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The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Ryan Renfro
“Things are difficult as it is without
these emotional people rocking the boat.” This quote
in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
by Horatio Jackson, an elected official of the city and incurable
skeptic concerning the Baron’s fantastical exploits,
demonstrates his bias against emotionalism. In fact the
most prevalent theme in Gilliam’s film, set in the Age of
Reason, can be seen as the conflict between emotion and
fantasy on one hand and science and reason on the other. Gilliam’s
theme of romanticism versus reason manifests itself through the
conflict between the Baron von Muchausen, who represents
ridiculous fantasy and romantic ideals, and Horatio Jackson, the
advocate of reason as seen during the Enlightenment.
Gilliam puts forth an image of the Baron which leads the audience
to associate themselves with him, the protagonist of myths,
legends, and fantasy: one which could only make him the
hero of the film. Throughout the course of the film the
Baron, roughly based on the fabulous exaggerations of a German
general who fought for the Russians against the Turks, performs
such impossible feats as flying to the moon in a hot air balloon
made of ladies nickers, dancing with the goddess Venus, flying
for miles while grasping a cannon ball and being swallowed whole
by a whale Pinocchio-style. The reciting of these tales at
a small theater in the city, which is being attacked by the
Sultan, by the Baron naturally leads the townspeople to laugh at
him and dismiss his stories as “ridiculous fantasy” and
tall tales, much like the stories of the real Baron von
Münchausen. The Baron interrupts a theater company
performing his life as a legend, to which the Baron insists upon
his word as a gentleman that he is very much a real hero. He
asserts that the reality of Jackson and of the townsfolk is
“lies and balderdash, and I am delighted to have no grasp of
it whatsoever!” As a fantasist the Baron hates reason
because it threatens his very existence.
The Baron, played by John Neville, begins the film as an old man
longing to die “because it’s all logic and reason now,
science, progress… no place for three-legged Cyclopes in the
south seas, no place for cucumber trees and oceans of wine, no
place for me!” The Baron as a symbol of legend finds
himself in the Age of Reason, in which no one believes in him.
Death in the form of the Grim Reaper follows him throughout the
film and his only hope is in the character Sally, a young girl
who believes in him and fights off death to save him. It is
her belief in him which keeps him and the fantasies he stands for
alive and creates a bond between the young and the elderly which
the middle-aged are incapable of understanding because of their
scientific, rational worldview.
The Baron’s romanticism is diametrically opposed by his
antitheses, the enlightened Horatio Jackson. Symbolizing
both adulthood and most thinkers of his age, Jackson doubts the
Baron from the start, stating: “He won’t get far
on hot air and fantasy.” When the Baron succeeds in
saving the city from the Turk Jackson assassinates the Baron
during his victory march: thus, the disbelief of adulthood
murders the dreams and fantasies of both old and young. Jackson
is motivated in the murder by his fear of the Baron and of
emotionalism and consequently he becomes one of the emotional
people he so loathes.
Jackson first appears and an elected official, instantly visible
as the bad guy due to his black dress and cynical demeanor, who
sentences the bravest soldier in the city’s militia, who
captured six enemy cannon and ten prisoners, to death because of
his demoralizing effect on the average citizen trying to live an
unexceptional life. Jackson continues throughout the course
of the film to claim to be reasonable while acting irrational and
should therefore be viewed as Gilliam’s commentary on how
reason can be misused. On another occasion while
negotiating with the Sultan, who was at that point winning the
war, he insisted that the Sultan surrender this time because
Jackson surrendered last time and now it was his turn! Although
he may not be as far from the Baron as it may at first seem with
all of his illogical actions, the strong symbolism still shines
through and he remains standing opposite the Baron with respects
to the reason verses emotion debate.
Whether because of
Gilliam’s dazzling special effects, his bizarre humor or
John Neville’s performance as the likable Baron, the
audience leaves with a sense that emotions and dreams do matter
and that, throuhg the character of Horatio Jackson, scientific
reason without them is inhumane. Romanticism triumphs over
reason in Baron Munchausen not because the impossible is a
possibility, but because of the power of belief to make fiction
as important as reality, if not more so.
Works Cited:
Gilliam, Terry. The Adventures of
Baron Munchausen. Columbia Pictures: West
Germany, 1989.