The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

[superthunderstingcar]

Some Cabbers in the Brazil thread were claiming it is Gilliam's best, but for me it's got to be The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, a film which is, for me, a pure joy.

Brazil I could happily never watch again, but I could watch The Adventures of Baron Munchausen one or twice a year every year for the rest of my life.

[Blumf]

Personally prefer Brazil, but wouldn't argue with anyone liking Baron Munchausen more. Certainly is a wonderful experience and pairs well with Time Bandits (odd thing: Google suggests Brazil is a sequel to Time Bandits. Wonder where it got that idea)

I've got it on DVD but the image quality is terrible, which is a big part of the film. Should try and dig out a Blu-ray.

[greenman]

I remember I only really got into Munchausen by proxy so to speak because a uni friend of my dads lived if Belgium and we visted them pretty often and their children around my age loved it, I'm guessing a significant difference with how well it did in mainland Europe compared to the US/UK.

I do tend to agree its probably Gilliam's best, perhaps partly because it brings the "Trilogy of Imagination" to a rather happy end even if the making of the film itself was anything but. For all the chaos of shooting in Italy though(which seems to be as much caused by the producer being a chancer who wasnt up to the job) I think you do definitely see the benefit in terms of art design, this might be the most lavishly designed film I'v ever witnessed were you do certainly see were a lot of the money went.

The negative I spose is the more recent reveals that Sarah Polley was terrorised during the making of it, perhaps showing the dangers of Gilliam not having as tight a safety regulation as he would in the US?UK?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Some Cabbers in the Brazil thread were claiming it is Gilliam's best, but for me it's got to be The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, a film which is, for me, a pure joy.

Brazil I could happily never watch again, but I could watch The Adventures of Baron Munchausen one or twice a year every year for the rest of my life.

I really loved it as well, and got a bit obsessed with tracking down other filmed versions of the story during the pandemic - https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=91202.msg4765612#msg4765612

[Mister Six]

I used to go to a summer club as a lad that would take us to the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds, and this was one of the films we saw. I would have been about six at the time, I guess? I think I was the only only who liked it, but I shared the general bemusement of the rest of the kids. Haven't seen it since, but this thread has made me want to.

[superthunderstingcar]

I really loved it as well, and got a bit obsessed with tracking down other filmed versions of the story during the pandemic - https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=91202.msg4765612#msg4765612

That was a great thread, and I recall it putting me on to the 1943 film back when I was still only a lurker.

[Small Man Big Horse]

That was a great thread, and I recall it putting me on to the 1943 film back when I was still only a lurker.

What did you think of the 1943 film? I know it's problematic as it was made as a piece of propaganda, showing that Germany could still make a big budget movie despite the war, but I don't remember any of the film itself being dodgy.

[superthunderstingcar]

Here's the review I did for another forum...

Münchhausen (1943)

This film somehow manages to be charming and fantastic despite having been made in Nazi Germany, in the very depths of World War 2. You wouldn't know it to watch it, considering the hero is favourably disposed to the Russia of Catherine the Great, and we even see their famous romance that would later form part of the Baron's unreliable backstory in the 1988 Adventures of Baron Munchausen film.

The Baron also rejects the desire for power as a motivation, which he explicitly states in a conversation with his ambitious frival Count Cagliostro. The fact that Münchhausen is in colour, something that was incredibly rare for films of this era, also helps it feel like it comes from a different time. Or perhaps I mean that it helps this film feel timeless?

The film is a clear inspiration for Terry Gilliam's take on the character, and some scenes are very closely paralleled by his superb '80s film, most obviously the Baron riding on a cannonball (which this film plays straight, and the later film both subverts and plays straight!), the wager with the Sultan over the bottle of Tokay - in this sequence there are some shots that are almost exactly replicated by Gilliam's version - and the Baron travelling to the moon in a balloon.

The SFX sprinkled throughout the Baron's fantastisch adventures are simple but incredibly well used. And the one I found to be the most effective wasn't really an effect at all, but a simple piece of audience misdirection, when the framing device for the story is revealed to us to be set in the present day (well... the present day when it was made) and not in the 18th century only when the Baron - who is dressed in a full 18th century outfit, as are all the other characters we see in these early scenes - switches on an electric light. Then a guest at his period costume ball drives away in her car.

***** easily, I look forward to watching this again at some point. A version (with English subtitles) is currently available on YouTube.

[El Unicornio, mang]

***** easily, I look forward to watching this again at some point. A version (with English subtitles) is currently available on YouTube.

Wow, looks great for 1943 (and particularly, as you say, being made in Germany at that time)

The colours and general look around the hour mark definitely remind me of some of Powell & Pressberger's work

My enjoyment will be tainted by

commissioned by Goebbels

though. But Hitler hated it, so...

[Small Man Big Horse]

Here's the review I did for another forum...

Münchhausen (1943)

This film somehow manages to be charming and fantastic despite having been made in Nazi Germany, in the very depths of World War 2. You wouldn't know it to watch it, considering the hero is favourably disposed to the Russia of Catherine the Great, and we even see their famous romance that would later form part of the Baron's unreliable backstory in the 1988 Adventures of Baron Munchausen film.

The Baron also rejects the desire for power as a motivation, which he explicitly states in a conversation with his ambitious frival Count Cagliostro. The fact that Münchhausen is in colour, something that was incredibly rare for films of this era, also helps it feel like it comes from a different time. Or perhaps I mean that it helps this film feel timeless?

The film is a clear inspiration for Terry Gilliam's take on the character, and some scenes are very closely paralleled by his superb '80s film, most obviously the Baron riding on a cannonball (which this film plays straight, and the later film both subverts and plays straight!), the wager with the Sultan over the bottle of Tokay - in this sequence there are some shots that are almost exactly replicated by Gilliam's version - and the Baron travelling to the moon in a balloon.

The SFX sprinkled throughout the Baron's fantastisch adventures are simple but incredibly well used. And the one I found to be the most effective wasn't really an effect at all, but a simple piece of audience misdirection, when the framing device for the story is revealed to us to be set in the present day (well... the present day when it was made) and not in the 18th century only when the Baron - who is dressed in a full 18th century outfit, as are all the other characters we see in these early scenes - switches on an electric light. Then a guest at his period costume ball drives away in her car.

***** easily, I look forward to watching this again at some point. A version (with English subtitles) is currently available on YouTube.

That's a great review, and mirrored my thoughts about it too, it's such a shame about the context it was made in as otherwise I'm sure this would be regularly appear on best film lists.

[superthunderstingcar]

It's a tough sell, isn't it?

"I know it was made in Nazi Germany and was commissioned by Goebbels, but trust me, it's really good! Where are you going? Wait, come back..."

[daf]

Wow, looks great for 1943 (and particularly, as you say, being made in Germany at that time)

The colours and general look around the hour mark definitely remind me of some of Powell & Pressberger's work

And the Sylvester McCoy Dr Who title sequence! (wink)

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

The film stock was Agfacolor. After the war, patents were confiscated and the technical process served as the foundation for every film colour process, eventually replacing the original Technicolor process (tripack) as it could use standard cameras.

[superthunderstingcar]

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1961)

The Czechs have their go at telling some tales of the Baron. While on the moon, he meets with an astronaut called Tony and they immediately start having adventures together. While not explicitly stated, it seems clear that Tony is from only slightly in the future of when the film was made ('60s or '70s perhaps), but far more closer to that time than the Baron is from. Nevertheless, Tony is not intended as a POV character, since the narration is done by the Baron in-character and this forces us to identify with him more closely than the "Moonman," as the Baron insists on calling him even though Tony insists he is from Earth.

Returning to the Earth of the Baron's time, they rescue Princess Bianca from the Turkish Sultan, and the two men then become rivals for her affections at the same time as working together to evade the pursuing forces of the Sultan. They have various adventures, including the Baron and Bianca being swallowed by a giant fish, and of course the Baron rides upon a cannonball. Two, in fact. In spite of these exploits in which the Baron is always the protagonist and prime mover of events, as well as his tales of his other many adventures, he eventually has to come to terms with the fact that Bianca only has eyes for Tony.

The comparison and contrast between Tony and the Baron is at the heart of the film, with Tony's tales of the 20th century and its rockets and other machinery (he tries to build a steamship at one point so as to escape from an island, but it blows up) making him seem as much as fantasist as the Baron to the other characters. The Baron thinks he is a fantasist too, but recognises a kindred spirit in him despite their differences. This gives the film a thematic core, beyond which it is rather sketch-like, with tons of humour throughout (mostly visual, or else I wasn't picking up on all of the wordplay from the English subtitles) as the action moves from one 'set-piece' advanture of the Baron's to the next.

With practical effects accomplished by a variety of inventive means, including modelwork, animation, and mixing animation and live-action footage, this is an impressive production for a non-Hollywood film of the '60s. The inventiveness also extends to its use of colour, which is symbolic or impressionistic rather than realistic - yellow for day, blue for night, red for blood or battles (or flowers), and so on.

This is the third Baron Munchausen film I've seen (Gilliam's and the 1940s German version being the others), and it is probably the least of these, but is still very good. The ending lets it down slightly, being quite abrupt (a consequence of the sketch-like structure I mentioned above, perhaps?), but pretty much everything up to that point is wonderful, fabulous stuff. So it is well named.

****

[Hugl]

(odd thing: Google suggests Brazil is a sequel to Time Bandits. Wonder where it got that idea)

I believe that could have originated from the idea that Time Bandits, Brazil and Munchausen are linked as an extremely loose themeatic trilogy of a boy, man, then old man, escaping into their imaginations.

[Shaky]

I believe that could have originated from the idea that Time Bandits, Brazil and Munchausen are linked as an extremely loose themeatic trilogy of a boy, man, then old man, escaping into their imaginations.

Yeah, Gilliam retrospectively gave them loose trilogy status.

[Glebe]

I remember watching some of it as a kid and being enchanted by it, then I got it second-hand on Blu-ray a few years back, it's well made but I don't think I was all that impressed watching it again. I've seen Peter Jeffrey, who plays the Sultan, pop up in a lot of TV reruns, The Sweeney, Tales of the Unexpected and most recently Yes, Minister's 1984 Christmas special 'Party Games'.