However, not all auteurs are as lucky, and for Gilliam, the towering reign of
Marvel movies at the box office pose an attack on this very kind of creative freedom. "I don't like the fact they're dominating the place so much," he said. "They're taking all the money that should be available for a greater variety of films. Technically, they're brilliant. I can't fault them because the technical skills involved in making them are incredible."
However, he cautioned that Disney and Marvel's seemingly infinite resources could be put to better use. "If you are that powerful, you should be dealing with reality a bit more." He also warned of what he believes to be the central lie peddled by such films, and the cultural threat it poses. "What I don't like is that we all have to be superheroes do anything worthwhile. That's what makes me crazy. That's what these movies are saying to young people. And to me it's not confronting the reality of, you know, the quote-unquote human condition. You know what it is like to be a normal human being in difficult situations and resolving them surviving," he said. "I can't fault them for the sheer spectacle, except it's repetitive. You still have to blow up another city."
"Where's the gravity, where's real gravity? Because [in superhero movies,] everything is possible," Gilliam said of the limitless worlds of the MCU. "It's the limitations that make life interesting. Okay, so your suit burns up. So you get another suit because you're Tony Stark. It's not enough. They dominate so much."
Gilliam also argued that superhero tentpoles are drying out any available resources for mid-budget films. "There isn't room or money for a greater range of films. You make a film for over $150 million or less than $10 [million]. Where's all this other stuff? It doesn't exist anymore," he said. "I make films where I'm trying to make people think. I mean, I try to entertain them enough that they don't fall asleep on me, and they're there to make you think and look at the world in a different way, hopefully, and consider possibilities. Those films don't do that."
Gilliam said he's not a fan of Ryan Coogler's 2018 "Black Panther," which critics heralded as a gust of fresh wind in the superhero canon, and one that welcomed diversity and inclusion to an otherwise airtight, white-dominated universe of films. Earning more than $1.3 billion worldwide, "Black Panther" penetrated the cultural consciousness in a way few superhero films ever had, but Gilliam isn't buying it.
"I hated 'Black Panther.' It makes me crazy. It gives young black kids the idea that this is something to believe in. Bullshit. It's utter bullshit. I think the people who made it have never been to Africa," he said. "They went and got some stylist for some African pattern fabrics and things. But I just I hated that movie, partly because the media were going on about the importance of bullshit."
When asked if he felt that critical praise for "Black Panther" was a politically correct response that ignored aesthetics in favor of identity politics, Gilliam said, "It makes my blood boil." The conversation pivoted to
controversial remarks he made back in 2018 amid the Harvey Weinstein fallout and the wave of voices that responded to form the #MeToo movement. "We're in the era of the victim. We are all victims. It's all somebody else, abusing us, taking advantage of us. We are powerless, except except that we go out and do other things," he said.
Gilliam, however, stopped himself there. "I'm just very frustrated of the world we're living in," he said. "I do things to prod people, to make them think or make them laugh. And I always get myself in trouble."
