The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a 1988 film directed by Terry Gilliam, starring John Neville (as the Baron), Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Jonathan Pryce, Oliver Reed, Uma Thurman, Robin Williams and a great many more.

The film is one of the famous fiascos in the history of Hollywood. Coming in absurdly over budget, it put a black mark on Gilliam's career from the studio's point of view. On the other hand, the film has gained cult favorite status. Gilliam's career does not seem to have suffered very substantially.

Baron Munchausen is a character from The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen (or Baron Münchhausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels) by Rudolf Erich Raspe - a collection of tall stories published in 1785, based on the German adventurer Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen, but with many debts to earlier works. The tales were adapted and re-published in German by Gottfried August Bürger in 1786 as Wunderbare Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande, Feldzüge und lustige Abenteuer des Freyhernn von Münchhausen and became much more popular in this edition.

The stories were also made into films in 1911 (Les Aventures de baron de Münchhausen), 1943 (Münchhausen) and 1961 (Baron Prásil). Gilliam's film has many visual similarities to the 1943 version and the production company was legally obliged to add a disclaimer to the film's posters and closing titles to the effect that Gilliam's Munchausen was an original movie unconnected to the earlier version.

Tagline: Remarkable. Unbelievable. Impossible. And true.

External links

• The Mad Adventures of Terry Gilliam: On-Location Report