11/06/09
Text: Kee Chang
In the past thirty years or so, Terry Gilliam’s wild cinematic journeys have burrowed deep within the consciousness of cineastes the world over. If you happen to be a devout Gilliam fan, you’ll also know that he had a wall of shit fall on him with inexplicable frequency ever since his Brazil days. We won’t rehash the bitter details here except to say that his continued misfortunes led to the coining of the phrase “the Terry Gilliam curse” and more recently, took shape in the form of a documentary, Lost In La Mancha, which chronicles his failed attempts at bringing The Man Who Killed Don Quixote to the screen.
The cult icon attended the premiere of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus during AFI Fest this week and we just couldn’t resist grilling him about his bad fortunes.
Having forever etched your name into the history of cinema, you must have industry folk lining up at your door all the time wanting to work with you.
There are a lot of fools in the world, aren’t there? [Laughs] I think I’ve been lucky. I’ve been getting away with murder over the years. There are enough films people have liked that when I say, “Come onboard this new one!” they jump onboard. And the ones that don’t jump onboard, I don’t want to work with anyway! [Laughs] I like working with people who share a vision. Whether they can see what I see is something else, but they all see things that I can’t see. My films are an incredibly collaborative enterprise. I get the ball rolling and people come up with better ideas and I leapfrog over theirs—that’s the game and its kind of fun. It’s just trying to encourage people to play.
With Heath Ledger’s sensationalized death during the production of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, how difficult was it for you to reroute the film and continue chugging along on a newfound path?
“Necessity is the mother of invention” or imagination—it’s very simple. Once I decided, “Yes, we’re going to try and finish this thing,” which is not the first attitude I had when Heath died, it was actually amazingly easy. We’re not going to have one actor replacing him because I’m just not going to have that. And you know, the character goes through the mirror three times, so you have three guys.
It was enjoyable working on this film; it was more fun than I’ve had in a long time. But then that’s tempered with tragedy. It’s a very sweet and sour affair this one, very Chinese. [Laughs] The whole film was rather miraculous in that the lead actor dies halfway through, three A-list actors take over, and it works when you see the film. I wish in some ways that I wasn’t talking about the background of this movie. I just want people to go see it. It’s joyous, it’s full of life, it’s wonderful, and it’s seamless.
So, you just got on the phone three times?
No, I got on the phone about a dozen times. There are other people that I asked. I was basically calling up actors, great actors, who were friends with Heath and there were a lot of them. The three we have now are the ones that managed to be available or determined to change their schedules to fit ours. There were other people I called who were tied up working on other films. It was amazing how many people wanted to help and there were people I didn’t even call who offered their services.
How did the studio react to all of this?
It takes unreasonable people to continue the film, and luckily, I was surrounded by unreasonable people. [Laughs] The turning point was day two after Heath died. I called Johnny because he was equally close to Heath and I said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m probably going to go home and just close it down.” He said, “Whatever you decide to do, I’m there.” And when I told this to a few others, suddenly, the retreat of the unreasonable people stopped. “Wait. What’s that? Johnny Depp? Possibly interested?” [Gilliam mimics a creaking sound] They all crept back in. Once I decided what I was going to do, I started making calls. Three weeks after Heath died, we were back up and running, which is absolutely extraordinary.
Can you comment on the calamities that have seriously plagued the production of your films over the span of your career?
Well, I’m just getting used to it. [Laughs] All those other calamities were in preparation for this one. I don’t think if I’d been through some of the other things that I’d been able to do it. You just get used to these things. My philosophy is: “Let’s show the truth about filmmaking.” I’m so tired of looking at these puff pieces about “The joy of filmmaking”—how we’re all happy together, it’s so beautiful, and each day is wonderful! Filmmaking is really hard and anybody who makes films knows that. When people think I got it worse than others, it’s not true. I’m just well recorded. [Laughs]
Perhaps along those lines... Is there more than a little metaphor for a career in filmmaking this “dance with the devil” you have to do?
It always is. If you’re a painter or a musician, you don’t need much money. You need a pen or a guitar. With films, we’re talking about millions of dollars so it’s a very interesting dance. When are you selling out? When aren’t you selling out? You never know. It’s a daily occurrence: “Oh, I’m going to use that actor. Well, there’s one I really prefer, but I won’t get the money with him. So, can this other actor work?” Now, is that the deal with the devil? It might be, I don’t know. But we live it.
