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Terry Gilliam’s Movie Magic
The film that got made despite it all
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I will see any movie featuring Tom Waits, and luckily most of them are good. From Rumble Fish to Down By Law, Waits performs for film as enchantingly as he performs his live music. So Tom Waits’ performance is the first reason to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The second reason is the work of two people: Terry Gilliam as the director and Charles McKeown as the writer, making a movie together for the first time since the immaculately imaginative Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Gilliam is infamous for the unmatched uniqueness of Munchausen and also Brazil. McKeown wrote for both of these seminal films. The third reason is the caliber of actors that the film attracted.
Heath Ledger, the movie’s star, decided to make the Imaginarium after his innovative performance as the conscienceless Joker in The Dark Knight. However, the future of the film came into question when he suddenly died at the age of 29. Imaginarium was about a third of the way through filming, with substantial financial backing from Ledger, and Gilliam declared the project impossible to complete.
Gilliam had an inspired idea for how to finish the film without Ledger’s considerable talent and presence: imagine Ledger’s character, Tony, changes faces as he moves from one realm to another. The Gilliam found friends of his and the beloved deceased willing to take on part of the role of Tony. Those friends happen to be wildly talented and popular: Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp.
But when magic is afoot, so is opposition. After Ledger died, the movie’s producer William Vince died at age 44 from cancer. Then, Gilliam himself was hit by a van and broke his back. Still, the movie was made. Maybe it wasn’t magic but determination that finished the thing, but I like to think movies are made with a little magic. Don’t we all?
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus opens December 25th.