Erstwhile member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and principal artist-animator of the surreally bizarre cartoons with which it was frequently interspersed, Terry Gilliam has gone on to become a film director. Gilliam's Brazil is known among cineastes as a drastic example of things that can go wrong when a director does not have final cut and the studio steps in to "take control" of a situation it sees as spiralling out of control; Gilliam's battles with the studio are notorious and well documented.
His films have a distinctive look, often recognizable from just a short clip. There is often a baroqueness about the movies, with, for instance, computer monitors in one film equipped with magnifying lenses, and in another a red knight covered with flapping bits of cloth. He also is given to incongruous juxtapositions, say of beauty and ugliness, or antique and modern.
Gilliam is a graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles and was the only American member of Monty Python.
Films directed: