Dept. of the Good Fight

Terry Gilliam just directed an Arcade Fire webcast. He doesn't sound at all like someone who has been beaten down by the system, does he? (ArtsBeat)

Q.I hope this doesn’t affect your process Thursday night, when you’re frantically choosing from among all your camera options.

A.Maybe I’ll just be sleeping. I want the entire community of the people watching it making the choices. Can we do that? Can they be tweeting in what cameras they’d like to be watching? Then we could have some sort of machinery that collates all the votes, and it could work by that. The Web is about community, not about hierarchy and fascistic directors and things like that. I’m just a beginner in this world. I’m a complete novice. I hate the Web, to be honest about it.

Q.So how did this all come about, then?

A.You mean [laughs] how the finger of God pointed down at me and said, ‘You are the chosen one’? ‘Help these young people out, save their careers,’ that sort of thing? Well, it was as long ago as two weeks ago when my agent was approached, saying they were doing a show at Madison Square Garden. They wondered if I could get involved with no time at all, which means there’s very little I can do. It’s all their work — I’m just trying to make sure that it gets somehow seen on the Web accurately. I’m not a director — let’s put it that way — in this instance. I’m just a follower. [Laughs.]