The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - Criterion Collection Laserdisc Preservation

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents

Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a logic defying spectacle based on the fantastic exploits of a legendary eighteenth-century German adventurer-storyteller. In travels to the moon, to the bowels of the earth, and into the belly of a whale-a mad joyride of special effects, eccentric characters and romantic quests - John Neville’s wily Baron matches the talents of Sarah Polley, Oliver Reed and the newly unveiled Uma Thurman.

BLU-RAY EDITION 1988 126 MINUTES COLOR SURROUND 1.75:1 ASPECT RATIO

Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 / Audio Commentary 1.0 Mono Subtitles: English Main title:

1080p Supplementary Material: 480p Laserdisc Source

1988

SPECIAL FEATURES l Audio commentary by Terry Gilliam l Four sequences deleted from the final release, with optional audio commentary by Terry Gilliam Special effects compositing, including outtakes of the King of the Moon l Original theatrical trailer, posters and advertising campaigns l Production sketches, paintings, models and costume tests l Analysis of the film’s script, including storyboards documenting scenes never filmed l Detailed accounting of one of the most outrageous production stories in film history, featuring interviews with co-writer Charles McKeown, producer Thomas Schühly, production designer Dante Ferretti, and costume designer Gabriella Pescucci l Historical notes on the character of Münchhausen, with clips and stills of previous film versions including Josef Von Baky’s Münchhausen (1943) and Karel Zeman’s Baron Prásil (1962)

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN Is under exclusive license from Columbia TriStar Home Video TM ® © 2020 by Columbia TriStar Home Video. All Rights Reserved. © 2020 The Criterion Collection. All Rights Reserved. Cat. no. CC1281L. ISBN 1-55940-223-7 Warning: unauthorized public performance, broadcasting, or copying is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in the USA. First printing 2020.

The Criterion Collection is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions of the highest technical quality, with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film. Visit us at Criterion.com

Design and Layout - pineapples101@gmail.com

LD 144

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents

Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a logic defying spectacle based on the fantastic exploits of a legendary eighteenth-century German adventurerstoryteller. In travels to the moon, to the bowels of the earth, and into the belly of a whale-a mad joyride of special effects, eccentric characters and romantic quests - John Neville’s wily Baron matches the talents of Sarah Polley, Oliver Reed and the newly unveiled Uma Thurman.

Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 / Audio Commentary 1.0 Mono Subtitles: English Main title:

1080p Supplementary Material: 480p Laserdisc Source

1988 126 MINUTES COLOR SURROUND 1.75:1 ASPECT RATIO THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN Is under exclusive license from Columbia TriStar Home Video TM ® © 2020 by Columbia TriStar Home Video. All Rights Reserved. © 2020 The Criterion Collection. All Rights Reserved. Cat. no. CC1281L. ISBN 1-55940-223-7 Warning: unauthorized public performance, broadcasting, or copying is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in the USA. First printing 2020.

1988

SPECIAL FEATURES l Audio commentary by Terry Gilliam l Four sequences deleted from the final release, with optional audio commentary by Terry Gilliam Special effects compositing, including outtakes of the King of the Moon l Original theatrical trailer, posters and advertising campaigns l Production sketches, paintings, models and costume tests l Analysis of the film’s script, including storyboards documenting scenes never filmed l Detailed accounting of one of the most outrageous production stories in film history, featuring interviews with co-writer Charles McKeown, producer Thomas Schühly, production designer Dante Ferretti, and costume designer Gabriella Pescucci l Historical notes on the character of Münchhausen, with clips and stills of previous film versions including Josef Von Baky’s Münchhausen (1943) and Karel Zeman’s Baron Prásil (1962)

BLU-RAY EDITION

The Criterion Collection is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions of the highest technical quality, with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film. Visit us at Criterion.com

Design and Layout - pineapples101@gmail.com

LD 144

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, presents

Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a logic defying spectacle based on the fantastic exploits of a legendary eighteenth-century German adventurer-storyteller. In travels to the moon, to the bowels of the earth, and into the belly of a whale-a mad joyride of special effects, eccentric characters and romantic quests - John Neville’s wily Baron matches the talents of Sarah Polley, Oliver Reed and the newly unveiled Uma Thurman.

DVD EDITION 1988 126 MINUTES COLOR SURROUND 1.75:1 ASPECT RATIO THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN Is under exclusive license from Columbia TriStar Home Video TM ® © 2020 by Columbia TriStar Home Video. All Rights Reserved. © 2020 The Criterion Collection. All Rights Reserved. Cat. no. CC1281L. ISBN 1-55940-223-7 Warning: unauthorized public performance, broadcasting, or copying is a violation of applicable laws. Printed in the USA. First printing 2020.

Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 / Audio Commentary 1.0 Mono Subtitles: English Main title:

1080p Supplementary Material: 480p Laserdisc Source

1988

SPECIAL FEATURES l Audio commentary by Terry Gilliam l Four sequences deleted from the final release, with optional audio commentary by Terry Gilliam Special effects compositing, including outtakes of the King of the Moon l Original theatrical trailer, posters and advertising campaigns l Production sketches, paintings, models and costume tests l Analysis of the film’s script, including storyboards documenting scenes never filmed l Detailed accounting of one of the most outrageous production stories in film history, featuring interviews with co-writer Charles McKeown, producer Thomas Schühly, production designer Dante Ferretti, and costume designer Gabriella Pescucci l Historical notes on the character of Münchhausen, with clips and stills of previous film versions including Josef Von Baky’s Münchhausen (1943) and Karel Zeman’s Baron Prásil (1962)

The Criterion Collection is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions of the highest technical quality, with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film. Visit us at Criterion.com

Design and Layout - pineapples101@gmail.com

LD 144

VIDEODISC PRODUCTION CREDITS

Producer

Associate producer

Executive producer Film-to-video transfer supervisor

Technical director

Production coordinator

Videographic designer

Design consultant

Sound editor

Copy photographer Film-to-video transfer operator

Eric Saks David Morgan Michael Nash Maria Palazzola Morgan Holly Kim Berman Eric Saks with Michael Goedecke and David Hutchins Rebekah Behrendt Paul Supkoff, Michael B. Schwartz Mark Brems with Sean Anderson Gregg Garvin, Modern Videofilm, Burbank. CA

W

riter-Director Terry Gilliam likes to think of himself as the protagonist in each of his films.

The loss of innocence portrayed in Jabberwocky and Time Bandits, the battles against bureaucracy in Brazil, and the struggle between commercial success and individual idealism in The Fisher King—all reflect Gilliam’s persona. In Hieronymous Karl Friedrich, Baron von Munchausen, the greatest liar in history outside of politics, Gilliam has found perhaps his closest fictional counterpart.

Inspired by a soldier of fortune and eighteenth-century raconteur renowned for the gift of overstatement in regards to his travels and exploits, Munchausen is a name synonymous around the world with a singular view of the universe—one which follows not physical laws of Nature but the whims and desires of those inhabiting it. With co-writer Charles McKeown, Gilliam uses the infamous Munchausen tales as the basis of a story unbounded by the dictates of logic, or even taste. Their Baron, as might be expected, can only be accepted on his own wildly improbable terms.

What pulls the viewer into the often overwhelming spectacle of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is the mutually dependent relationship that develops between the 80-year-old Baron (who feels discarded by an age of scientific reasoning that has no understanding of the powers of imagination) and 8-year-old Sally Salt (who had the terrible misfortune of not being born the boy her pompous father wanted). Having found in Sally an eager audience for his tales of “three-legged Cyclopes . . . and oceans of wine,” the Baron sets sail with her in a balloon fabricated from ladies’ silk underwear to seek reinforcements—his trusty band of servants, each with a particular superhuman ability—against the invading Turkish army that has laid siege to their town.

Like Sally succumbing to the Baron’s romantic visions of what is possible, Gilliam was seduced by producer Thomas Schühly into making the film in Rome, to take advantage of the artistic inspirations and craftsmanship available at Cinecittá Studios. Production designer Dante Ferretti, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, and costume designer Gabriella Pescucci helped create a baroque fantasy that would never have been possible had the picture been filmed in Gilliam’s home base of London.

Originally budgeted at under $25 million, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen suffered through terrible financial wrangling between the producer and distributors, which only hinted at the outlandish and often absurd difficulties that marred the first weeks of production in Rome, and on location in Spain. Costume shipments were trapped in a customs strike, animals and cast members were felled by illness, storms wrecked sets, and crew members were fired or fled in alarming numbers.

Gilliam persevered and achieved, in spite of the Brobdingnagian obstacles placed before him, one of the grandest yarns ever spun—certainly the most sumptuous film rendering ever made of the Baron’s bizarre world. Like Gilliam’s other films, Munchausen is a visual feast, with uncanny designs and special effects that capture the organic style of Old World science fiction visionaries such as Jules Verne.

Beyond the fireworks, the performances offer splendid work by noted character actors and stars in cameo roles. John Neville expertly captures the liar’s agility, romanticism, and search for purpose in a rapidly evolving world. Oliver Reed is both bellicose and timid as the hospitable god Vulcan, inflamed by jealousy for his beloved Venus (Uma Thurman in her first conspicuous role). And the vision of the King of the Moon’s detached head is a live-action version of a Gilliam cartoon if there ever was one. Most enjoyable is Sarah Polley, a completely natural young actress whose Sally Salt is exactly the brazen and redoubtable companion the Baron deserves.

The triumph of imagination over reality, so often dreamed of in Gilliam’s pictures, is here finally accomplished. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen stretches its horizons far wider than those of most Hollywood big-budget concoctions, which rarely dig as deeply into issues of Death, Responsibility, Reality, Artifice and New Uses for Lingerie. Gilliam (the Baron in a previous life, no doubt) has in this incarnation preserved and expanded Munchausen’s unmitigated lies, topping the notorious storyteller several times over.

By David Morgan

NOV 19, 1992

VIDEODISC PRODUCTION CREDITS

Producer

Associate producer

Executive producer Film-to-video transfer supervisor

Technical director

Production coordinator

Videographic designer

Design consultant

Sound editor

Copy photographer Film-to-video transfer operator

Eric Saks David Morgan Michael Nash Maria Palazzola Morgan Holly Kim Berman Eric Saks with Michael Goedecke and David Hutchins Rebekah Behrendt Paul Supkoff, Michael B. Schwartz Mark Brems with Sean Anderson Gregg Garvin, Modern Videofilm, Burbank. CA

W

riter-Director Terry Gilliam likes to think of himself as the protagonist in each of his films. The loss of innocence portrayed in Jabberwocky and Time Bandits, the battles against bureaucracy in Brazil, and the struggle between commercial success and individual idealism in The Fisher King—all reflect Gilliam’s persona. In Hieronymous Karl Friedrich, Baron von Munchausen, the greatest liar in history outside of politics, Gilliam has found perhaps his closest fictional counterpart.

Inspired by a soldier of fortune and eighteenth-century raconteur renowned for the gift of overstatement in regards to his travels and exploits, Munchausen is a name synonymous around the world with a singular view of the universe—one which follows not physical laws of Nature but the whims and desires of those inhabiting it. With co-writer Charles McKeown, Gilliam uses the infamous Munchausen tales as the basis of a story unbounded by the dictates of logic, or even taste. Their Baron, as might be expected, can only be accepted on his own wildly improbable terms.

What pulls the viewer into the often overwhelming spectacle of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is the mutually dependent relationship that develops between the 80-year-old Baron (who feels discarded by an age of scientific reasoning that has no understanding of the powers of imagination) and 8-year-old Sally Salt (who had the terrible misfortune of not being born the boy her pompous father wanted). Having found in Sally an eager audience for his tales of “three-legged Cyclopes . . . and oceans of wine,” the Baron sets sail with her in a balloon fabricated from ladies’ silk underwear to seek reinforcements—his trusty band of servants, each with a particular superhuman ability—against the invading Turkish army that has laid siege to their town.

Like Sally succumbing to the Baron’s romantic visions of what is possible, Gilliam was seduced by producer Thomas Schühly into making the film in Rome, to take advantage of the artistic inspirations and craftsmanship available at Cinecittá Studios. Production designer Dante Ferretti, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, and costume designer Gabriella Pescucci helped create a baroque fantasy that would never have been possible had the picture been filmed in Gilliam’s home base of London.

Originally budgeted at under $25 million, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen suffered through terrible financial wrangling between the producer and distributors, which only hinted at the outlandish and often absurd difficulties that marred the first weeks of production in Rome, and on location in Spain. Costume shipments were trapped in a customs strike, animals and cast members were felled by illness, storms wrecked sets, and crew members were fired or fled in alarming numbers.

Gilliam persevered and achieved, in spite of the Brobdingnagian obstacles placed before him, one of the grandest yarns ever spun—certainly the most sumptuous film rendering ever made of the Baron’s bizarre world. Like Gilliam’s other films, Munchausen is a visual feast, with uncanny designs and special effects that capture the organic style of Old World science fiction visionaries such as Jules Verne.

Beyond the fireworks, the performances offer splendid work by noted character actors and stars in cameo roles. John Neville expertly captures the liar’s agility, romanticism, and search for purpose in a rapidly evolving world. Oliver Reed is both bellicose and timid as the hospitable god Vulcan, inflamed by jealousy for his beloved Venus (Uma Thurman in her first conspicuous role). And the vision of the King of the Moon’s detached head is a live-action version of a Gilliam cartoon if there ever was one. Most enjoyable is Sarah Polley, a completely natural young actress whose Sally Salt is exactly the brazen and redoubtable companion the Baron deserves.

The triumph of imagination over reality, so often dreamed of in Gilliam’s pictures, is here finally accomplished. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen stretches its horizons far wider than those of most Hollywood big-budget concoctions, which rarely dig as deeply into issues of Death, Responsibility, Reality, Artifice and New Uses for Lingerie. Gilliam (the Baron in a previous life, no doubt) has in this incarnation preserved and expanded Munchausen’s unmitigated lies, topping the notorious storyteller several times over.

By David Morgan

NOV 19, 1992

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Criterion Collection - Laserdisc Preservation Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The #144 (1988) [CC1281L] https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/09367/CC1281L/Adventures-of-Baron-MunchausenThe Blu Ray - Region A/B/C DVD - Region All Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 / Audio Commentary 1.0 Mono Subtitles: English Main title: 1080p Supplementary Material: 480p Laserdisc Source

Artwork Criterion Blu Ray Case - Inlay 273mm x 160mm Standard Blu Ray Case - Inlay 269mm x 148mm Standard DVD Case - Inlay 272mm x 182mm Criterion 4 Page Booklet - Exterior Fold down middle 240mm x 160mm Criterion 4 Page Booklet - Interior Fold down middle 240mm x 160mm Standard 4 Page Booklet - Exterior Fold down middle 235mm x 145mm Standard 4 Page Booklet - Interior Fold down middle 235mm x 145mm Blu Ray Disc Art 115mm x 115mm