The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus


The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a 2009 fantasy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown. The film follows a travelling theatre troupe whose leader, having made a bet with the Devil, takes audience members through a magical mirror to explore their imaginations and present them with a choice between self-fulfilling enlightenment or gratifying ignorance.
The film stars Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Verne Troyer, Andrew Garfield, Lily Cole, Tom Waits, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, though Ledger's death one-third of the way through filming caused production to be temporarily suspended. Ledger's role was recast with Depp, Law, and Farrell portraying transformations of Ledger's character as he travels through a dream world; the film marks Ledger's final film performance, and was dedicated to him and co-producer William Vince.
The film made its world premiere during the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, out of competition. The film, which cost $30 million to make, grossed more than $60 million in its worldwide theatrical release.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was nominated for two Academy Awards in the categories Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.

Plot

Outside a London pub, an elderly bearded sage named Doctor Parnassus runs a nearly-bankrupt traveling theatre troupe, which includes his teenaged daughter Valentina, a sleight-of-hand expert and barker Anton, and a dwarf assistant Percy. The troupe's main attraction is a portal to a magical "Imaginarium", a surreal dream world that transforms according to its participants' own desires and offers them a choice between difficult self-fulfillment or easy ignorance. After a drunkard is swayed to the latter, Parnassus says he has lost "another one" to Mr. Nick, a suave personification of the Devil, who often appears without warning to taunt Parnassus and gloat over Parnassus's failures. He reminds Parnassus that in three days Valentina turns 16, and her soul will belong to Mr. Nick. Hundreds of years ago, Mr. Nick tricked Parnassus into accepting immortality, after making a wager similar to his current predicament.
As the troupe crosses a bridge, Anton notices someone hanging beneath it. After they rescue the man and revive him, he spits out a golden pipe that allowed him to continue breathing while being hanged; unwilling to explain his past, the man convinces his rescuers that he has amnesia. Parnassus sadly contemplates the impending loss of his daughter, and Mr. Nick visits him, revealing the identity of the rescued man: a disgraced philanthropist named Tony Shepard, who was being hanged by Ukrainian gangsters for owing them money. Mr. Nick also offers Parnassus a new wager: Valentina can stay with Parnassus past the age of 16 if Parnassus can win five souls to the path of self-fulfillment before Mr. Nick can win five souls to the path of ignorance, all within the universe of the Imaginarium.
The newcomer Tony soon joins the troupe as a barker even more charismatic than Anton, who is becoming suspicious. Tony convinces the troupe to remodel the show into a more modern act. While performing, Tony lures a posh, affluent woman into the Imaginarium and follows her, where they enter a pastel-colored dream-world representing the woman's imagination. The woman's imagination also changes Tony's face to one of her likings; Tony dances elegantly with her, and they notice a motel run by Mr. Nick, but Tony convinces the woman instead to take a gondola ride that wins the first soul for Parnassus. Tony falls back out of the Imaginarium, returning his face to normal. The woman exits shortly after and gives the troupe a vast sum of money as thanks for her marvelous experience. When three other women enter, each re-emerges elated; and thus Parnassus has won a total of four souls. However, Mr. Nick easily takes the souls of four Ukrainian gangsters looking to hunt Tony down for his debts. They chase Tony into the Imaginarium and quickly fall into a trap laid by Mr. Nick. Thus, the score is tied: four to four.
With the bet nearing its end, Parnassus reluctantly reveals to Valentina her secret origins: after aging from immortality, Parnassus made a new pact with Mr. Nick to be youthful again, in order to win the heart of a woman he loved. In exchange, any child he fathered would become Mr. Nick's property at age 16. Valentina is horrified at her father's revelation. Meanwhile, having discovered that Tony is a fraudulent charity scammer who stole organs from orphans in developing countries and sold them to wealthy westerners, Anton confronts Tony, but Tony fights him off, pushes Valentina into the Imaginarium, and joins her. Influenced by Valentina's romantic desires, Tony's face changes to that of her dream lover, and they float along a beautiful river in a gondola, fulfilling their shared sexual feelings. A child in rags disrupts their serene boat trip, transitioning the scene to one of Tony as a philanthropist, speaking at a fundraiser for impoverished children. Anton, following the pair into the Imaginarium, appears in the form of an outspoken child and exposes Tony as a fraud. A mob of angry benefactors pursues Tony, and, as the landscape disintegrates, Anton confesses his love for Valentina before falling into a void.
Distraught and angry over her father's bargain and a lifetime of hiding the truth from her, Valentina willingly gives her soul over to Mr. Nick. Disillusioned by the easy victory, Mr. Nick offers Parnassus yet another bargain: to trade Valentina's soul for Tony's. Therefore, as the mob approaches Tony to hang him, Parnassus presents Tony with his true sturdy golden pipe that will allow him to survive the hanging as well as a near-perfect but brittle replica. Parnassus hopes that Tony will choose wrong; indeed, Tony inserts the cheap replica in his windpipe and thus dies when the mob lynches him. Mr. Nick keeps his word, freeing Valentina's soul but not revealing her new location to Parnassus, who is abandoned to wander in despair for years, trapped in his own Imaginarium.
One day, Parnassus looks up to find himself a pitiful beggar back in London, when Valentina suddenly walks by him. He sees that she is now happily married to Anton, and they have a daughter. As Parnassus watches them through a window, his old assistant Percy walks up to him, dissuading him from interrupting Valentina's new cheerful life. Parnassus finally seems to be at peace, just knowing that his daughter is happy. Soon, Parnassus and Percy have teamed up again, presenting toy theatres of the Imaginarium and the troupe on a street corner. As Mr. Nick appears one final time to beckon Parnassus over to him for a new bargain, Percy quickly intervenes, ordering Parnassus back to work.

Cast

Writing

Director Terry Gilliam and screenwriter Charles McKeown wrote the script for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, their first collaboration since The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. When he was approached with the basic concept by Gilliam, McKeown thought of the central character of Parnassus "as a semi-eastern medicine man evolved", and in retrospect he further said about the script's sensibilities, "'t is about the theme of imagination, and the importance of imagination, to how you live and how you think and so on. And that's very much a Terry theme. ' I like the idea of storytelling being the thing that sustains the universe." Gilliam described the premise as a "fun and humorous story about the consequences of our personal choices in life", and explained his goal for the film: "It's autobiographical. I'm trying to bring a bit of fantasticality to London, an antidote to modern lives. I loved this idea of an ancient travelling show offering the kind of storytelling and wonder that we used to get, to people who are just into shoot-em-up action films." Gilliam and McKeown based the character of Tony on former British prime minister Tony Blair, who "would say the most insane things and probably he'd believe them himself".
Gilliam repeatedly said in interviews that the character of Parnassus was meant autobiographically, a tale of an aging man with a vivid imagination in a world that doesn't listen any more. Still being caught in depression over the disruption of his last self-written project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, his constant struggle with the established studio system, as well as becoming aware of his progressing age, worried that he was going nowhere with his latest projects and that he might not have much time left, Gilliam put a number of references to sudden, tragic, and premature death into his script before the loss of Ledger became a reality. In fact, Gilliam felt compelled to emphasise time and again that upon the film's release many things might be mistaken as references to Ledger's fate but that the script wasn't changed apart from re-casting Tony with Depp, Farrell, and Law.

Filming

The film received a budget of $25 million at first, but its final budget was about $30 million. For The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Gilliam and his cinematographer Nicola Pecorini went wider than ever before on focal length with a new 8mm Zeiss lens, unusual even for a Gilliam movie which are usually trademarked by wide-angle imagery. The widest lens that had been employed before on a Gilliam film had been a 9.8mm Kinoptic. Production of the remaining computer generated imagery effects shots were carried out in Vancouver.

London filming

Production started in December 2007, beginning with various shots of the Imaginarium wagon moving about the London suburbs on the evening of 9 December. The carnival scenes were shot at Potters Field between 10–11 December; shooting then moved to the abandoned Battersea Power Station for three days, where the production had set up offices nearby. After a full day of set-up, the hanging scenes at Blackfriars Bridge were shot for three hours on the evening of 17 December.
At the same time that an intimate early scene between Andrew Garfield and Lily Cole was being shot on top of the travelling Imaginarium wagon, second unit work around London was also being done for several more nights, until 20 December; this change in schedule was to allow Heath Ledger a break to travel back to Australia to visit his family. After the entire cast returned from Christmas break, the production resumed shooting for 2008 back at Battersea for one full day; this was Tom Waits' first day on set, as he would mainly be required for the subsequent Vancouver shoot, not the London section. From 5–6 January, the production filmed scenes with the Imaginarium at Leadenhall Market; shooting on this sequence managed an average of 70 set-ups a day. The production had originally planned to shoot the Leadenhall scenes at Bond Street, but this was scrapped, due to security concerns.
After various nighttime footage at a Homebase car park in New Southgate, and interiors behind the stage curtain shot at Bray Studios in Windsor, production finally wrapped in Clerkenwell, with shooting on the night of 18 January being Heath Ledger's last footage shot for the film; he returned to his New York City apartment over the weekend while the production regrouped, and was expected to appear on set in Vancouver after a week's break for the second stage of shooting.

Effects of Heath Ledger's death

Production was disrupted by the death of Heath Ledger in New York City on 22 January 2008. Ledger's involvement had been a "key factor" in the film's financing. Gilliam was presiding over concept art when he was informed by a phone call that Ledger had died. His initial thought about the production was: "The film's over, it's as simple as that." Although production was suspended indefinitely by 24 January, Gilliam initially wanted to "salvage" the film by using computer-generated imagery to make Ledger's character magically change his appearance, perhaps into another character. He also wanted to dedicate the film to Ledger. The imagery would have been similar to transformation techniques seen on Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and those employed on Roy Scheider's performance in his posthumous release Iron Cross.
Eventually, actors Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law were cast to replace Heath Ledger in certain scenes, portraying the new idea of transformed versions of Ledger's character travelling through magical realms, while the footage shot with Ledger would remain in the film as his character's "real-world" appearance. Gilliam told Entertainment Weekly, "Then we made the quantum leap: What if we get three actors to replace him? Johnny was the first person I called. He said, 'Done. I'm there.' Same with Jude and Colin." Depp, a friend of Gilliam's who starred in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the aborted 1998 production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, had been compared to Ledger by cinematographer Nicola Pecorini. Law was also a friend of Ledger's and had been considered for the role of Tony, and Farrell had also been friends with Ledger.
Initially, Tom Cruise expressed interest in being involved as another actor to replace Ledger, but Gilliam turned him down because Cruise had never been a close friend of Ledger. Gilliam stated, "I just wanted to keep this family—it's as simple as that There were people even offering to come and help, they didn't know Heath. It had to be in the family somehow, I don't know why; it was my attitude."
One scene planned for the Vancouver shooting with the Tony character was scrapped; two others were altered to accommodate Ledger's absence, a third was added to plan for Colin Farrell's role in the film, and a fourth, already in the script, had a prop of Farrell in a magazine added. A fifth, with close-ups of Ledger already filmed, scrapped any major dialogue from Tony and used a body and voice double, as detailed below.

Vancouver filming

With the role recast, and the script restructured accordingly, filming resumed in Vancouver on 24 February 2008, a month later than originally planned; this push-back in filming also required another film produced by Samuel Hadida, an adaptation of the video game Onimusha, to be delayed indefinitely. Exteriors required for the film's ending, featuring Christopher Plummer and Verne Troyer, were shot during this time; the location work also required the presence of Tom Waits and Lily Cole. All of Plummer's scenes, including exterior flashbacks shown early on in the film, had to be filmed first in the Vancouver schedule, within three weeks, as he was due to leave to begin filming on The Last Station, which was to start production in Germany on 7 April.
After arriving in Vancouver on 26 February, Colin Farrell joined the cast and began practicing scenes with them for several weeks while Christopher Plummer's bluescreen and interior work was done, only beginning filming proper on 10 March. Farrell's work was the first of the Tonys to be done, as it was the only Imaginarium-based shooting that involved significant sets; the scenes at the charity ball were shot, then the hanging scene, and finally the gondola sequence.
Johnny Depp's shooting on the film was the hardest to incorporate into any of the new actors' schedules, due to his contractual obligation on Michael Mann's Public Enemies at the time; in the end, Gilliam had access to Depp for one day and three hours. All of the shots involving him had to be completed in one take, to fit into Depp's compressed time schedule.
Finally, Jude Law arrived at the very end of shooting, on 2 April, to film the Imaginarium ladders sequence, which now required more dialogue than originally planned; a key scene in the Imaginarium wagon between Tony and the rest of the cast had been reserved for the Vancouver interior shooting, and so all of the dialogue had to be funnelled into a conversation between Law and Andrew Garfield's characters in the Imaginarium. This conversation proved to be the last sequence shot for the film, and involved a set completely improvised, on the day, to look like the ground at Battersea; they did not have the budget for anything better, but the production crew came away quite impressed at how well it worked.
For the first two Imaginarium sequences, a double for Ledger, Zander Gladish, was used to ease the audience into the other actors as Tony; Gladish also doubled for Ledger in wide shots and masked close-ups for another, non-Imaginarium scene, where his character tries out various costumes. Gladish wore the character's mask for his shots, and did not speak, but is still credited for his work on the film.
Depp, Farrell, and Law opted to redirect their wages for the role to Ledger's young daughter, Matilda, who had been left out of an old version of Ledger's will, and Gilliam altered the part of the credits saying "A Terry Gilliam film" to "A film from Heath Ledger and friends."
Gilliam said in retrospect about the first transition from Ledger to Depp in the film:
Depp said of the experience:
Jude Law also commented on the film:
Colin Farrell commented on the experience:

Post-production

in Vancouver wrapped, as planned, on 15 April, but the production was soon beset by further tragedy when producer William Vince died of cancer, just two days after model shooting back in London had wrapped. Fellow producer Amy Gilliam, Terry's daughter, remembered, "' always said, 'If you get your film in the can, you'll be all right.' And I kind of believe that he stayed with us to know that happened." Eventually, while on post-production, Gilliam himself was hit by a car, resulting in a cracked vertebra. Gilliam recalled: "So I thought, it was third time lucky – they just didn't get me. They got the star, the producer, and they were going for the director, and the fuckers failed on the last one. Whoever they are..." "They were going for the trinity ' That would have been a tidy end to the whole thing. But they didn't kill me. I'm stuck here to tell the tale."
Gilliam finished editing the film by November 2008, and then work began on creating 647 computer generated imagery effects shots. As usual with his films, Gilliam found inspiration in particular painters for each CGI-generated scene inside the titular Imaginarium. According to Designing the Imaginarium published by CBSnews.com, the scene with Doctor Parnassus's attempted suicide related to the style of Odd Nerdrum, the Ladder World with Jude Law featuring "rolling hills with simple trees" was inspired by the art of Grant Wood, the kitsch landscape from the beginning of the sequence with Colin Farrell took inspiration from Maxfield Parrish, and Jose Maria Sert's mural of the Crucifixion in Rockefeller Center inspired the scene including the final minutes of Farrell's appearance in the film.
According to the official ParnassusFilm Twitter channel launched on 30 March 2009, post-production was finished on 31 March. After the production had finally come to a successful closure, Gilliam felt that "' didn't make this film. Forces from above and below made it. It made itself. I don't worry anymore. It's got its own relentless momentum. It just needed some human sacrifice." "It's made itself – I was just one pair of hands and there were many hands." "Don't get me into my mystical mode... but the film made itself and it was co-directed by Heath Ledger!" "The irony is that the choices that were forced upon us improved the movie, so it was as if Heath co-directed the movie, even co-wrote it." According to Gilliam, actor Colin Farrell also went on record for saying that he hadn't been simply playing the character of Tony, but that he was rather feeling like "channeling Heath".
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Gilliam also positively recalled people's commitment to Ledger's memory: "Everyone in the cast and everyone in the crew was determined that this film would be finished and everybody worked longer, harder and somehow we got through. It was really... people's love for Heath that propelled this thing forward." "All the actors already in the film had to change their schedules, and there wasn't a moment's hesitation. ' They all said, 'We'll do what's necessary.' It's really a love letter to Heath by everybody involved. He was beloved by so many."
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Locations

The film opens with St Paul's Cathedral in the background, and the first show is performed under the rail tracks at Green Dragon Court, directly next to Borough Market, with Southwark Cathedral in the background, where the drunken lout molests the performers and then enters the mirror. The next scene, with Tower Bridge in the background, is just east along the riverbank, by City Hall. Tony is found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge, and the very large disused building in which the following scene occurs is the interior of Battersea power station, farther west along the south bank of the river.
The following scenes occur north of the Thames: the Homebase, DIY store at 3 Station Road, south of New Southgate railway station, in New Southgate, followed by the Horseshoe pub in Clerkenwell Close in Clerkenwell from which the wagon flees. The restyled show makes its debut in Leadenhall Market, where the stylish women gather to watch. Bray Studios near Windsor was used for model shooting and additional photography.
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The remaining scenes were filmed in Vancouver. The fantasy scenes were filmed at Bridge Studios in Burnaby, while the charity gala occurs at the Orpheum Theatre, and the glass-walled "mall" is the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library, the curved arcade being the library's entrance foyer.

Music

The original motion picture soundtrack of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was composed by Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna who had previously worked on Gilliam's Tideland. Gilliam wrote lyrics for the two songs "We Love Violence" and "We Are the Children of the World", the latter of which spoofed Michael Jackson's famous "We Are the World" and was nominated for a 2009 Satellite Award in the category "Best Original Song".
The song "We Love Violence", performed in the film by policemen in drag, was sung by Gilliam, Mick Audsley, the musician Ray Cooper, Ed Hall, and Andre Jacquemin.
;Track listing
  1. "Once Upon a Time"
  2. "The Imaginarium"
  3. "The Tack"
  4. "Tony's Tale of Woe"
  5. "The Monastery"
  6. "Book & Story"
  7. "Sympathy for the Hanged Man"
  8. "The First to Five Souls"
  9. "Escape from the Pub"
  10. "The River"
  11. "Suicide Attempt"
  12. "Tango Amongst the Lilies"
  13. "Victory in the Lilies"
  14. "Four Through the Mirror"
  15. "The Ladder World"
  16. "We Love Violence"
  17. "Top of the Wagon"
  18. "We Are the Children of the World"
  19. "Tony's World Collapses"
  20. "The Devil's Dance"
  21. "Tony's Salvation"
  22. "Parnassus Alone"
and Lily Cole, promoting the film at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

Reception

Before The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was finished, the film had already received healthy interest from worldwide distributors and the film sold out across the world. However, the film received lukewarm response from many distributors in the United States. Gilliam said that Fox Searchlight Pictures and other distributors had declined to release the film in the US. Eventually, the film's US distribution rights were acquired by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group, which released the film in the US through Sony Pictures Classics. In fact, the US was the last territory in which the film was sold.

Box office

According to Reuters, the film debuted at No. 3 on its first weekend at the UK box office. The film debuted at No. 2 in both France and Italy, generating the year's third-best box office return on an opening weekend in Italy. Said Roberto Proia, distribution chief of the film's Italian distributor Moviemax, about its surprisingly warm reception, "Almost two years after his death, Ledger has a huge fanbase which, along with the rest of the stellar cast, certainly contributed hugely. We also found out that teenagers massively love Gilliam, and we did not expect this. He really has rock star status." Eventually, the film had earned about $54,119,168 theatrically in the countries outside North America.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus earned $415,233 on its North American limited opening Christmas weekend, being presented in 48 theatres with an average of $8,651. The second weekend of Parnassus set an average of $7,684 with a gross of $368,836 which made for a total of $1,029,821 domestically. Releasing in 607 North American theatres, Parnassus took eleventh place on its opening wide release box office weekend with earnings of $1,762,637, an average of only $2,904 and a total of $2,989,290. Eventually, the film had earned $7,689,607 theatrically in North America.
According to the working partner of William Vince, the film had already made its budget back even before it opened in North America.

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on 29 March 2010, by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. Supplementary material includes an audio commentary and an introduction by Gilliam, deleted scenes, wardrobe test for Heath Ledger, visual FX feature, and three featurettes titled "Behind the Mirror", "Building the Temple", and "UK Premiere".
The DVD and Blu-ray were released in the US on 27 April 2010. The film went on enjoying bigger success in US ancillary markets.

Critical reception

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 64% of 197 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.97/10. The website's critical consensus is that "Terry Gilliam remains as indulgent as ever, but The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus represents a return to the intoxicatingly imaginative, darkly beautiful power of his earlier work, with fine performances to match all the visual spectacle." Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 65 based on 30 reviews.

Awards and nominations

AwardCategoryRecipientResult
Academy AwardsBest Art DirectionDave Warren, Anastasia Masaro and Caroline Smith
Academy AwardsBest Costume DesignMonique Prudhomme
BAFTA awardsBest Production DesignDave Warren, Anastasia Masaro and Caroline Smith
BAFTA awardsBest Make Up & HairSarah Monzani
British Independent Film AwardsBest Achievement in Production
Costume Designers Guild of AmericaBest Fantasy FilmMonique Prudhomme
Empire AwardsBest British Film
Empire AwardsBest Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Satellite AwardBest Art Direction and Production DesignAnastasia Masaro, Dave Warren, Terry Gilliam
Satellite AwardBest Costume DesignMonique Prudhomme
Satellite AwardBest Original SongTerry Gilliam
For the song "We Are the Children of the World"
Satellite AwardBest Visual Effects
Saturn AwardsBest International Film
Saturn AwardsBest Make-UpSarah Monzani
Total Sci-Fi Online magazineBest Fantasy Film of the Year