Sarah Polley details her scars from Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen
Polley was a 9-year-old Monty Python fanatic when she was cast in Gilliam’s epic
Aux News Terry Gilliam
Actor Sarah Polley got the chance of a lifetime when she was cast in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen. Then a 9-year-old Monty Python fan best known for her performance of the group’s song “Sit On My Face” at her Toronto kindergarten classroom, Polley and her Python-loving parents were ecstatic to work closely not just with Gilliam but the film’s star Eric Idle. Things didn’t go according to plan.
In an excerpt from her recent memoir, Run Toward The Danger, published by The Guardian, Polley details the traumatizing shoot she endured at the hands of a “mad genius” director, who was notorious for demanding dangerous stunts and effects at the last minute. She recounts her childhood memories running through controlled blasts that left her trembling as the director laughed and called for another take.
Blasts of debris exploded on the ground around me, accompanied by deafening booms that made me feel as if I myself had exploded. A log I was to run under was partially on fire. The gigantic blasts continued and shook everything around me. I ran, terrified, straight into the camera, tripping over the dolly tracks.
Terry laughed and looked perplexed. “What happened?” he asked, as though I had just run screaming from a slow-moving merry-go-round.
In later correspondence with the director (also published in The Guardian excerpt), Gilliam conceded that some stunts did not go to plan. For example, one water-based stunt spooked a horse, which surfaced an underwater explosion that detonated next to Polley. The stunt terrified co-star Eric Idle and nearly hospitalized the young star. Nevertheless, Polley was back to work the next day.
Years later, having heard that Gilliam was working on another child-led film, Tideland, Polley reached out to the director with her experiences on Munchausen. Despite having her memories confirmed by Eric Idle on Twitter and special effects professionals who worked on Munchausen, Gilliam questioned Polley’s account. He wrote:
One thing I’m curious about. Can you tell, when you see Sally in the film, in which of the shots it’s you … and which ones are your double? Do you remember that the shots of you in the boat were right at the edge of the tank with stuntmen in the water next to the boat? I only ask, not to minimise your bad memories, but to try to understand the differences in the way you and I remember the events… especially since you were so young and impressionable and sensitive and yet seemed to be so wise and about 30 years old.
Directing, like acting, is a job. And part of that job is keeping your crew safe. This is especially true for children, who probably shouldn’t be working in such high-stress and high-danger situations anyway. However, Polley believes that the system that rewards “out-of-control mad white male genius” directors regularly fails those placed under their care. She concludes that the “fetishization” of reckless auteurs has created a society too accepting of blatant disregard for performers.
I find myself wholly intolerant of the fetishisation of this archetype of genius, having seen, first-hand, great works made by decent, conscientious people, and having witnessed sharp impatience with female or Bipoc [Black, Indigenous and people of colour] film-makers who show any similar signs of irresponsibility. Terry lived for so long in the film world’s imagination as a “mad genius” whose madness and recklessness somehow elevated his work.
Read the whole excerpt at The Guardian.
125 Comments
Terry, you of all people should know that multiple takes are shot of things and hence what’s in the final product alone isn’t a useful indicator of what people experienced in total over the entire shoot.
I saw Cleese speak at a showing of The Holy Grail (directed by Gilliam and Terry Jones) a while ago and he picked on Gilliam for having them do so many takes. Just a fun, boring, but true fact.
Even though she finally got a bit of closure in realizing just how much danger she was in at the time confirmed by the special effects director many years later and realizes she’s been very right to be enraged at Gilliam for what he did, Polley is quite a bit more gracious to Gilliam than this article implies:“One of the things I still admire about Terry is this lack of fear, this lack of an instinct to hide and protect himself from exposure or attack. I think most people would have refused to let their emails be published this way.”She also notes that he didn’t get angry at her for messing up the scene in question; he was more bewildered that it didn’t go off, and it sounds like she’s more upset that this particular mindset of the ‘mad genius’ allowed him to get a pass for a lot of stuff when he probably shouldn’t have.A lot of the memoir itself – which has been out for months here versus in the UK – talks about her relationship with her parents and biological father who she was angry with for years (it’s hinted at in the “I don’t blame my parents as much as I used to” blurb in the article), and it’s probably better to view it in that context rather than that of the excerpt. Among the other things to come out of the scene in the blurb was this when she ran to him sobbing: my father said, with genuine remorse: “I’m afraid they have to do it again, love. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”She forgives him later for not being able to shut down the production, but I do think it hints at the fact that it is far, far too easy to just really mess up kids in productions unless your parents are just ferocious defenders. It might have been unrealistic to expect hers to be – which I’d bet is where she got a lot of release in therapy – but there’s still blame to go around here.
I don’t know what film productions have on set these days, but I hope they have counsellors to help kids process some of the stuff they are seeing. I hate the belief that kids are resilient, when in reality it just shows up for them as unresolved trauma in adulthood.And even if your parent is a ferocious defender, it must make for some really confusing dynamics as a child working in a really weird industry.
There’s a New Yorker article in which Polley talks about the experience of having her own kids insist on being set as background extras so they could see her during COVID. She makes speeches for three days about, “If at any moment you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, or even just
bored, please let any of us know and you can go. If this isn’t fun, we
stop.”After a bit of this, her kid yelled back, “We are not living your childhood! Leave us alone, we’re having fun!”Definitely weird dynamics on multiple levels.
Especially in this situation, with her parents being such fans on the Pythons. Letting your kindergartener sing “Sit on My Face” is funny in concept but I sure as hell wouldn’t let my kid do that.
I hope they have counseling for anyone who had to see a Teamsters butt-crack.
This reminds of me of what Linda Blair went through filming the Exorcist. Gave her a life long back injury. But, I’ve heard on today’s sets they are much better. Like if it is a horror film, the actors playing the monster or whatever will interact with the kids more playfully off camera and make sure they see it is make-believe and play. As for stunts, it should look dangerous while actually having three levels of safety built into it.
The industry may or may not be less predatory today, but Polley’s experience is definitely representative of a bygone era simply because Munchausen is one of the last films of its kind, where many of the stunts and effects were captured in camera using practical effects. That movie would be a CGI mess today, shot almost entirely on green screen. There’d be no reason to nearly blow up a little girl with cannons to get an effects shot — not because “mad genius” director types have been exposed and blackballed by the industry, but because it would be cheaper to add the cannons in digitally.
I hope this doesn’t come off as excusing behavior, but it seems like part of the problem was that Gilliam was given a pass. Like if you gave any given person permission to do whatever they wanted to, they’d probably do terrible things.
It kind of seems weird to expect someone to bring the energy that Gilliam brings and have them on their own keep themselves above line. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to believe there should be someone to keep these “mad genius” types in line.Obviously Gilliam’s accountable for his actions, but it seems kind of weird to view bad behavior in the face of a lack of accountability as a sign of individual moral blight, rather than a sign of a problem with the system.
No, I think you’re basically right; it’s systemic, but there are multiple ways that it doesn’t have to be. From the kid’s perspective, it really doesn’t matter if it’s the parent, someone on the producer level who has the power to tell the director to back off, or a director who is more in tune with what children need even when their parents don’t care (ala Spielberg with Drew Barrymore.)In this case there was none of the above, and hence why I think there are multiple locuses of blame. I would imagine that if Polley directs kids in the future she will end up in the last category.
We also need to take into account that this movie is nearly 35 years old. I suspect quite a lot has changed in film production since that time.
Also it was shot in Rome’s Cinecittà. I can’t imagine an Italian film studio all those years ago being a bastion of occupational safety.
The problem is white people. It’s always them.
It’s interesting you assume everyone would do terrible things if they were given permission
I think it’s more that they might not even realize they were terrible. Gilliams attitude doesn’t seem to have been “I’m traumatizing this little girl, but fuck it”, it seems to have been just being unaware how freaked out she was and it seems like no adult sat him down and said “hey, Terry, this is fucked up”.
I largely agree. If someone acts like an asshole or is abusive and is excused or even celebrated for it, chances are they’re going to keep acting like an asshole and escalate that behavior. Especially if it gets them what they want. If, however, they were called out on it EARLY and told in no uncertain terms that that shit won’t fly, they likely would’ve adjusted their behavior a long time ago.It’s like all the guys being called out in #MeToo where they’re flummoxed that the rules changed on them. Well, yeah, it’s correcting decades of shitty behavior that never should’ve happened in the first place. Just because your peers were fine with it before doesn’t mean that it wasn’t wrong, you were just getting away with being awful. It’s like a drunk driver’s defense being “but I drive drunk ALL THE TIME and never got in trouble before!!”
I mean if someone was like “fuck Terry Gilliam and fuck all of these other people,” I’d be like that’s fine.
But if someone was like “Hey the problem is Terry Gilliam and nothing else in the system,” I’d just have to be like hey wait a second.
You talk about context but fail to mention – by the end of that chapter – she is much tougher on Gilliam than on her father.She talks about the good aspects of Gilliam’s childlike persona, but focuses on the negative, chiefly the lack of consideration of other people and the filmmaking community’s willingness to brush it off.
Shitty parents. “There’s nothing they can do”? My ass.
Great comment. Film sets push everyone to their limits, there’s a lot of money and scheduling riding on every minute. If a child gets scared, it’s all to easy to assume the child is spooked rather than being genuinely traumatized, or worse, that the production is unsafe. Good people buckle under this pressure and make bad decisions for kids.
Yeah, maybe it’s because I JUST happened to listen to a podcast the other day about John Landis getting a stuntman and two kids killed on set while filming his segment of the Twilight Zone movie, but reading another account of a kid getting traumatized while filming a movie is just… ugh. Hopefully things are better these days.
That’s bullshit, he could have walked her right the fuck out of the shoot and not returned. Yeah that’s an extreme step and It would likely have ended her career. But her father didn’t even give his scared child the option.
Old white men really not handling the 21st century very well.
I have a feeling Ukraine and Taiwan will bring us right back to them
Umm, she is a trans lesbian. Didn’t you read the subheading?
Amazing how you people have so many elderly, washed-up comedians on your team, yet you still haven’t been able to come up with a second joke.
We don’t need a second one. The first one is hilarious, evergreen, and, most importantly, exposes trans ideology as the inherently ridiculous self-contradictory mess that it is. It’s literally never, ever going to get old. Cope, seethe, etc…
to be fair, it appears the rest of the world kinda hates us, so…
To be fair…they really didn’t handle the previous twenty centuries very well either, but they escaped scrutiny.
You’re a dumb sack of shit as always. Zero chance that you aren’t a fat ass
He is black lesbian in transition. Please address him as such.
the system that rewards “out-of-control mad white male genius” directors regularly fails those placed under their care
It’s hard to disagree with this.
He is black lesbian in transition. Please address him as such.
Could you transition to someone who makes smart jokes?
You’ve got to wonder if Gilliam (and John Cleese) realize the irony in them becoming exactly the kind of old people that Monty Python mocked all the time.
You really should ice down your arm before that strained reach hurts you in the morning.
I mean, both Gilliam and Cleese have become egocentric, humorless bores who can’t handle any threat to the status quo, and Monty Python used to dump on those easy targets on a regular basis.
Precisely this.
My dumping on the status quo during my youth is the only moral dumping on the status quo.
I don’t recall Python making jokes about exactly the kind of men they are, they were hardly subtle and went for bigger targets. What sketches are you referring to?
Upper Class Twit of the Year for one.
Society for Putting Things on Top of Other ThingsSchool Prize-GivingFour Yorkshiremen
The sketch was just a couple of minutes of guys wandering around a race course making ‘haw haw haw’ noises while displaying their upper teeth in an impression of a posh person. It’s hardly “Ah, this foreshadowed John Cleese moaning about cancel culture”.
well, of course they mean: OLD WHITE MEN.that’s the rub, now. If you’re over a certain age…and a man…and white…well, son, you shouldn’t even be allowed to live. Much less do anything or say anything or have an opinion, because it doesn’t matter, because your time has COME.it’s over for the white guys.
“Special effects professionals,” “sarah polley,” terrible tinny sorts of words.
Well I— I think that, uh, nobody who has gone abroad should be allowed back in the country. I mean, uh, BLIMEY! BLIMEY! If they’re not keen enough to stay here when they’re here, why should we allow them back, uh, at the taxpayers’ expense? I mean, be fair! I mean, I don’t eat squirrels, do I? I mean, well, perhaps I do, one or two, but there’s no law against that, is there?
.
If there were fewer robbers there wouldn’t be so many of them, numerically speaking.
Weak.
You either die a hero live long enough to become an out-of-touch goodwill-burning socially-conservative crank.
…African-american lesbians
Well I mean, they can’t help it, can they? But, there’s nothing you can do about it. So, I’d kill ‘em.
I find it funny how Cleese is a TERF. That’s just the most bigoted established position you can have because trans people are a largely unprotected group. Its like “damn I cant say the n word now, ok what can I say?” JKR doing it is even more rich, she actually became Vernon with his conservative middle-class values and mindless conformity.
No wonder he was so pissed about not getting Harry Potter.
Yeah the movies might actually have been good.
In fairness, he’d have been perfect for that.
There is no way on God’s green earth that any producer would have handed one of those films to Gilliam. He can be salty about it, but the only place that was ever so much as a thought was in his own head.
It makes me wonder what kind of reckless stunts Craig Warnock, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker and crew had to endure during the making of Time Bandits.There was a lot of falling, explosions, sword fighting and general chaos in that film.
…shit.Even Christina Ricci in Fear and Loathing. I could see that getting very weird for her.
Christina Ricci was 17 years old when filming F&L. Not sure that’s in the same ballpark, exactly.
Yeah, you’re right.What could go wrong with teenage girls around a bunch of empowered and protected older men?
Correct. A completely different ballpark, though also fraught for different reasons.
A lot less explosions in that movie…
Craig Warnock seemed to have good memories of the film, he even participated in the audio commentary for the laserdisc years later.
You also have to understand that Munchausen was a particularly troubled and chaotic production (not only because of Gilliam but also because of producer Thomas Schuhly who did a bad job)
That’s was my thought too.
Gilliam nearly drove everyone and himself completely bonkers during 12 Monkeys.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised this is coming from a man who thinks political correctness is an inconvenience and supported Roman Polanski. This is so disappointing.
And yet completely and totally expected and on-brand…
She had it better than those two even younger children that John Landis beheaded.
One was beheaded. The other was crushed by the landing skid.
Which makes it more surprising that Gilliam was able to use her in any special effects takes given this was post-Twilight Zone.
It was filmed in Italy. At that time I am sure a little lira to look the other way was just business as usual.
Filmed in Italy, but British producers at a time when a director and producer were being personally sued for killing children during a special effects stunt gone wrong. That’s the part that makes the “business as usual” part surprising.
I’m afraid that’s often the pattern. Take someone out of his or her native country, and they lose whatever decency they had.
Mad dogs and Englishmen….
Terry Gilliam is American
“I find myself wholly intolerant of the fetishisation of this archetype of genius, having seen, first-hand, great works made by decent, conscientious people, and having witnessed sharp impatience with female or Bipoc [Black, Indigenous and people of colour] film-makers who show any similar signs of irresponsibility”Yeah, and I’m sure your memories are completely untainted by confirmation bias 🙄
She’s got 54 acting credits so probably has more experience of working with various directors that you.
You’re probably right, (reads screen name).Oh. Never mind. You’re decidedly not.
Just say he’s an arsehole, instead of adding race to it (it seems to be mainly white women who do this too). There’s probably plenty of female and bipoc directors that are arseholes too. It seems it’s a job that attracts meglomaniacs.
Didn’t we already go through all this like 15 years ago?oh, I see, she’s got a new movie wrapping up, time to get in the news-cycle before the festival circuit begins.
It’s working. I had no idea Polley was in Munchausen.
out-of-control mad white male genius huh. It’s a weird way to slander him, for something he did clearly messed up, and having that kind of behavior/attitude as a director is certainly questionable. I’m just curious: How is his being “white” somehow impacting this? Does Ms. Polley really believe- and does anyone else- that he was allowed to be a dangerous, life-threatening hack of a director because he was Caucasian and a man? Like, that’s the thing that made the difference- he’s not black? Or a woman? If he was, he’d have been stopped many movies or years ago?
At age 51, I remember nothing about age 9. Other than the steep street we lived on and rode big wheels down seemed whole lot smaller than I remembered.
If you’d been the star of a huge budgeted film at nine, it would probably have stuck in your memory.
If you were the star of a movie you might remember that.
I bet 9 year old Zod on a big wheel was really cute.
In class he always sat behind Neil.
My real name begins with C, I was always up front.
Ah yes, the old ‘Neil before Zod’ seating arrangement. Well played.
At age 36, I can remember back to age 2.
Sure you can.
Well, I broke my leg when I was 2, & I remember it happening, so yes.
Did we live on the same street??
WHEEL BEFORE ZODthat was right there the entire time, people
There’s actually a fair bit of research on this – men often have fewer and dimmer memories of childhood because they’re not encouraged to write diaries or talk in detail about their day. When we talk to little girls, we ask them “What did you do today?” When we talk to little boys, we’re more likely to ask “What do you like? What do you want to be when you grow up?” etc. Memories are strengthened by being repeatedly reinforced, so the more you talk or write about them, the stronger they will become.
Riding big wheels down a steep street may have something to do with why you can’t remember it.
LOL excellent 🙂
Don’t have anything to add except that I love Sarah Polley and “Go” was the first movie I took a date to. Great movie that holds up surprisingly well. Really love the Amway gag.
It’s Confederated Products. It’s a different company, it’s a different quality of product.
I had to check the dates to confirm, but I’m SUPER surprised this movie was able to get made in a post Twilight Zone world, where John Landis had already gotten two child actors (and one adult actor) killed due to gross negligence.Baron Munchausen came out a full 5 years after Twilight Zone.
It was filmed in Europe.
Every time I think some incredibly lucky person is whining and crying about their not at all traumatic past, I think the media will dismiss their entitled finger-pointing. But no….
Pretty awful to determine yourself the judge of whether an experience was traumatic or not.
It does irk me when white women play the race card against white men too. Talk about privlilege.
Gee, do you suppose kids who aren’t famous have just as hard a time on movie sets if not worse?
Don’t click on articles about things you don’t like, dumdum.
Don’t reply to comments you don’t like, dumdum.
No
Or…. yes!!
LOL you still care.
I love you, Shoebox. Can I call you Shoebox?
We’ve been through so much together that you can even call me Old Shoobee if you want.
Well, Shoobee dooby doo!
Eric Idle had said this about Terry Gilliam ages ago: “Up until Munchausen, I’d always been very smart about Terry Gilliam films. You don’t ever [want to] be in them. Go and see them by all means – but to be in them, fucking madness!!!”It’s not like it’s news that he might now know how to plan for some of his elaborate set pieces and effects. I’m more surprised that he was able to get away with it in a post-Twilight Zone: The Movie world with a child on set if I’m being totally honest.
It was shot in Rome. As far as occupational safety goes it might as well have been a different planet.
Right, but it was being produced by UK and US backers at a time when producers were being personally sued for the deaths of children during a special effects scene. That’s the surprising part is the timing.
I wish my childhood trauma was from working on a dangerous Terry Gilliam set. That’s some pretty privileged trauma. No knock on Sarah Polley, I like her.
Gilliam was probably on a jackass style adrenaline rush and assumed everyone else was having a great time too. Stunts that go wrong are just as much fun as stunts that go right. “Dude! That was awesome. Do it again ! “
“Then a 9-year-old Monty Python fan best known for her performance of the group’s song “Sit On My Face” at her Toronto kindergarten classroom…”
Hold on. Her parents let her know this song (and sing it in public) in KINDERGARTEN? This is more alarming than anything in the film production.
They probably didn’t let her sing it in class.
everyone that knows Gilliam knows he’s a scumbag and asshole
I see the bigots are out in full force today, as in like every other day at the comment sections here in AVC!