Just Jared has on-set images from the shoot of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. See Heath Ledger hanging by the neck. It isn't a spoiler - it's the character's introduction in an early scene. But as to why he's doing this... that would be a spoiler.
Want to know why anyways? My age-old script review will tell you. Go into the archives for much, much more on this film.
Terry Gilliam's shooting a new film! It must be Christmas or something...
This was worth coming out of semi-retirement for, surely?
The pics, taken by James Hatts, originated at London SE1.
The pre-production art from Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus on Phil Stubb's site has, without explanation, been changed.
Below are both images, next to one another, for you to compare them. The image of the good Dr. - on the right in each - has changed very much, from a standing figure to him faking levitation on a translucent plinth; there's more of the 'modern backdrop' in the first image and our 'proximity' to the stage has been altered; Anton, walking across the top of the stage, is in a different postion and headed a different way in each; the images are of different proportions or aspect ratios; and... that's about it, I think.
Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus starts filming this December.
Phil Stubbs has updated his The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus preview with the film's official logotype - at least, it is at this stage of pre-production. See it below, and click it to make it bigger.
In a truly genius piece of casting, Terry Gilliam has made Christopher Plummer his Dr. Parnassus. As previously reported, Tom Waits is involved - but as Mr. Nick, the devilish villain of the piece.
Phil Stubbs came good on his promise and has published the image below in his new piece on the film. He's also confirmed the Heath Ledger, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield and Vern Troyer casting as covered here as the weeks and months have gone by.
For many, many more details I'll point you towards my previous script review, which gives a good idea of the characters and plot. No doubt Phil Stubbs will be bringing us more as the film progresses, and I'll be doing my best to find out what I can also, in the many long moons until it is expected to be released in early 2009.
Please send me any information - any information at all - you have about this film.
I've received a couple of e-mails from fellow Terry Gilliam lovers, each containing different, but exciting, information about his next film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.
The first included a partial cast list - but a quick check of imdb showed it was already there. As well as Heath Ledger and Tom Waits, who we already knew about, and Lily Cole, that I mentioned last week, there are also roles for Vern Troyer - Mini Me from the Austin Powers films, as well as a waiter in Gilliam's own Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - and Andrew Garfield, who recently graduated from British TV to roles in Boy A, Lions for Lambs and The Other Boleyn Girl. See Garfield at the bottom of this post.
The other e-mail simply told me that the film was now pretty deep into pre-production. Sniffing around, I ended up finding very little on the film - only a brief mention of the film's status by the producer, Samuel Hadida, and a teaser for upcoming news on Phil Stubbs' Gilliam fansite.
Stubbs has promised to feed a link for his piece to AintItCool, so expect to see Parnassus exploding across the web very soon.
And let's hope as hard as we can that being in pre-production actually means production, post-production, release and greatness follow.
It looks like Terry Gilliam is lining up a cast and crew for the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
even while the funding is being chased. I reported a while back that Tom Waits was Gilliam's number one selection for the title role, with Heath Ledger giving the mysterious-romantic lead part. Now, after a bit of chasing and e-mailing, it seems that I can confirm who Gilliam and his producers have attached as the female lead.
It's the model (and since the St. Trinians remake at least, actress) Lily Cole. I don't know if she simply came in and read for Gilliam, or if he saw some footage of her in St. Trinians or if, basically, she's been attached at this stage to attract funding but I'm told that she's been lined up and is getting shipped around as part of the 'package', with Gilliam, the script, Ledger and Waits.
I've no idea what's going on with the money (anybody who does, please drop me a line) but, fingers crossed, things are moving in the right direction and a new Gilliam film is approaching. There's a story about Hugh Grant's involvement in the film that I'm still trying to chase down and when I do find something, anything out, I'll let you know.
In the meantime, here's a couple of Lily Cole pictures so you know who on earth it is they're lining up to kiss on Heath.
In case you hadn't noticed, I'm quite the fan of Terry Gilliam (hence the title of this post). There's a new video interview online in which he discusses Tideland with some Spanish folk, and spills the latest on Dr. Parnassus. Apparently, producers are in Hollywood right now, trying to drum up the dollars and within days, Gilliam will know if he has the greenlight.
Gilliam simply calls them 'his producers' - any idea who they might be?
I dare say Heath Ledger's involvement will make this fundraising initiative somewhat easier. Tom Waits, on the other hand...
According to a Q&A in today's El Pais, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is moving ahead... and he's cast Heath Ledger and Tom Waits.
Exciting? I'd say so. With an exploding cherry on top.
Here's the original question and original answer, in the original Spanish, and unaltered:
Q: Creo que Tideland es una de sus mejores películas. Eso sí me dejó el cuerpo algo revuelto y a la vez que con un extraño sentimiento de ternura. Me gustaría saber qué proyecto cinematográfico se encuentra barajando en este momento, gracias.
A: the imaginarium of the doctor parnassus. Con Heath Ledger y Tom Waits.
So, which character would Ledger be playing? I have the script (previously reviewed) and there's a couple of possibilities.
First up, there's Anton, though he's described as only being 18 or 19 years old. Here's his introduction:
PERCY, a dwarf, dressed as a medieval demon and rigged out as a one-man band plays a fanfare introducing a young man (ANTON, 18-19 years old) who emerges from the back of the stage dressed as Mercury/Hermes, the messenger of the gods, with wings on his helmet and sandals.
The other contender is The Hanged Man, a chap without a name who is soon given the moniker George St. George. This is the part I thought Hugh Grant would be up for - but, of course, I can see Hugh making a decent job of it. In his days as a Gilliam rep player Johnny Depp would most likely have been a shoo in.
Of the two, I can most easily imagine Gilliam shifting Anton's age along a little and giving Ledger that part. He's ideal, really, in all other respects.
And Tom Waits, if you hadn't guessed, would be taking the title role of Dr. Parnassus. Here's his introduction, which follows Anton's directly:
ANTON
Ladies and Gentlemen... Step up! Step up!... I, Mercury, the messenger of the gods, invite you... tonight, for one night only... at this very venue... to enter the mind, the very great mind, of Doctor Parnassus!
PERCY does a roll on the drum as a curtain behind ANTON rises to reveal DOCTOR PARNASSUS dressed in sumptuous oriental robes apparently levitating several feet above the stage. (He’s sitting on a glass plinth). DOCTOR PARNASSUS is seemingly in a trance. A bronze tripod containing burning incense stands beside him.
ANTON (CONT’D)
Doctor Parnassus... as old as time... yes, ladies and gentlemen, more than a thousand years old ... he has the power to empower your mind. A secret learned in the mystic East, deep in the heart of a pharaoh’s tomb. That’s right, the Great Pyramid of Egypt, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Let Doctor Parnassus open your imagination. Let him guide and transport you to worlds and possibilities you never dreamt of... If you dare. Because... Beware... there are dangers. You will have to choose. Will your soul fly?... Or will it be dashed on the rocks of darkness? The choice is yours and yours alone. Transcend the heights on Beauty’s wing.
Good stuff, isn't it? The only questions now are where the money is going to come from and when shooting is going to start.
In a new interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Gilliam covers all of the typical bases from his interviews of late: Spamalot, Tideland, upcoming projects.
Do go read the whole thing, but here are choice excerpts. Firstly, on Tideland:
What's been interesting is I go on the web and look at Rotten Tomatoes and see that 70 to 75 per cent of the critics don't like it. Then you read the public comments and it's just the opposite - 70 to 75 per cent of the public who write in like it. So I'm not sure who's out of touch.
It's totally innocent. What's interesting about it is all the reviews I read that use the word pedophile. I think, 'What are they talking about?' They're not talking about what's there on the screen. They're talking about how they've been brainwashed by the media.
On Depp being The Man Who Killed Don Quixote:
We can't make it without him and we can certainly make it a lot more easily now with him. It's quite extraordinary because at the time, Johnny meant nothing to the studios. Now they'll kill to have him there.
The article, not Gilliam, says:
But first - finance permitting - comes The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, set in a travelling show which has an attraction that allows patrons to go inside a man's mind.
For more on that one - a LOT more - read film ick's exclusive script review.
[EDIT: Josh Tyler at Cinema Blend has this morning seen fit to slate Parnassus, calling it a Being John Malkovich knockoff. How very, very wrong he is. Again]
Don't ask me how, because I'm not entirely sure myself but through a confusing series of clandestine exchanges, film ick have managed to get ahold of Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown's script, The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. I don't even know when the script wound up here, but here it is, in the virtual pile. Keep reading - because you'll want to know all about this one. There will be spoilers ahead, but nothing from the latter parts of the story.
The script opens with a typically Gilliam juxtaposition of the banal and the wondrous, as 'four big horses' pull a 'hulking great wagon' - windowless and apparently driverless - down an urban terrace, then on past a couple snogging in a parked car and into a 'dingy backstreet'. This is where the wagon first astonishes us, opening 'like a dark menacing flower unfolding its petals', transforming into 'an old fashioned and very shabby travelling theatre' - the titular Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus.
We now meet the players of this eccentric show: Percy, the dwarf (yes, of course) ; Anton the clowning, sleight-of-hand expert; the beautiful young Valentina; and her father, Dr Parnassus. Their audience at this first engagement proves to be a rabble of drunks piling out of a nightclub to the rather unexpected sight of the Imaginarium and cast.
While Parnassus meditates atop a glass plinth - to give a cheap, cheesy illusion of levitation - Valentina, Percy and Anton play out a scene and make the audience an offer. As Anton puts it:
Ladies and Gentlemen... Step up! Step up!... I, Mercury, the messenger of the gods, invite you... tonight, for one night only... at this very venue... to enter the mind, the very great mind, of Doctor Parnassus!
And he means that literally. When a young chap called Martin storms the stage in a booze-haze, he swifly finds himself whisked away through a naff-looking prop mirror and into the landscape of Parnassus' imagination.
Martin lustfully chases Valentina through a living forest, but she slips away, back out of the mirror set-piece and onto the stage. Left behind in Parnassus' dreamscape, Martin is lost, confused and vomiting drunkenly. The script goes on:
He falls into a pit. It’s full of spiders. Terrified, he scrambles out only to collide with a giant web. He breaks free and falls into another pit. This one’s bottomless. He continues falling until he reaches... A vast moonlit desert. Nothing. MARTIN crumples to the ground sobbing.
Here he is presented with a fork in the path, a clear choice to be made definitively. On the one hand, Martin might chose to head into a beautiful vista where 'in the distance a light is glowing. It’s the sun, rising above a rocky cactus strewn landscape. The music is beautiful. Ethereal' - or turn instead towards 'a roadside bar/nightclub with flashing neon lights has appeared. It looks like a stage set. Not real'.
Martin choses the nightclub, where he is welcomed by 'a mechanical fairground figure of a jolly smiling man distinguished by a bowler hat and a red waistcoat.' This is Mr. Nick, the devil himself, the villain of the piece. Much more from him later.
Back in the 'real world', the show is disturbed by the arrival of police, so Parnassus and company pack up for the night. The Dr is disappointed in Martin's choice of the nightclub over the serene sunrise, and chastises Anton and Valentina for letting a drunk through the mirror, explaining that "People must be in their right minds when they make a choice."
And so ends our first encounter with the Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. As expected, the various scenes we'll enter through the mirror are imaginative and immersive, like the best, most vivid dreams, and the scenes in the waking world, outside of Parnassus' skull, are genuinely original, idiosyncratic and colourful. Of Gilliam's other works, this compares to Brazil in particular, I suppose, with the non-dream scenes being every bit as inventive and striking as the dream-scenes.
The next night, the travelling theatre unfolds at a fairground and a nine year old boy gets to go beyond the mirror. His final choice is between a violent battle-field rendered like a video game, pumped up with agressive music and offering unlimited ammo; and a mountain pathway made of piano keys on which ballerinas dance and piano teachers offer lessons. He makes his choice rather easily - but I won't reveal which way here, for fear of runing the moment in the movie.
At the show's end, there's more trouble with the police, of course - and then the story takes an important step forward. Mr Nick appears to see Parnassus and we learn that the two of them have an old score to settle. It seems that Parnassus is in debt to the devilish fellow, but the price to pay is far too terrible to contemplate...
Plucking a magical snowglobe out of the air, Parnassus begins to show the story to Valentina, to explain their terrible circumstances to her. The camera pushes into the snowglobe, to show us:
A HOODED RIDER moves slowly through the snowstorm, the horse picking its way carefully across a field of virgin snow. In the distance, on a hill, is a monastery. Dim light comes from a couple of windows. Entering via a window and looking down into the monastery dining hall, we see DOZENS OF MONKS sitting at a long refectory table. They are eating their supper and listening to a young DR. PARNASSUS who is sitting on a dais at the far end of the hall, his eyes closed, in a trance, telling a story. The door to the refectory swings open with a crash.
The MONKS look up. Standing on the thresh-hold is the hooded figure, covered with snow. He throws off his hood. It's MR NICK.
According to the young Parnassus in this flashback, the world is kept turning by storytellers, and should the stories end, everything will be over. Mr Nick doesn't agree of course - calling this a 'weak hypothesis'. A fairly typical argument to be found at the centre of a Gilliam film, I'm sure you'll agree.
A wager was made between Parnassus and Nick, back then. Parnassus would offer a quintessential choice to undecided souls, as we have seen in the Imaginarium, and as the Dr explains:
Whichever of us won ten converts first, would win the bet... My argument was the importance of the story, the power of the imagination... His, the power of material things, the supremacy of stuff... Naturally... I won.
His prize? Eternal life.
We skip forward to the late 20th century, where a tramped-down Parnassus and Percy perform on a street corner. None of the passers by show any interest, unsurprisingly - but this is also when Parnassus first spots his bride-to-be, the unnamed 'beautiful woman'. We're nearing an explanation of his debt to Mr Nick - 'I won my bride. I was in love. But at what price?' - but before he can get any deeper into his confession to Valentina, Parnassus is interrupted.
The wagon has stopped in the middle of Blackfriar's Bridge, during a thunderstorm. Valentina steps out to see why...
Here she finds ANTON pointing excitedly down into the Thames.
ANTON
Incredible! I saw somebody dancing in the air.. under the bridge..
VALENTINA looks doubtfully at PERCY who peers morosely out from under his sou-wester and shakes his head.
ANTON (CONT’D)
It’s true! There was a shadow on the water, when the lightning flashed...
Lightning flashes again. We see what ANTON and VALENTINA see. A shadow, on the water, of someone ‘dancing’, hung by his neck with a rope attached to the underside of the bridge.
One rope-swinging rescue later (think: Time Bandits), the hanged man is onboard the wagon. He appears to have lost his memory, and has no idea why he was hanging there; moreover, he has strange symbols written on his forehead, odd weights in his pockets and a little metal tube in his mouth...
Of course, all of this is explained later, but not here. You'll have to wait until the money men of the world come to their senses and give Gilliam the relatively modest budget this film would require.
I'm wondering, in fact, if Gilliam and McKeown haven't deliberately cut prospective costs as much as possible here. By Gilliam standards, this is essentially a chamber piece. Over half of the scenes take place on the wagon or fold-out stage, and those in the other portion that do take place inside the Doctor's imagination seem designed specifically to work well if shot on a small green screen set - as per Mirrrormask, I would say.
When all is said and done, we essentially have a simple fable that dramatises some of Gilliam's long standing concerns really rather well. Much of it might seem a little familiar, particularly if you have also read the script for Gilliam's long-in-limbo The Defective Detective but this is the better script in many ways, however, if certainly far smaller in scale. The satire here feels less dated, more directly relevant, than in the Defective script I read (it has an excuse: it was written in the mid-90s) and there are more, and better, jokes.
As you probably would expect from how things were going, there's a final scene inside the Imaginarium that runs much longer than the earlier ones and is considerably more complex. It gives us a rather dynamic, far-reaching climax without compromising the modest scale of the rest of the narrative. A few brief bits and pieces, like this final Imaginarium episode, seem like Gilliam's reinvention of Being John Malkovich - but only in relation to the pieces of Malkovich that were rather Gilliam-indebted in the first place.
With Kaufman and Gondry also releasing and working on several high profile reality-vs-fantasy stories, this subgenre is no longer so clearly owned by Gilliam. He has competition now, and in some ways, he may appear to have fallen behind. For example: none of the character writing in Imaginarium matches the calibre of Kaufman's best work - but then again, that may hardly be the point in a fable like this; none of the technique behind the fantasy is as joyously idiosyncratic as Gondry's sticky-back-plastic approach - but that's got little to do with quality and more to do with aestehtic taste.
The bottom line is that this script promises a very good film indeed: a simple, clean story with imagination, eccentricity and wit; with clear opinions and the confidence to argue for them; with some very funny gags, astonishing imagery and brilliantly inventive set-pieces. The key roles seem to be crying out for star players, and it might be easy to imagine some of Gilliam's previous collaborators in the parts.
Robin Williams as Mr Nick, maybe? Jonathan Pryce as Dr Parnassus? Or John Hurt, if we're going older? There must be a short queue of dwarves in line for Percy. The small role of Beautiful Woman could be filled by either Uma Thurman or Monica Bellucci (first choice for and eventual player of The Queen in Brothers Grimm) I'm sure.
Cast just a little against type, Hugh Grant would make a great Hanged Man - which might give you a clue as to how his character develops. I'm not sure about Anton or Valentina, personally - Valentina is 15 years old, so we're probably looking at an unknown, Anton needs to be just a few years older and be quite a strong physical performer. A couple of circus kids, maybe?
There are only a smattering of other parts in the film, at least parts that last more than a few seconds, and virtually none that get more than one scene. This is small stuff for Gilliam, but that is by no means a criticism - Tideland was smaller still.
I'm probably looking at what amounts to a first draft here. I dare say some of the minor issues will be resolved in the next pass. If I had a say, I'd certainly bank roll this one. My only reservation is that Nick and Parnassus' relationship feels a little awkward. I think we need to see them spend more time together, probably during the snowglobe flashback, to root their rather arcane wagers and agreements in something more identifiable and relatable. It makes sense as it is, but that doesn't mean it feels entirely believable on any emotional level.
Gilliam and McKeown are clearly a very good writing team; Gilliam and Grisoni are clearly much, much better. This didn't read like a film as strong as Tideland, Fear and Loathing or maybe even The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, but it did compare very favourably to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Time Bandits or Jabberwocky.
More on The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus later. Much more - particularly if and when the film gets funding.
Terry Gilliam has told Phil Stubbs the name of his newly completed script and it is The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. Not to be confused, of course, with Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium.
Parnassus is the script co-written with Charles McKeown. More soon, hopefully.
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