Dreams and Nightmares

Dreams and Nightmares: Terry Gilliam, The Brothers Grimm, & Other Cautionary Tales of Hollywood

In Hollywood, no one can hear you dream.

Six years after ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, Terry Gilliam hasn’t completed a single project.

Things are so bleak he agrees to direct ‘The Brothers Grimm’ for Miramax, under the watchful eyes of Bob and Harvey Weinstein, two brothers legendary in the business for making movies their way.

But Gilliam has always dreamt big, even when the budget was small, and is renowned as a director whose feverish dreamscapes are grandiose, surreal and expensive – a true visionary who makes movies his way.

Expecting trouble, Gilliam invites author Bob McCabe to witness the movie-making process as it happens. McCabe sits in on confidental meetings, speaks to stars and stagehands, sees studio interference at first-hand, and collects enough tales of Tinseltown to make the toes curl before finally being forcibly ejected by studio stuff.

Combining his own experiences with personal diaries and candid interviews with Gilliam, Matt Damon and others he reveals exactly why is it so hard to get a movie made in today’s Hollywood system. Especially if the director wants it to be his dream, rather than the studio’s nightmare.