Dark Knights and Holy Fools

percussion and guitar

“Every Terry Gilliam film creates its own unique world, fuelled by obsession and fantasy, yet realized with meticulous craftsmanship and dark humour. The musical cameos that make up Dark Knights and Holy Fools attempt to portray Gilliam’s scenes and characters.

The opening movement, for percussion alone, recalls the scene in Time Bandits where King Agamemnon fights (and eventually kills) the Minotaur. Tideland is the extraordinary story of 
a young girl called Jeliza-Rose who escapes the unpleasant reality of her life through elaborate daydreams. In The Voyages of Jeliza-Rose her imagination transforms the Saskatchewan plains into an undersea adventure world.

Gilliam described his film Brazil as “Frank Capra meets Franz Kafka”. The music here suggests the zany futuristic dystopia where the film is set. The fourth movement, a habanera, depicts the vigil of arms that Cervantes’s Don Quixote performs before he is “knighted” by an innkeeper. The scene is from Gilliam’s uncompleted film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

The Great Red Shark is the red convertible that Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo drive throughout the first part of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The individual sections of this final movement are based on chords taken from some of the songs used on the soundtrack – Jumpin’ Jack Flash, My Favorite Things and White Rabbit.”