Who Plays Who?

Christopher Plummer Lily Cole Verne Troyer Tom Waits Andrew Garfield Heath Ledger Johnny Depp Jude Law Colin Farrell Paloma Faith Carrie Genzel Michael Eklund Brad Dryborough Ryan Grantham Johnny Harris Igor Ingelsman Simon Day Richard Riddell

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Dr Parnassus Valentina Percy Mr Nick Anton Tony Tony (1st transformation) Tony (2nd transformation) Tony (3rd transformation) Sally Journalist Tony's Aid Repulsed Diner Little Anton Policeman Igor Ingelsman ... Gregor Inspector Martin

What Do The Critics Say

"Yes, this is the one that Heath Ledger was partway through filming when he died last year. And yes, it is the one where his three Hollywood friends stand in for him. This storyline, however, is merely the vehicle for writer-director Terry Gilliam to let his imagination run wild and for Heath Ledger to strut his stuff. Both are top notch. Gilliam, best known as one piece of the Monty Python puzzle, has created a true oddity of a film, with strange real-world scenarios and trippy dream-like sequences. The main drawcard, of course, is Ledger and the fact this was his last role. As expected, his performance is full of energy and truly captivating. 3 STARS." Colin Newton SUNDAY MAIL "The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus is based on an original script written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown (their previous collaborations were Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen). In many ways, it's a typical Gilliam film. From the style; the use of wide-angle lenses that almost distort, the hallucinatory imagery, to the very Gilliam theme that there's redemption to be found in imagination and dreaming. It's a wonderful trip through what feels like a kind of ordered clutter: apt because the film is about people who enter a forest of good intentions and get lost, barely making it out alive." Jason Di Rosso ABC NATIONAL "Restricted by a relatively low budget, he never comes close to the visual extravagance of his masterpiece, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1989). The backdrops in the fantasy sequences are sketched in crude digital strokes, recalling the low-tech animated segments he created at the start of his career for "Monty Python's Flying Circus". Throughout, the tone is as unstable as the imagery, with the romantic grandeur of the Faust legend undercut by bits of angry satire aimed at political chicanery or TV advertising. Doctor Parnassus is sometimes exhilarating, sometimes merely deranged: but since excess and fragmentation are Gilliam's trademarks, his virtues are impossible to separate from his vices." Jake Wilson THE AGE

"Breathtaking fantasy sequences and outstanding production design can't compensate for a puzzling story (by London-based American Gilliam and his regular co-writer, Charles McKeown) that had to be re-written following the death of Heath Ledger. There are elements of earlier Gilliam features, particularly Time Bandits and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, carried over into this elaborate mix of fantasy and reality deliciously photographed by another Gilliam regular, Italian Nicola Pecorini. There are many fascinating sequences, and the performances, including Austin Powers star Verne Troyer in a substantial role as Percy, are all captivating. 3 1/2 STARS." Des Partridge BRISBANE COURIER MAIL "It may well be true that the tragic death of Perth boy Heath Ledger has provided this visually exquisite but messy morality tale with more notoriety and attention than it would otherwise garner. As the title suggests, this offbeat flick has a challenging and unusual narrative, and in true Gilliam style (The Fisher King, Time Bandits, The Brothers Grimm) is awash with surreal medieval fantasy sequences. The ex-Monty Python alumnus skilfully covers the departure mid-shoot of his leading man by enlisting a stellar trio of thesps (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell) to play separate versions of Ledger’s character. Those willing to ignore these indulgences are guaranteed to be swept away by the sublime visuals, energetic performances and Gilliam’s own incredibly unbridled imagination. 3 1/2 STARS." Gavin Bond PERTH NOW "The vacuum at the heart of Parnassus is a sense of urgency. It rolls along, a ragged stately galleon, ornate, intriguing, but lacking a driving force. Ledger's death may have taken the wind out of the production's sails, entirely understandably, but that doesn't explain the at times drifting quality of the narrative prior to that particular tragedy. A eulogy, a polemic, an intriguing mess: Dr Parnassus is ultimately more worth your time than many a polished creation, and it's a must for Terry Gilliam completists, but this time out he delivers a feast for the eyes more than he satisfies intellectually. Parnassus is a film that never lacks sincerity. Unfortunately, artistic integrity alone too easily flounders. 3 STARS." Catherine Bray CHANNEL 4 FILM

The Inside Story The announcement of a new Terry Gilliam film tends to evoke a lively mixture of excitement, curiosity and not to mention, a little apprehension. The visionary director has the reputation of a singularly creative maverick, but his creations passage to the screen has not always been easy. The tragic loss of Heath Ledger during the production of "The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnussus, threatened closedown, but Gilliam fought to reconfigure the story without losing the fine performance which his star had already committed to film. The director, his ensemble cast and his crew worked tirelessly together to complete the journey which had begun in the fervid, boundless imagination of Gilliam ("Brazil") and his co-writer 1985 LAFCA Award winner Charles McKeown less than eighteen months before. "Since the format of the story allows for the preservation of his entire performance, at no point will Heath’s work be modified or altered through the use of digital technology," the producers reassured the media and public. "Each of the parts played by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law is representative of the many aspects of the character that Heath was playing." Gilliam says he is "grateful to Johnny, Colin and Jude for coming on board and to everyone else who has made it possible for us to finish the film, and I am delighted that Heath’s brilliant performance can be shared with the world." In the modern-day fantasy adventure, Dr Parnassus has the extraordinary gift of inspiring the imaginations of others. Helped by his travelling theatre troupe, including his sarcastic and cynical sidekick Percy and versatile young player Anton, Parnassus offers audience members the chance to transcend mundane reality by passing through a magical mirror into a fantastic universe of limitless imagination. In November 2006, Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown started on the script, the third of their written collaborations, following "Brazil" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen". Gilliam had decided to write something original again, after a number of projects based on finished scripts or adapted from books. "It was nice to see whether we could still do it ourselves from scratch," the 1970 BAFTA Special Award winner ("Monty Python's Flying Circus") explained. He set himself to exploring his store of unused materials: various ideas, some from unmade films, which had been lying around in a drawer; and started dragging them all out to see what could be used. He wanted to explore the idea of a troupe of travelling theatre people, based in modern-day London, who entered into a variety of exotic and fantastical worlds. Gilliam also devised the central character of a man who is a bit lost, out of his time, and out of gear with his audience, who don’t want to listen to the stories that he tells any more, while it was McKeown who came up with the name Parnassus. "It’s his adventure, really, I suppose. It wasn’t absolutely fixed, but that was fairly clear in Terry’s mind. I think the idea of Dr Parnassus as a semi-Eastern medicine man just evolved. I don’t think he started quite like that." The next stage involved them sitting down and throwing ideas around, although as Gilliam admits, there was no real plan to it. The two writers worked on computers, e-mailing back and forth. "Then we’d have another sit down," says Gilliam. "We’d go through it and, little by little, something was worked out. We talked for a couple of weeks around the subject, very broadly," says McKeown. "We spent a day talking about the whole range of subjects and then, finally, we started talking about the thing itself and how it related to current events. It was a mixture of a whole medley of stuff for a couple of weeks and then we started to write a treatment." In fact it was McKeown who would insist, Gilliam wrote the treatment. Why? "Because he had a better grip of what it was he wanted than I did at that stage. I didn’t really quite get it at that point, I don’t think," McKeown explained. "Although it was fun and I could see the story, I thought that Terry had a clearer view. Then I started writing scenes and dialogue and characters and settings and so on, clarifying it a bit. I would send him by e-mail six or seven pages, and he would work on that. He’d change it and embellish it and take what he wanted and add what he wanted, and so on. Meanwhile, I’d send him another lot of pages and he would send that back and show me what he’d done." According to Gilliam, "it was like a tennis match, throwing things back and forth, and slowly things kept developing. You have ideas, you start plugging them in: and out of it comes a tale." "I don’t think what we ended up with was what we started out with, in every respect," McKeown, who was cast as Harvey Lime in "Brazil" admitted . "Maybe Doctor Parnassus is fairly close to how he started, but the other characters changed a bit as we went along. Certainly, the character of Valentina, Parnassus’s daughter, changed a lot and the other characters shifted too, when they weren’t quite working as well as they might do. We break the rules really. You are supposed to focus on a central character. That’s one of the recipes for success, to have a central character with whom the audience can identify. But this is a group piece and although it’s called Doctor Parnassus, and he’s very much the centre of it, and everything goes on around him, nevertheless, you are caught up in everybody else’s story as well." In the film, the theme of imagination is always central: the importance of imagination to how you live and how you think and so on; and that’s very much a Terry Gilliam theme. "For some time, he’s taken other scripts and books and made them his own," notes McKeown, "in the sense that they are identifiably Terry Gilliam movies. But I think this goes further than what he’s done more recently. He’s had more of an input, this is more his thing. This is more a Terry Gilliam film than there has been for some time. Terry always throws himself into what he does with such tremendous energy and vigour, that it has to be worth his while. It has to be worth knocking himself out for, and I think "Brazil" was like that, and to some extent 'Munchausen'. It has this visceral quality, and Terry doesn’t hold back when he commits himself. This is something to which he has committed himself one hundred and twenty percent, and it has all the possibilities of delivering more of him than the other work he has been doing recently." "I’m not sure whose autobiography it is," Gilliam ("The Brothers Grimm") confessed. "I mean, I thought it was vaguely related to mine, but I’m not sure any more! It’s about the struggle of creative people: artists. They try to inspire others, encourage them to open their eyes, to appreciate the truth of the world, but most are not successful: that’s the reality." "I did storyboards for the first time in a long time on this one," Gilliam gleefully recalled. "That’s why I was enjoying it. It was like going back to my earlier films on which I storyboarded everything myself. That’s really an exciting part of the process as you write a script: sitting down and starting to draw pictures. It’s transformed. It becomes a different thing. I don’t read the script again, we rewrite it based on what I’ve just drawn and that’s really nice." Amy Gilliam was taking her first steps as a producer, working in Vancouver alongside William Vince, when she heard that her father was writing a new script. Amy had a long-held wish: and it was about to come true. "Having worked in the film industry for twelve years and having made my way up the ladder, one of the biggest wishes of my career was one day to produce a film with my father," she remembers. "When I read his script, it was all those things that I’d been brought up with: imagination and adventure; everything about it is just magical. It’s not a specific story that I’ve known from my childhood, but I think many elements of it are close to my heart and my experiences. Terry was running around trying to raise the finance and I thought to myself 'I want to make this. It would be an amazing thing to achieve.' Bill Vince saw the excitement and energy and passion in me for this project and he was the sort of man who, if he believed in something and in someone, he wanted to make it happen for them." Samuel Hadida ("Good Night, and Good Luck") joined 2006 Leo Award winner Vince ("Capote") and Amy Gillian ("Push") as a producer, having distributed Gilliam’s "The Brothers Grimm" in France. He was already impressed with the script, but was then delighted to be presented with the art book that Terry produced to illustrate his vision: "It helped us to visualise and to get the sense of what he wanted to achieve." "Christopher Plummer was the first one we cast, I think," says Gilliam. "He’s a great actor. He’s theatrical, he’s of a certain age, and he has been a huge star. His daughter Amanda Plummer worked in "The Fisher King" with me and there’s an interesting relationship with him and his real daughter." "I play the devil," says Tom Waits. "I don’t play a devil or somebody who’s kind of evil. I play the devil." "I love playing this character. If I could play him again I would. I like a challenge," says Verne Troyer ("Austin Powers" franchise), who was cast as Percy. Postumous Oscar ® winner Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight") was working in the projection/boardroom of Peerless, when he slipped Gilliam a note. It read: 'Can I play Tony?' Gilliam asked: "Are you serious?" Ledger replied: "Yes, because I want to see this movie." Gilliam recalls he had never seen Andrew Garfield ("Lions for Lambs"), but he sent an audition tape that he and his girlfriend had made in Los Angeles. He played each scene three different ways and I thought ‘the guy’s absolutely, stunningly brilliant’. Within a week I got a call from Heath." Ledger asked: "have you cast a guy named Andrew?" Gillian told him, he had. "You won’t believe it," Ledger said. "I’m on my way to his birthday party." "Terry’s very, very honest. He doesn’t bullshit you into thinking that he knows any better than you do," Garfield notes. Principal photography started at the beginning of December 2007 in London, UK, where Gilliam shot using some of the city’s familiar landmarks. The wagon, driven by Verne Troyer’s Percy, became a familiar if mindboggling sight for the City of London’s merry pre-Christmas revellers as it clattered through the night time streets. The wintry night shoots featured the Tower Bridge; the imposing shadow of Southwark Cathedral; the glorious Victorian confines of Leadenhall Market; Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames, and the crumbling magnificence of Battersea Power Station, the largest brick-built structure in Europe. On completion, the team then moved to Bridge Studios near Vancouver, Canada for seven weeks of blue-screen photography, creating the epic grandeur of the Imaginarium in some striking locations, including the art deco theatre, The Orpheum. The elaborate visual effects, were brought to life by Peerless Camera Company, the London-based optical house which worked with the director on all his films and which delivered cutting-edge visuals to recent successes such as "United 93" and "Casino Royale". Synopsis

Blessed with the extraordinary gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Doctor Parnassus is cursed with a dark secret. An inveterate gambler, two thousand years ago he made a bet with the devil, Mr Nick, in which he won immortality. Centuries later, on meeting his one true love, Dr. Parnassus made another deal with the devil, trading his immortality for youth, on the condition that when his daughter reached her sixteenth birthday, she would become the property of Mr Nick. Now, Valentina is about to reach the agreed age and Parnassus is desperate to protect her from her impending fate. Mr Nick arrives to collect the prize, but, keen to make a bet, he agrees to a new the wager. Now her winner will be whoever seduces the first five souls. Enlisting a series of wild, comical and compelling characters in his journey, Dr Parnassus promises his daughter’s hand in marriage to the man that helps him win the wager. Parnassus must now fight to save his daughter and finally undo the mistakes of his past once and for all!

The Verdict "Visually this is a stunning experience, especially those scenes which pertain to the Imaginarium. The big let-down in Gilliam's latest, extravagantly fanciful adventure is the performance of the late, postumous Oscar ® winner, Heath Ledger. He just seems out of sorts in his role of Tony. It's no secret that Ledger asked Gilliam for the role, but in light of his oustanding performance as the 'Joker' in "The Dark Knight", his screentime is perceivabley lack lustre. Gilliam noted, Ledger "was still, in some sense, speeding from playing The Joker, which had liberated him in a way that he had never experienced before." Samuel Hadida, commenting on the performance of the films ensemble cast, stated: "The most important thing is when the actor plays the part, and gives it life." That's the missing ingredient in Ledgers character. Away from Ledger, the ensemble cast and those who stepped in to fill the gap left by Ledger's tragic death: Depp, Law and a wicked Farrell; all deliver performances worthy of praise. "The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassuss" is a fantasy adventure for the mind and on that level it works extremely well. 3 1/2 STARS." The Production Team

Director Written by Producers Original Music Cinematography Film Editor Casting Production Designer Art Direction Set Decoration Costume Design

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Terry Gilliam Terry Gilliam & Charles McKeown Produced by Amy Gilliam/Terry Gilliam Samuel Hadida/William Vince Jeff Danna & Mychael Danna Nicola Pecorini Mick Audsley Irene Lamb & Maureen Webb Anastasia Masaro Dan Hermansen & Denis Schnegg Caroline Smith & Shane Vieau Monique Prudhomme

Run Time 122 minutes Rated PG [AUST] Copyright ©2009 - Hoyts Distribution - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2009 All Rights Reserved The Movie Pages - Protected by Australian & International Copyright. Trademark Laws Apply.