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To discuss Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” one must contemplate whether more attention should be paid to Gilliam’s storytelling or the fact that this is the final performance of the late Heath Ledger. Because both elements are top-notch, a sense of guilt or inequality should not exist, and therefore both factors can be given nearly equal attention. This is a fascinatingly imaginative film, and Gilliam’s production and Ledger’s performance are what help make this film wonderful.
Christopher Plummer, an actor who has continually been granted better and better roles as he ages, plays the title character, a former monk-turned-magic man who made a deal with the Devil. The Devil (terrifically played by Tom Waits), of course tricks him, and Doctor Parnassus, who wins immortality, must surrender his child (Lily Cole) to the Devil on her sixteenth birthday. Facing financial uncertainty with his traveling imaginarium along with his daughter and two other characters (Verne Troyer and Andrew Garfield—Garfield’s character is in love with Cole’s), Parnassus is running out of time. The team stumbles upon a man who from the lightening appears to be dancing on water, until it is revealed that he is in fact hanging. They rescue this man (Ledger), and he tells them that he cannot recall his name or past, though the audience discovers that this is not entirely the case. Still, Tony, as it is revealed he is called, is inspired to help Parnassus and company revive the show for a contemporary audience. Inside this imaginarium, a bizarre world of the traveler’s imagination exists, where he or she must choose between Parnassus or the Devil. But another bet is made between the two: first to five souls wins, and if Parnassus is the victor, then he shall forever be at peace with his daughter. This probably gets lost in confusion and details, for many things are hastily explained, including a twist near the climax of the film that is hurriedly revealed by a character.
It was very much a bittersweet experience to view “The Dark Knight” last year, as Heath Ledger, the Marlon Brando and James Dean of our time, is no longer with us. It was comforting, though, to know that there would be one final performance, which is excellent and worth the wait, and one final film, thanks to Gilliam’s imagination and the assistance of three great actors. Ledger apparently improvised about half of his dialogue, and despite the details of his insomnia during the filming and despite the fact that there are still rumors around that portraying the Joker terrorized him to his death, Ledger is remarkably vigorous in this film. Many moments are Gilliam at his finest, like the arbitrary Russian dance of violence and brute (alas, the Russians are out-seduced by a large Russian woman). This is also a bit of a dark film, though not as dark as “Time Bandits,” but it ends humbly and sweetly with the end titles “A film from Heath Ledger and friends,” and the film is dedicated to Ledger and William Vince, one of the producers who also died during the production from cancer.
There are two very terrific interviews with Gilliam that help put the experience of this film in perspective. One is with Michael Mechanic of Mother Jones, who draws a connection between Parnassus and his inability to have his stories be appreciated by others (the studio executives) and Gilliam. Gilliam, in his usual boyish humor, simply shrugs of the situation, but Mechanic is right. Gilliam will forever be known not only for his wonderful visuals and remarkable stories but for his tumultuous relationships with the Hollywood system (though he noted in the interview with Mother Jones that his Hollywood films were the ones which went off without a hitch). The second interview is with Charles McGrath of the New York Times, in which Gilliam tells of his struggles. His pains, called “Job-like” by McGrath, were well-documented in his ill-fated attempt to bring “Don Quixote” to the screen with Johnny Depp; the disaster was turned into an award-winning documentary “Lost in La Mancha.” But these Quixote problems for this quixotic director were minimal compared to the story of “Parnassus,” when in January of 2008 the world learned that one of the most talented actors had died of an accidental drug overdose from sleeping pills. “They just keep kicking me as I lay there on the ground,” he said in the interview. “But to me this really felt final. I thought, ‘The movie gods really don’t want me to continue.’ They were saying, ‘Stop, before you kill again.’” Convinced that he must end the production, he was provided faith from his daughter Amy Gilliam, a producer of the film, and his friend Depp to continue. The idea to change the script to allow for three actors—Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell to play different incarnations of Tony in the fantastical imaginarium—was Depp’s, who could only film his scenes when he had a break from Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies,” and the three stars contributed their salary to the daughter of Health Ledger.
I was most struck by Tony’s first transformation, in which Tony is played by Johnny Depp. To convince a nervous wealthy woman to make the right choice and not the Devil’s, he reassures her: “To be reborn, first you must die. All of them have achieved a kind of immortality. And we love them all the more for it. They won’t get old or fat. They won’t get sick or feeble. They are beyond fear. They are forever young. They are gods. And you can join them.” It is not certain if this dialogue was written before or after Ledger’s death, but ultimately Health Ledger was one of the few perfect, or nearly perfect, actors the cinema has been witness to. “Nothing is permanent, not even death.” Ledger has died, yes, but, as the cinema has and will continue to do, performers like Ledger are immortalized. They are beyond fear, and they become gods. Terry Gilliam has struggled with the film gods, but they now smile on him, and hopefully, with Heath Ledger among them, will continue to do so.
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