I like what Terry Gilliam is saying in the video clip below.

In public interviews you normally get the filtered comments that are afraid to do real comparisons for fear of offending. Not Terry. Not in his interviews, and not in his films.

And I think he makes a legitimate point in differentiating the work of a commercial success like Spielberg and an artistic success like Kubrick. My taste runs along the lines of Terry’s — good art raises questions and makes you work. No spoon feeding.

Terry himself has a body of work that is wildly inventive, takes huge risks, and raises more questions than it answers. Examples include The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, Brazil, and Time Bandits as a writer/director, and all the Monty Python classics as a writer.

Sadly, writer/directors like Terry and others in that vein (David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro González Iñárritu , etc…) have an absurdly difficult time raising funds for their films despite a track record of masterpieces.

Video interview after the break…..!

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“The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay beings to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism – and their assumption of immortality.

As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong – and lucky – he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can force a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation.

He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make them – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment.

However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”

-Stanley Kubrick

It’s this mission to create meaning that makes storytelling and art so important and powerful.