Plot analysis of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

My analysis of the plot:

Many people describe the plot of the Adventures of Baron Munchausen as a mindscrew since at the opening of the movie the unnamed town is being besieged by the Turk, but at the end when the Baron demands that the gates be opened. The enemy is no longer there, in fact due to the decrepit state of the enemy's encampment they appear to have been gone for some time. This has lead some people to speculate that the city official, Horatio Jackson, was fabricating the attacks to maintain control and obedience from the town's people. If you watch carefully for the cues you will see that the most honorable Terry Gilliam is giving us a lesson in the importance of tales of heroes and bravery, magic, and fantasy in our overly cynical and rational age. In the opening the time period is given as:

THE LATE 18TH CENTURY .... THE AGE OF REASON ........... WEDNESDAY

A story of a man who rides cannon balls, flies to the moon, and defies death because he knows who death is and doesn't like him; set in the Age of Reason is definitely a Gilliam joke. You will see reason, common logic, and reality attacked a lot in this film by the Baron and defied by the crazy events that happen around him. But in the opening the movie is set in a world where cold logic and mediocrity is more important than tales of bravery and heroism. The adventures of the Baron are just silly stories acted out by a bunch of bad actors in front of a jeering crowd and we see a brave soldier who destroys six enemy cannons and rescues ten prisoners, executed for being too heroic and extraordinarily brave.

The Baron arrives and announces that only he can end the war because he started it and tells Horatio Jackson, who personifies the coldly rational beaurocrat, that he is happy not to have any grasp of Horatio's version of reality what so ever. The Baron is the Ace, he changes the reality around himself to be what ever he wants, and the other characters don't realize it but they are just participants in his story, that is why only he can end the war. I think this is a great contrast to the play where he is portrayed as just a silly character. I can imagine Mr. Gilliam loving the idea of provoking a legendary figure to appear by acting out his life in a play, to the audiance of the play this is what seems to happen. And being such a Bad Ass Grandpa for whom death, time, age, and reality have no hold he retroactively defeats the Turks attacking the city. I love how in Terry Gilliam movies, stories become reality and the complexity of stories within stories and opposing realities in the same movie, if anything The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is and exploration of this theme.

"Everyone - who had a talent for it - lived happily ever after."

edited 29th Jan '13 1:28:38 PM by nitelyechos

Terry Gilliam has never seemed to be much of a fan of the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason. I love the majority of his work, but I have to admit, I've always kind of been put off by his apparent dislike of rationality.

Obviously it's because he prizes imagination over logic. What's the point in something making sense it doesn't have any creative thought in it?

None at all, but the two concepts aren't mutually exclusive.

The world isn't rational, so why should stories be?

Who said they should?

edited 30th Jan '13 2:21:04 PM by Robbery

The guy who wrote "Methods of Rationality", apparently.

And most of his readership. Including me. Your point is?

Btw, the mind-blowing thing is that Baron Munchausen was a real man:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Münchhausen

edited 31st Jan '13 10:34:06 AM by TamH70

That rationality can easily take something great and either make it completely dull and mundane, or dark and overly complicated.

Neither of which apply to Methods. The original source material for which is far far darker and a far worse reading experience for a lot of people. Including me.

I don't know, making Harry an unlikable know-it-all who rejects that the reality he is in is not what he was brought up to believe and continues to do so even after the gag has worn itself thin, that seems like making it darker.

edited 31st Jan '13 10:37:45 AM by maxwellelvis

Rowling's Harry was locked in a cupboard under the stairs til he was elevenish, beaten and emotionally tortured by people who should have loved him, simply because of fear and hatred of what he was and of whose son he was. That is lighter than Yudkowsky's Harry how exactly?

I never laughed once in seven books reading Rowling's version. I have lost count of the amount of times I giggled aloud reading Methods. As for know-it-all? Nope, no he isn't. Yudkowsky constantly points out that Harry, even though he is clever, isn't god, and constantly pulls the wool over his eyes and the rug from under his feet.

Because the situation was never treated as that bleak and hopeless. Sure, the Dursleys are not the sort of people you would want raising a boy like Harry, but they're never presented as the soulless monsters you seem to perceive them as. Rowling's narration especially kept a humorous tone throughout those sequences. It seems it's more a personal issue with you than with the books.

I had a reasonably polite reply to that but it is well off-topic. I disagree, let's leave it at that.