During the opening ceremony at Cannes earlier this week a long show reel of festival films provided tantalising glimpses of yet-to-be released features, including a clip from Heath Ledger’s final performance in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The video, which can be found here, is almost half an hour long but footage of the late Australian actor only lasts for about 15 seconds, so if you’re not in the mood for sitting through an un-subtitled French ceremony and want to jump the gun to Ledger fast forward to 21:26. Expect to hear reports about Ledger’s performance begin to surface next week.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus follows the story of Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), the 1000-year-old head of a travelling theatre group who made a deal with the devil to become immortal. One day a mysterious con man named Tony arrives on the scene, and this is where Ledger’s character comes into play. Production commenced in 2007 and Ledger passed away around halfway through the shoot. The film was put on hold until production recommenced two months later with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law joining the cast. They each play transmogrified versions of Tony who emerge after the character falls through a magical mirror.
From the outset the film has resembled vintage Gilliam, director of many a fantastical mind-bend including lunacy-lavished classics Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Fisher King. In a statement seemingly aimed at fans soured by his recent work – namely Tideland (2005) and the much-maligned The Brothers Grimm (also 2005) – Gilliam has described Parnassus as “like the kind of films I made when I was younger.”
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus has been slated for a September release in Australia.
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3 Comments
Cannot wait. Two great directors to cap off Ledger’s career. It’s lucky the story is magical and fantasy based, other wise it probably wouldn’t be a good choice to have the same character played by four actors.
Yeah, it’s not every film you can get away with a stunt like that. Considering the endless array of problems that have plauged Gilliam’s career (anyone seen Lost in La Mancha?) I doubt he’d get surprised about anything these days. Aside from mourning Ledger’s death – I assume they got along well, having worked together before in Brothers Grimm – I bet Gilliam was once again thinking ‘sheeeet, did some axe-to-grind witch curse me when I was asleep many moons ago’ or ‘is my life the subject of some deranged quasi Stephen King/Truman Show co-production?’
Lost in La Mancha was great and Gilliam seems to be cursed by the gods. However it looks like the movie is back on track (http://news-briefs.ew.com/2009/05/terry-gilliam.html)