratch his nose.

Meanwhile, the Baron, Sally and Bertold abseil at the tip of the crescent moon. Unfortunately, the hair is not long enough, when the baron cuts off a piece at the top to tie it on at the bottom, the trio falls. They fall back to earth, directly into the cone of the Etna volcano, which seems to have died out. Deep down there, Vulcan , the Roman god of fire, is in the process of discussing working conditions and salaries with his Cyclops while they are on strike. Sally asks what they make, and Vulcan explains they are weapons. Brand new is a transcontinental missile that flies through the air and kills all opponents at a safe distance and destroys their animals and all houses, and one only has to press a button. As he offers his guests tea, the bulky Albrecht, the former strong servant of the baron, comes in with a tea cart. He actually doesn't want to carry heavy things around anymore, he explains, because deep down in his soul he is basically sensitive. At this moment, Vulcan's wife Venus joins the scene , played by actress Uma Thurman , who immediately begins to flirt violently with the baron. Vulcan becomes so jealous of this that he throws his guests, including Albrecht, into the sea.

The four fall through the middle of the earth and come out on the other side of the earth in the ocean, where a sea monster pounces on them and swallows them. In his belly they meet the baron's last two servants, namely Adolphus with the once sharp eagle eyes and Gustavus with the once extraordinary hearing. But when the baron demands that one must return to fight the Turks, no one is really enthusiastic. The baron releases a pinch of snuff into the air, the sea monster sneezes, and the companions are thrown onto the beach in front of the city and the Turkish camp.

Since still no one is ready to help him, the baron goes to the sultan alone and offers his head for the hangman. He interrupts the mayor's surrender negotiations, which he wants to base on reason and logic. But the baron's head is enough for the sultan. He has an execution prepared, but this is interrupted by the baron's servants. They have found their motivation again, and everyone is fighting with their special supernatural powers until the Turks can only flee.

A triumphal procession is being prepared in the city. But the malicious mayor does not grant the baron the triumph and shoots him from behind. The baron is dead and will be buried ...

... and at this moment you find yourself back on the theater stage from the beginning. With a laugh, the Baron Münchhausen explains that this was not the only occasion when he could look death in the eye - and he would recommend it at any time. It becomes clear all of the adventures were just one great story for the Baron. Nevertheless, he demands that one should go outside the city and open the gates. Against the resistance of the guards and the mayor, the people prevail and the gates are opened. And lo and behold, the Turkish camp was destroyed, the Turks have fled. The baron gets on his horse before he rides off, Sally asks him: “So it wasn't just a story?” The baron doesn't answer, but rides off into the sunset.

background

Director Terry Gilliam came up with the idea of ​​making his own feature film about Baron Munchausen through a brochure of the British Film Institute in which a photo of the Czech Munchausen film Baron Prášil by director Karel Zeman from 1961 was shown as a backdrop used the classic Munchausen drawings by the illustrator Gustave Doré . The shooting for Gilliam's cinematic interpretation of the Münchhausen material took place in Italy and Spain . Near the southern Spanish port city of Almería , where director Sergio Leone had shot many of his western films, the film crew took those panoramic landscapes that can be seen at the beginning of the film The Adventures of Baron Münchhausen . The scenes that play in the burning and war-torn city with the baroque theater were recorded in the parish of Belchite . However, those scenes that take place inside the bombed theater were recorded using a specially constructed set in the Roman film studio complex Cinecittà . Production designer Dante Ferretti was responsible for the design of the ornate and detailed backdrops . Maggie Weston , wife of director Terry Gilliam, and Fabrizio Sforza worked as makeup artists on the film, who received an Oscar nomination for their artistic achievement.

The main role of the little juggler girl Sally Salt was played by director Terry Gilliam with the Canadian actress Sarah Polley , who had previously appeared in a television series called Ramona , because of her childishly patchy milk teeth . Due to the constant explosions in the context of the fight scenes, leading actress Sarah Polley had often felt fear during the filming on the set , so she was glad when the filming was completed and she was allowed to travel home. Originally, the role of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, was to be taken over by Marlon Brando , but ultimately went to actor Oliver Reed shortly before shooting began .

Production costs were estimated at about 46.6 million US dollars . Overall, the shooting was extremely problematic, for example some mechanical models, such as the three-headed griffin on which the angry Moon King rides, did not work as requested by the filmmakers, which is why the crew had to improvise more often. When the film crew arrived by plane in the Spanish city of Almería, the costumes of the leading actors were temporarily stuck in their luggage at the airport in Barcelona because of a strike by the customs officials there. When the successful shot of the panty hot-air balloon floating up with the galleon in front of a sun-shining sky was finished, it had a positive effect on the general morale within the stressed film crew to continue with the shooting despite all the adversities. The film grossed approximately $ 8.08 million in US cinemas. In West Germany there were 618,780 admissions, in Spain 606,635 admissions. This made the film a huge commercial failure. One of the reasons why the film failed with audiences, according to director Terry Gilliam, was that too few copies of the film, only 117 copies, were sent to American cinemas. In addition, Columbia Pictures did not advertise the film enough.

The film is based in parts on the German Münchhausen film from 1943 .

The role of the Moon King was originally supposed to play Sean Connery , but he found it "a little royal". Robin Williams, who stepped in as a substitute, is not mentioned in the credits, it says that the Moon King played "Ray D. Tutto". It's a play on words, because this name is pronounced like the Italian "Re di Tutto", which means "the king of everything".

In an opening scene, the juggler Sally writes on an event poster with a pen that is stuck to the base of a horse statue. At this point, in the background to the left, you can see a lawbreaker being hanged and another person jumping around on the shoulders of the hanged man. In times of public executions , it often took a long time for criminals hung on the gallows to die, which is why an assistant would sometimes stand on the shoulders of the delinquent in order to speed up the dying process. Both the black horse statue that appears in the first scenes and the bright crescent-shaped moon from which Baron Münchhausen, Sally and Bertold abseil down to earth were made of styrofoam , with the crescent-shaped moon having some steps incorporated. For the implementation of the scene in which Baron Münchhausen's ship glides over the sandy moon surface in the dark, the shooting team filled a huge basin with water and sand, from which the water then ran off through the sand, creating a suitable moon-like floor that the ship was pulled with a wire. In another scene, the strong Albrecht throws the sharp-sighted Adolphus at a high Turkish city wall. To realize this scene, a disguised stuntman, who also turned upside down in flight, jumped down from the wall. Afterwards, the film crew simply ran this recording backwards. In the course of the plot, death appears regularly, depicted in the form of a doll model as a screaming skeleton in black robe with scythe and wings. This doll was made by the this Oscar-nominated firm effects special effects artist Richard Conway in cooperation with the Peerless Camera Company Ltd . In the audio commentary on the feature film, which is part of the bonus material on the 2008 DVD The Adventures of Baron Münchhausen , director Terry Gilliam explains: “ If we had computer-animated death, it would not have been so impressive. There is something surprising about a real doll, or something that really exists and flaps its wings. It wouldn't look so strange from the computer. Then it would probably look nicer, more precise and possibly more beautiful, but not so lively. “Towards the end of the film, after the perfidious mayor, played by actor Jonathan Pryce , murdered Baron Munchausen, who was celebrated by the people, with a rifle, you can see a gray gravestone with the following engraving: Here read Baron von Munchausen - Savior of the City . This is an English-language play on words, because this sentence can be translated into German as Here lies Baron Münchhausen, savior of the city as well as Here lies Baron Münchhausen, savior of the city , in relation to the legend of the baron of lies . In the end credits of the film, the portrait photos of the main actors appear along with their names in classicistic picture frames. Director Terry Gilliam chose this graphic design tool to create the impression of the end of a play, when all the actors step forward behind the closed curtain to bow to the applauding audience.

synchronization

role actor Voice actor
Baron von Munchausen John Neville Friedrich W. Building School
Desmond / Bertold Eric Idle Arne Elsholtz
Venus / rose Uma Thurman Irina Wanka
Mayor Horatio Jackson Jonathan Pryce Peter Fricke
sultan Peter Jeffrey Donald Arthur
King of the moon Robin Williams Peer Augustinski

Reviews

While the audience spurned the film (see above), the majority of the critics expressed themselves positively or even enthusiastically. Roger Ebert as described the film in the Chicago Sun-Times dated 10 March 1989 to as " immense " ( " vast "), although some scenes he " confused " and some " boring place". He praised the performance and the special effects.

Awards

The film was nominated for an Oscar in 1990 in the categories of Best Production Design , Best Costume Design ( Gabriella Pescucci ), Best Visual Effects and Best Make-up . In 1990 he won the British BAFTA Award for production design, make-up and costumes . The special effects were nominated for the BAFTA Award.

The film was nominated for the Hugo Award in 1990. In 1991 it was nominated for Best Fantasy Film , for the costumes, for the make-up and for the special effects for the Saturn Award . The film and Sarah Polley were nominated for the Young Artist Award in 1990. The film won the Italian film prize Nastro d'Argento des Sindacato Nazionale Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani in 1990 for the camerawork, for the costumes and for the production design.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Video interview with director Terry Gilliam and with actor and co-screenwriter Charles McKeown , included in the bonus material in the chapter Madness & Misfortunes during production on disc 2 of the double DVD Die Abenteuer des Baron Münchhausen , 20th Anniversary Edition, 2008, Columbia Pictures + Sony Pictures Entertainment , Munich
  2. ↑ Terry Gilliam: Gilliamesque - My Pre-Posthumous Memoirs . Autobiography translated from English by Berni Mayer , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag (Hardcore) in the Random House GmbH publishing group , Munich , 1st edition, 2015, p. 218.
  3. ↑ Audio commentary by director Terry Gilliam with actor and co-screenwriter Charles McKeown , included in the bonus material of the double DVD Die Abenteuer des Baron Münchhausen , 20th Anniversary Edition, 2008, Columbia Pictures + Sony Pictures Entertainment , Munich
  4. ↑ Video interview with director Terry Gilliam , contained in the bonus material in the chapter Madness & Misfortunes during production on disc 2 of the double DVD Die Abenteuer des Baron Münchhausen , 20th Anniversary Edition, 2008, Columbia Pictures + Sony Pictures Entertainment , Munich
  5. ↑ Video interview with director Terry Gilliam , contained in the bonus material in the chapter Madness & Misfortunes during production (subchapter The Final Curtain) on disc 2 of the double DVD Die Abenteuer des Baron Münchhausen , 20th Anniversary Edition, 2008, Columbia Pictures + Sony Pictures Entertainment , Munich
  6. ↑ Audio commentary by director Terry Gilliam with actor and co-screenwriter Charles McKeown , included in the bonus material of the double DVD Die Abenteuer des Baron Münchhausen , 20th Anniversary Edition, 2008, Columbia Pictures + Sony Pictures Entertainment , Munich
  7. ^ The adventures of Baron Münchhausen in the German dubbing index; Retrieved January 3, 2011
  8. ^ Film review by Roger Ebert