Paul Risker continues his Terry Gilliam Retrospective...
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American director John Huston once remarked, “The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on and one day you die. That is all there is to it.”
As strange as it may sound, this to all intents and purpose could be considered a nice way to consider Gilliam’s career to date. Not necessarily the idea of loneliness, though it is not difficult to imagine this maverick director having felt such a burden, but rather Huston’s phrasing of taking “a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on.”
That said, this expression would not apply exclusively to these two filmmakers, but rather every filmmaker past, present and future.
The career of Terry Gilliam with all its drama exemplifies the collaborative nature of filmmaking, and despite his initial refusal to work with stars, his collaborations with Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon and Heath Ledger proved to be productive, even lucrative ones. Ledger’s involvement in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus enabled Gilliam and his producers to secure the film's $30 million budget.
Gilliam’s career though not only exemplifies the collaborative nature of filmmaking through his work with stars, but also through the support afforded him at various points in his career by producers Charles Roven and Debra Hill - in spite of the reputation that haunts Gilliam to this day.
Parnassus, an indie picture at heart, epitomizes the significant budgetary requirements of Gilliam’s imagination, made even more challenging to secure by his departure from the studio’s following The Brothers Grimm. Luckily for Gilliam, the collaboration with Ledger, as well as the belief and confidence in investing in stars that film financiers continue to adhere to, and which Gilliam still perceives as one part of a ticking clock, enabled Parnassus to become a reality.
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Intriguingly it was not since Brazil in 1985 that a pure incarnation born of the imagination of Terry Gilliam – in as far as co-writing with Charles McKeown does not undermine this assertion – had appeared on the silver screen.
In a span of twenty four years Gilliam had adapted novels for the screen as well as working as a director for hire, even re-writing scripts before stepping onto set as director. So for the first time in twenty four years, Gilliam along with McKeown wrote an original screenplay. With many of Gilliam’s scripts lost in the wasteland better known as development hell, it is possible to surmise that films fresh from the mind of one of the most imaginative directors working in film left Gilliam out of work and explain his spells of inactivity. Perhaps Parnassus should therefore be viewed as a miracle.
Following in the footsteps of Tideland, Gilliam once again delves into the theme of imagination, this time exploring the importance of imagination in storytelling, through Parnassus’ devotion which incorporates the story of Faust. Just two short years later Gilliam would stage a production of Faust for English National Opera, merging film with live staged performance.
Tom Waits’ The Devil and Parnassus’ belief in the importance of imagination and storytelling perhaps are a subtle parody pertaining to Gilliam’s experience of filmmaking; the executive meddling, the emphasis on stars for a film’s success over the sums of its parts, the habitual behaviour to take a film out of the storytellers hands that Gilliam experienced and was forced to fight to his possible detriment.
Interviewed by Phil Stubbs, co-writer Charles McKeown surmised how Gilliam “Certainly had the idea of the travelling theatre, and the central character of Doctor Parnassus as a man who is a bit lost and out of his time, and is out of gear with his audience. They don't want to listen to his stories that he tells anymore.”
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This core idea at the heart of the story depicts Parnassus as an extension of Gilliam, who throughout his career has fought to bring his films to the audience true to his intentions as a storyteller. This commitment saw Gilliam clash with Sid Sheinberg along the way to keep intact his vision for what is now considered by many to be his Magnum opus: Brazil. Gilliam would even find himself clashing with Bob and Harvey Weinstein over creative differences on The Brothers Grimm.
If indeed his original ideas were lost in development hell, then Parnassus is the fantastical version of Gilliam, escaping reality, with Depp, Farrell and Law mirroring Gilliam’s career as the fantastical incarnations of Tony.
Alongside the development hell, Gilliam faced adversity once again with Parnassus, but his resilience saved it from the graveyard. Following Ledger’s tragic death, he would go onto complete the film with the help of Depp, Law and Farrell, all close friends of Ledger’s.
Ironically in so doing, Gilliam paints a picture of the importance of imagination, representing the fantastical as a new world where one can shed one’s previous identity or simply escape the decaying or claustrophobic hell of reality. As such this contextualises Parnassus as a fitting companion piece to Tideland, the two films sitting as a fitting double-bill to conclude his career to date.
Gilliam is pure cinema, lost within a vortex of imagination and madness. Despite his reputation, the choice of the Weinsteins to work with Gilliam - two men who are so desperate to be filmmakers - is a testament to Gilliam’s identity as a pure, uncorrupted filmmaker. He creates cinematic worlds that for some may be indulgent, but for the rest of us represent imaginative worlds which we can lose ourselves in; some light, some dark, but never mundane. Gilliam is pure cinema!
Paul Risker is co-editor in chief of Wages of Film, freelance writer and contributor to Flickering Myth and Scream The Horror Magazine.
As strange as it may sound, this to all intents and purpose could be considered a nice way to consider Gilliam’s career to date. Not necessarily the idea of loneliness, though it is not difficult to imagine this maverick director having felt such a burden, but rather Huston’s phrasing of taking “a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on.”
That said, this expression would not apply exclusively to these two filmmakers, but rather every filmmaker past, present and future.
The career of Terry Gilliam with all its drama exemplifies the collaborative nature of filmmaking, and despite his initial refusal to work with stars, his collaborations with Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon and Heath Ledger proved to be productive, even lucrative ones. Ledger’s involvement in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus enabled Gilliam and his producers to secure the film's $30 million budget.
Gilliam’s career though not only exemplifies the collaborative nature of filmmaking through his work with stars, but also through the support afforded him at various points in his career by producers Charles Roven and Debra Hill - in spite of the reputation that haunts Gilliam to this day.
Parnassus, an indie picture at heart, epitomizes the significant budgetary requirements of Gilliam’s imagination, made even more challenging to secure by his departure from the studio’s following The Brothers Grimm. Luckily for Gilliam, the collaboration with Ledger, as well as the belief and confidence in investing in stars that film financiers continue to adhere to, and which Gilliam still perceives as one part of a ticking clock, enabled Parnassus to become a reality.
Intriguingly it was not since Brazil in 1985 that a pure incarnation born of the imagination of Terry Gilliam – in as far as co-writing with Charles McKeown does not undermine this assertion – had appeared on the silver screen. In a span of twenty four years Gilliam had adapted novels for the screen as well as working as a director for hire, even re-writing scripts before stepping onto set as director. So for the first time in twenty four years, Gilliam along with McKeown wrote an original screenplay. With many of Gilliam’s scripts lost in the wasteland better known as development hell, it is possible to surmise that films fresh from the mind of one of the most imaginative directors working in film left Gilliam out of work and explain his spells of inactivity. Perhaps Parnassus should therefore be viewed as a miracle.
Following in the footsteps of Tideland, Gilliam once again delves into the theme of imagination, this time exploring the importance of imagination in storytelling, through Parnassus’ devotion which incorporates the story of Faust. Just two short years later Gilliam would stage a production of Faust for English National Opera, merging film with live staged performance.
Tom Waits’ The Devil and Parnassus’ belief in the importance of imagination and storytelling perhaps are a subtle parody pertaining to Gilliam’s experience of filmmaking; the executive meddling, the emphasis on stars for a film’s success over the sums of its parts, the habitual behaviour to take a film out of the storytellers hands that Gilliam experienced and was forced to fight to his possible detriment.
Interviewed by Phil Stubbs, co-writer Charles McKeown surmised how Gilliam “Certainly had the idea of the travelling theatre, and the central character of Doctor Parnassus as a man who is a bit lost and out of his time, and is out of gear with his audience. They don't want to listen to his stories that he tells anymore.”
If indeed his original ideas were lost in development hell, then Parnassus is the fantastical version of Gilliam, escaping reality, with Depp, Farrell and Law mirroring Gilliam’s career as the fantastical incarnations of Tony.
Alongside the development hell, Gilliam faced adversity once again with Parnassus, but his resilience saved it from the graveyard. Following Ledger’s tragic death, he would go onto complete the film with the help of Depp, Law and Farrell, all close friends of Ledger’s.
Ironically in so doing, Gilliam paints a picture of the importance of imagination, representing the fantastical as a new world where one can shed one’s previous identity or simply escape the decaying or claustrophobic hell of reality. As such this contextualises Parnassus as a fitting companion piece to Tideland, the two films sitting as a fitting double-bill to conclude his career to date.
Gilliam is pure cinema, lost within a vortex of imagination and madness. Despite his reputation, the choice of the Weinsteins to work with Gilliam - two men who are so desperate to be filmmakers - is a testament to Gilliam’s identity as a pure, uncorrupted filmmaker. He creates cinematic worlds that for some may be indulgent, but for the rest of us represent imaginative worlds which we can lose ourselves in; some light, some dark, but never mundane. Gilliam is pure cinema!
Paul Risker is co-editor in chief of Wages of Film, freelance writer and contributor to Flickering Myth and Scream The Horror Magazine.