12 Monkeys (1995)

12 Monkeys is a 1995 science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by the French short film La Jetée (1962), and starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Plummer. The film depicts the world in 2035 as devastated by disease, forcing the human population to live underground. Convict James Cole (Willis) "volunteers" for time travel duty to gather information in exchange for prison release. When he first arrives in the past, Cole is arrested and locked up in a psychiatric hospital, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly (Stowe), a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), the insane son of a world-renowned virologist.

After Universal Studios acquired the rights to remake La Jetée as a full-length film, David and Janet Peoples were hired to write the script. Under Terry Gilliam's direction, Universal granted the filmmakers a $29.5 million budget, and filming lasted from February to May 1995. The film was shot mostly in Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the story was set.

The film was released to critical praise and grossed approximately $168 million worldwide. Brad Pitt was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and won a Golden Globe for his performance. The film also won and was nominated for various categories at the Saturn Awards.

12 Monkeys studies the subjective nature of memories and their effect upon perceptions of reality.

Examples of false memories include:

• Cole's recollection of the airport shooting which is altered each time he has a dream.
• A "mentally divergent" man at the asylum who has false memories.
• Railly telling Cole "I remember you like this" when a barely recognizable Cole and Railly are seen in disguise for the first time.

References to time, time travel and monkeys are scattered throughout the film, including the Woody Woodpecker "Time Tunnel" cartoon playing on the TV in a hotel room, The Marx Brothers movie Monkey Business (1931) on TV in the asylum and the subplots of monkeys (drug testing, news stories and animal rights). The film is also a study of modern civilization's declining efforts to communicate with each other due to the interference of technology.

The genesis of 12 Monkeys came from executive producer Robert Kosberg, who had been a fan of the French short film La Jetée (1962). Kosberg persuaded the film's director, Chris Marker, to let him pitch the project to Universal Pictures, seeing it as a perfect basis for a full-length science fiction film. Universal reluctantly agreed to purchase the remake rights and hired David and Janet Peoples to write the screenplay. Producer Charles Roven chose Terry Gilliam to direct because he believed the filmmaker's style was perfect for 12 Monkeys's nonlinear storyline and time travel subplot. Gilliam had just abandoned a film adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities when he signed to direct 12 Monkeys. The film also represents the second film for which Gilliam did not write or co-write the screenplay. Although he prefers to direct his own scripts, he was captivated by the Peoples' "intriguing and intelligent script. The story is disconcerting. It deals with time, madness and a perception of what the world is or isn't. It is a study of madness and dreams, of death and re-birth, set in a world coming apart."

Universal took longer than expected to green-light 12 Monkeys, although Gilliam had two stars (Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt) and a firm budget of $29.5 million (low for a Hollywood science fiction film). Universal's production of Waterworld (1995) had resulted in various cost overruns. To get 12 Monkeys greenlighted, Gilliam convinced Willis to lower his normal asking price. Because of Universal's strict production incentives and his previous history with the studio on Brazil (1985), Gilliam received the right of final cut privilege. The Writers Guild of America was also skeptical of the "inspired by" credit for La Jetée and Chris Marker.

12 Monkeys is inspired by the French short film La Jetée (1962), notably the story of both protagonists being haunted by the image of their own death. The climaxes for both films also take place in an airport.
Similar to La Jetée, 12 Monkeys also presents Hitchcockian elements and references to Alfred Hitchcock's own Vertigo (1958). Toward the end of the film, Cole and Railly hide in a theater showing a 24 hour Hitchcock marathon and watch a scene of Vertigo. Railly then transforms herself with a blonde wig, as Judy (Kim Novak) transformed herself into blonde Madeleine in Vertigo; James sees her emerge within a red light, as Scottie (James Stewart) saw Judy emerge within a green light.Brief notes of Bernard Herrmann's 1958 film score can also be heard. Railly also wears the same coat Novak wore in the first part of Vertigo. The scene at Muir Woods National Monument, where Judy (posing as Madeleine) looks at the growth rings of a felled redwood and traces back events in her past life, resonates with 12 Monkeys' larger themes. Cole and Railly later have a similar conversation while the same music from Vertigo is repeated. Further on in the film, Cole wakes up in a hospital bed with scientists of the future talking to him in chorus. This is a direct homage to the "Dry Bones" scene in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective.

Gilliam undertook the same filmmaking style from his own Brazil (1985), including the art direction and cinematography (specifically using fresnel lenses). The interrogation room where Cole is being interviewed by the scientists was based on the work of Lebbeus Woods; these scenes were shot at three different power stations (two in Philadelphia and one in Baltimore). Gilliam intended to show Cole being interviewed through a multi-screen interrogation TV set because he felt the machinery evoked a "nightmarish intervention of technology. You try to see the faces on the screens in front of you, but the real faces and voices are down there and you have these tiny voices in your ear. To me that's the world we live in, the way we communicate these days, through technical devices that pretend to be about communication but may not be."

The art department made sure that the 2035 underground world would only use pre-1996 technology as a means to depict the bleak future. To create the majority of visual effects sequences, Gilliam awarded the shots to Peerless Camera, the London-based effects studio he founded in the late-1970s with visual effects supervisor Kent Houston (The Golden Compass, Casino Royale). Additional digital compositing was done by The Mill, while Cinesite worked on film scanning services.