Terry Gilliam has claimed that the re-election of President Trump has “destroyed” satire, and inadvertently derailed his new movie The Carnival at the End of Days.
The former Monty Python animator, 84, became an acclaimed director of films including 1985’s Brazil, 1995’s 12 Monkeys and 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Gilliam argued that the return of Trump has significantly affected the state of humor by challenging “woke” ideals.
“I think Trump has changed things considerably,” he said. “He’s turned the world upside down. I don’t know if people are going to be laughing more, but they’re probably less frightened to laugh.
“There have been woke activists with a very narrow, self-righteous point of view. That’s frightened so many people, and so many people have been very timid about telling jokes, making fun of things, because if you tell a joke, these people say you’re punching down at somebody. No, you’re finding humor in humanity!
“So, irony, satire were basically dead. And humor, to me, is probably one of the most essential things in life. You’ve got six senses, and the seventh sense is humor, and if you don’t have that, life is going to be miserable.”
Gilliam went on to claim that his next project, a star-studded comedy about the apocalypse called The Carnival at the End of Days, no longer works in the new climate.
“[Trump has] f***ed up the latest film I was working on,” said the director. “Because it was a satire about the last several years when things were going as they were. He’s turned it upside down. So he’s killed my movie.
“I had a sub-title that said: ‘Great fun for all of those who enjoy taking offense.’ That was how I approached it. I think Trump has destroyed satire. I mean, how can you be satirical about what’s going on in the way he’s doing the world?
“With Carnival, the other day I was thinking I was going to put a little preamble on it saying that what you’re about to see takes place during the period historians refer to as the Trump lost years from 2020 to 2024.
“I think I’ve got to rewrite a lot of it. I’m still trying to decide how to approach that.”
Gilliam teased that the film had many of his former collaborators attached to return as stars, saying: “If we ever make it, Jeff Bridges is the voice of God. Johnny Depp is playing Satan. So the cast is rather good. Adam Driver, Jason Momoa, Asa Butterfield, Emma Laird and Tom Waits. You’d think everybody would be rushing forward to give me all the money I need. It’s not as easy as that.”
Back in 2020, when he released his last film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Gilliam told The Independent that he was “tired, as a white male, of being blamed for everything that is wrong with the world.”
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