A Critical Companion to Terry Gilliam
provides a fresh, up-to-date exploration of the director’s films and artistic practices, ranging from his first film
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(1975) to his recently released and latest film
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
(2018). This volume presents Gilliam as a director whose films weave together an avant-garde cinematic style, imaginative exaggeration, and social critique. Consequently, while his films can seem artistically chaotic and thus have the effect of frustrating and upsetting the viewer, the essays in this volume show that this is part of a very disciplined creative plan to achieve the defamiliarization of various accepted notions of human and social life.