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The imaginarium of Dr Parnassus

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Just came back from a screening of this film with a Q&A with Terry Gilliam. Much like everyone there, Ive been waiting since I was 10 to speak to this great master.

This was Heath Ledgers final film. He had rewritten the script halfway through Ledgers death to adapt the roles of new actors playing his character (Depp, Farell, Law). The premise is quite simple but twisted and filled with nuanced adlibbed dialogue by Heath and Tom Waits. It was a visual and story telling adventure.. Highly recommended.

A couple of interesting things Terry had to say which came as a surprise, and that I hope brings hope to some of the Indy filmmakers here, is that he can never ever seem to find financing for any of his films. He described an experience of walking into every Studio, with the executives telling him how much his films shaped their youth, them rattling off a list of films they love only to tell him that they just cant take a risk on his next film. Even with Heath Ledger assigned to the script, (just shortly after he played the Joker) the studio's still wouldnt touch it. He pretty much had to look to Europe and Canada where he said the industry still believes in artistically merited films... And he managed to scrape the money from both countries. His words were "film-making is not a god given right.. you have to fight for it" or to some effect. So even the great Terry Gilliam doesnt get greenlit any easier than most filmmakers, battling for their innovative scripts and stories!

Anyway, Im sure most will see the film.

http://www.doctorparnassus.com/
 
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Gilliam seems to have bad luck when it comes to actors dying during production. See Lost in La Mancha it is a great movie in itself and offers a close up view of how everything can go wrong.
 
Gilliam seems to have bad luck when it comes to actors dying during production. See Lost in La Mancha it is a great movie in itself and offers a close up view of how everything can go wrong.

Yeah funny that, he mentioned that these incidents often force him to take creative routes he never wouldve thought of... He actually said that Heath was co-directing it from the grave by making him change the script and turning it into something even more brilliant!

I think good filmmakers are simply the ones who are most adaptive..
 
Saw this film yesterday, great fun, stunning imagery. Gilliam goes all out.
 
I saw the film a few weeks back. And I loved it. The magic was broken by SOME dodgy dialogue at a few points, if not for that it would have been a masterpiece.
 
I think by now Terry Gilliam might actually have a harder time getting funding than one of us. He's somehow managed to develop a reputation as someone who isn't just risky but actually a sure bet to fail. Which is a real shame since (excluding Brother Grimm) everything he makes seems to be golden.
 
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