HOWZAT

Unsettling his audience comes naturally to Gilliam, but it’s a high-risk strategy. His frustration is still raw that Tideland (2005), a twisted portrait of childhood innocence and a movie Gilliam regards as “one of the better films I have made” failed to find an audience. “Nobody went to see it!” he rages. “I was hoping people would get angry about it but those that saw it didn’t want to talk about it. This is the world we’re living in, people don’t want to discuss things that are actually worth discussing.”

So does Gilliam enjoy being provoked and disturbed by films? “The reason why I don’t watch as many as I used to is that I’m not surprised any more. I loved movies because they opened up doors into worlds I never imagined. It seldom happens now.”

When pushed, he names two films he saw recently that pushed his buttons. One is the critically adored Swedish pre-teen vampire movie, Let the Right One In. “It caught me completely off guard — it’s a lovely romantic film.” The other, an ambitious, occasionally dazzling Russian film called Paper Soldier, is yet to secure a UK distributor. His all-time favourites include Carné’s Les Enfants du Paradis (“Magical! It’s truly beautiful”) and Fellini’s 8½ (“This is the true film about making films”). It’s no surprise that Gilliam, a film-maker who has resolutely ploughed his own furrow even if it meant taking on the entire weight of the Hollywood machine, is drawn to independent voices in other directors.

Gilliam earned a reputation for being difficult after a battle with Universal over Brazil. “The first thing was that they wanted a happy ending. Then they decided that the theme of the film was ‘love conquers all’. So they started cutting out all the fantasy stuff.

“It’s one thing to argue about whether you need that scene or whether it can be a bit shorter. It’s another to say, ‘Let’s tell a different story’. And at that point I said, ‘Whoa, it’s time to go to war’.

“The studio’s mentality is that Americans are stupid. They try to lower the standard as much as they can to reach what they think is this great dumb audience. And I have always resisted that and wanted to believe in the audience’s intelligence. But if you keep feeding people baby food for long enough they begin to like it.”

Gilliam now functions almost entirely outside of the Hollywood structure. His films are financed in Europe and Canada; he is permanently based in the UK and until recently held joint British and American citizenship. In 2006, as a protest against the Bush Administration, Gilliam renounced his American citizenship. In return, the British have adopted him as one of our own, celebrating his life’s achievements earlier this year with a special Bafta tribute. Gilliam was moved by the award. “It was a genuine honour. I make jokes about it but it did really mean something.”

He does, however, take issue with the selection of movie clips that Bafta used to celebrate his work, particularly the absence of Tideland. “It was a terrible selection of clips. I was so depressed! I thought, ‘That’s 25, 30 years of my work up there and that’s what you’re showing. Another clip from Holy Grail. Oh great.’ ” .

Next up for the seemingly fearless Gilliam is another attempt to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Gilliam says he hopes that Johnny Depp will star, but he won’t wait around for ever for the actor to find a gap in his schedule. As our conversation draws to a close, fat, feathery snowflakes start falling past the attic window. Gilliam beams with delight. Still, after everything, he sees magic everywhere.

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