Author Topic: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus  (Read 264366 times)

Offline Ellemeno

  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 15,367
Re: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
« Reply #120 on: July 15, 2009, 03:39:16 am »
Maybe I'll come back in the morning and edit this, but


Fuck Terry Gilliam.

Offline Berit

  • Brokeback Got Me Good
  • *****
  • Posts: 843
Re: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
« Reply #121 on: July 15, 2009, 03:45:04 am »
Maybe I'll come back in the morning and edit this, but


Fuck Terry Gilliam.

As a temporary, volunteer moderator.......it's OK. It is what it is......Fuck Terry Gilliam
Ennis.....always Ennis.....

Offline belbbmfan

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,354
  • A love that will never grow old
Re: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
« Reply #122 on: July 15, 2009, 06:55:49 am »
Parnassus is scheduled to show here in November. But with the recent interview crap Gilliam's been telling the press, I'm now debating whether or not to spend my money on this movie.

I'd love to see Heath on the screen again, but I don't want Gilliam to benefit.  >:(
'We're supposed to guard the sheep, not eat 'em'

Offline optom3

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 4,638
Re: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
« Reply #123 on: July 15, 2009, 07:15:16 am »
I am really torn about whether to see the movie or not. It is Heath's very last role and that is too sad. :'(

I am none too keen on either Gilliam or Pecorini's comments, what is sad is that there is no doubt, Heath really was in awe of what he perceived as Gilliam's genius.
 I have seen  interviews when he says he pretty well would want to be involved in anything Gilliam did.

Offline Kelda

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 14,703
  • Zorbing....
    • Keldas Facebook Page!
Re: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
« Reply #124 on: July 15, 2009, 05:54:26 pm »

Also posted simultaneously in the 'The Culture Tent ,' Re: NYMag and as per Vanity Fair: 'Parnassus' interviews: The Last of Heath: http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,36727.0.html


http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/06/vanity_fairs_heath_ledger_prof.html

Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus  Director
Kind of Harshes On Michelle Williams
in Vanity Fair




By: Jessica Pressler
6/29/09 at 12:32 PM



When Heath Ledger died while filming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,  his colleagues mourned in the best way they knew how: "For a couple days we locked ourselves in a room with red wine and prosciutto and Parmesan,” Amy Gilliam, the daughter of director Terry Gilliam and a producer on the project, tells Vanity Fair  this month. But self-medicating with cured meats and cheese apparently did not help to cure this bunch of their anger, because throughout the lengthy piece — a rehashing of the affair timed to the release of the movie — Gilliam and cinematographer Nicola Pecorini take the opportunity to lash out at Michelle Williams, Ledger's ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child. It's pretty uncomfortable.

For starters, they infer, they were never right for each other to begin with:

“My impression was that they had nothing in common,” says Pecorini. “They didn’t fit. They kept two separate lives. She never mingled with his friends — he never mingled with her friends.” The two men say the couple’s relationship mimicked the marriage between the characters they played in Brokeback Mountain,  with hers, lonely and resentful, watching his go off on his mysterious fishing trips.

Ouch. Also, Ledger was an artist, they inferred, while Williams was more commercial, kind of a careerist:

For him, they say, the Oscars were a kind of game that he went along with grudgingly, whereas Williams took the hoopla more seriously. “The whole machinery started growing up around them,” Gilliam says. “That was the moment when it changed, when he realized, Uh-oh. We perceive the world differently. He didn’t care about things like those awards.”

She practically tormented Heath regarding the custody of their daughter, Matilda, they say, and he put up with it, because he was so nice.

According to Pecorini, “Heath was always blaming himself, asking, What did I do wrong?” Adds Gilliam, “Because he’s a much nicer person than I am, he really thought he could do the right thing. He was trying to be decent and graceful, give her whatever she wanted — the house, every fucking thing. But once it started going south, it went very quickly. He was overwhelmed by lawyers, and there were more and more of them, as if they were breeding. I said, ‘This is bullshit. Heath, just end it. Get out — it’s bad. You’ve got to just walk away from it.’ The stakes kept going up. He wouldn’t listen to any of us … He was absolutely obsessed about Matilda."

Yeah, how about that weird attachment he had to his own child. And Michelle was just so difficult about it, she like kept her away from him, like when she decided she didn't want to put her 2-year-old on a nine-hour plane ride all by herself. If you ask these guys, that might have maybe had something to do with Heath's death:

According to Gilliam, the separation from Matilda “was really destroying Heath, just ripping at his heart.”

Ew. Of course, this group of sophisticates would never come right out and say, "That's what killed him!" That would be in bad taste.


See


http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/06/why-was-heath-ledger-so.html

VANITY FAIR
The Magazine
The Last of Heath


by Vanity Fair
June 29, 2009, 12:01 AM


Why was Heath Ledger so ambivalent about his own stardom, and what happened at the end of his life? Vanity Fair  contributing editor Peter Biskind sheds new light on these difficult-to-answer questions as he writes about the actor’s remarkable talent and untimely death in the August cover story, “The Last of Heath.”

In his article, Biskind explores Ledger’s final movie role, his uncertainty about Hollywood, his devotion to his young daughter, and what happened in the days and weeks leading up to his death as he battled chronic insomnia, pneumonia, and exhaustion. Here are some of the revelations contained in Biskind’s story.

How he cleaned up his act
• Cinematographer Nicola Pecorini, who worked with Ledger on his last film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,  says Ledger “used to smoke marijuana on a regular basis, like probably 50 percent of Americans.” But after it became an issue, Ledger “went clean as a whistle.” And vocal coach Gerry Grennell, who worked and lived with the actor during the filming of The Dark Knight,  says Ledger even stopped drinking: “Heath would happily go to the bar, buy a round of drinks for friends, and come back and have a soda or juice, never once drinking alcohol.”

How chronic insomnia may have led to his death
• Ledger’s use of sleeping medication to combat chronic insomnia at the end of his life was of more concern to Grennell. “I’d say, ‘If you can possibly bear it to stop taking the medications, do, because they don’t seem to be doing you any good.’ He agreed. It is very difficult for me to imagine how close he came to not taking them.”

Ledger would typically spend night after night awake, diverting himself with time killers, Biskind reports, such as re-arranging the furniture in whatever space he happened to be living in at the moment. Grennell coached him in the Alexander Technique, which helped him to sleep for a few hours at a time, but he still struggled.

“Everyone has a different view of how he passed away,” Grennell tells Biskind. “From my perspective, and knowing him as well as I did, and being around him as much as I was, it was a combination of exhaustion, sleeping medication … and perhaps the aftereffects of the flu. I guess his body just stopped breathing.”

How his relationship failed
Terry Gilliam—Ledger’s friend and mentor, and the director of Doctor Parnassus —agrees with Pecorini that the romance between Ledger and Williams began to unravel during the Oscar campaign for Brokeback Mountain. “The whole machinery started growing up around them,” Gilliam says. “That was the moment when it changed, when he realized, Uh-oh. We perceive the world differently. He didn’t care about things like those awards.”

According to Pecorini, “Heath was always blaming himself [about the relationship], asking, What did I do wrong?” Adds Gilliam, “Because he’s a much nicer person than I am, he really thought he could do the right thing. He was trying to be decent and graceful, give her whatever she wanted—the house, every fucking thing. But once it started going south, it went very quickly. He was overwhelmed by lawyers, and there were more and more of them, as if they were breeding. I said, ‘This is bullshit. Heath, just end it. Get out—it’s bad. You’ve got to just walk away from it.’ The stakes kept going up. He wouldn’t listen to any of us.”

As Ledger’s relationship with Williams unraveled, and the pair started dealing with lawyers and custody issues, according to Gilliam, Ledger fell apart. “The thing that really made Heath snap” was legal wrangling over his daughter, Matilda, Gilliam says. “He said, ‘Just fuck all of you! I’m not giving Michelle anything.’???” Recalls another source, when it came to Matilda’s care, “there were definitely heated conversations, and emotions were high.” (Ledger’s lawyer declined to comment on any aspect of the separation or custody dispute.)

His devotion to the job
• The strife in his personal life coincided with the shoot for Gilliam’s Parnassus,  but rather than distract him from his work, Gilliam believes it helped him concentrate on the task at hand, he tells Biskind. He appeared one day on set “clearly bloody sick,” Gilliam says. The doctor told him it was the beginning of pneumonia and that he ought to take antibiotics and go home and rest. According to Gilliam, Ledger said, “No way. I’m not going to go home, because I can’t sleep, and I’ll be just thinking about the situation. I’d rather stay here and work.”

Although “he would arrive in the morning completely knackered,” Gilliam says, “by the end of the day he was beaming, glowing with energy. It was like everything was put into the work, because that was the joy; that’s what he loved to do. The words were just pouring out. It was like he was channeling.”

Ledger’s apathy for stardom
• Ledger’s friend and agent, Steven Alexander, tells Biskind that Heath “was always hesitant to be in a summer blockbuster, with the dolls and action figures and everything else that comes with one of those movies. He was afraid it would define him and limit his choices.” According to friends of Ledger’s, one of the reasons he agreed to do Dark Knight  was that the unusually long shoot would give him an excuse to turn down other offers.

Alexander tells Biskind that Ledger had a pay-or-play deal on The Dark Knight —meaning he’d get compensated no matter what—so he felt he had the freedom to do whatever he wanted as the Joker. According to Pecorini, Ledger hoped his performance would be so far-out he’d be fired, and thus become the beneficiary of a lengthy, paid vacation.

“He was ready to bust out of the gate, but he didn’t want to step on the gas and become something that he didn’t want to become: a matinee idol,” says Alexander. “He was a private person, and he didn’t want to share his personal history with the press. It just wasn’t up for sale. That’s part of the reason he initially tore down his career. He wasn’t motivated by money or stardom, but by the respect of his peers, and for people to walk out of a movie theater after they’d seen something that he’d worked on and say, ‘Wow, he really disappeared into that character.’ He was striving to become an ‘illusionist,’ as he called it, able to create characters that weren’t there.”

The August issue of Vanity Fair hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on July 1 and nationally July 7.

wow. very harsh..
http://www.idbrass.com

Please use the following links when shopping online -It will help us raise money without costing you a penny.

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/idb

http://idb.easysearch.org.uk/

Offline SFEnnisSF

  • BBM Radio Program Director
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,548
Re: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
« Reply #125 on: July 16, 2009, 12:15:09 am »
Hmmm.  I guess I'm the only one here not having a huge issue with what Gilliam said.  I more see it as Gilliam is upset at the loss of Ledger, and Gilliam seems to think the relationship with Williams was what started his downward spiral.  So, he's sort of lashing out at her, and also airing lots of dirty laundry that maybe nobody knew about.

Don't forget Gilliam also worked with Ledger on The Brothers Grimm, before Brokeback, before Williams, before the Joker role, etc.  I can imagine it's hard for someone as a director and a friend, to see a good actor and friend beforehand, and then watch them go downhill...  IMO, In lots of ways, Gilliam is defending Ledger quite a bit in this article.

Offline LauraGigs

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,447
    • My Design Portfolio
Re: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
« Reply #126 on: July 16, 2009, 07:33:56 pm »
I have got a copy of V.F now and it worries me that the movie has been shown in Cannes but still has no U.S distributed. I hope it doesn't vanish and become an art house film that very few ever see. By all accounts, Heath is as amazing as always.

High-profile PR such as a Vanity Fair cover article should pretty much assure US distribution.  I'll bet that was the entire objective of the article anyway.

It could be that its author's conversations with Gilliam was much broader and contained a lot of less controversial points, but it was edited to be as juicy as possible for better sales and visibility.

In any case, I know I'd have a very hard time staying away from Heath's last performance, Gilliam notwithstanding!

Offline oilgun

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 3,564
Re: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
« Reply #127 on: July 16, 2009, 08:15:12 pm »
Hmmm.  I guess I'm the only one here not having a huge issue with what Gilliam said.  I more see it as Gilliam is upset at the loss of Ledger, and Gilliam seems to think the relationship with Williams was what started his downward spiral.  So, he's sort of lashing out at her, and also airing lots of dirty laundry that maybe nobody knew about.

Don't forget Gilliam also worked with Ledger on The Brothers Grimm, before Brokeback, before Williams, before the Joker role, etc.  I can imagine it's hard for someone as a director and a friend, to see a good actor and friend beforehand, and then watch them go downhill...  IMO, In lots of ways, Gilliam is defending Ledger quite a bit in this article.

Nope, I'm with you.  Nothing will keep me from seeing a film by Gilliam, especially one with Heath's last performance!  Mind you, I haven't read the article yet, lol!  I'll report back once I do.

Offline Mikaela

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 3,229
  • Unsaid... and now unsayable
A few short clips from Parnassus
« Reply #128 on: July 26, 2009, 05:40:13 pm »
Well, I won't stay away from "Imaginarium" -  I want to see it. But Gilliam's pathetic dishing of subjective hearsay dirt is in the poorest of taste and he is obviously trying to shift blame over on Michelle Williams - partly to avoid taking any himself.

I am rooting for Michelle, - I hope she'll rise far above pettiness of the Gilliam kind to become a more acknowledged name in movies than she is.

Be that as it may;


At this link are 3 short clips from Parnassus; the first one includes Heath.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809961111/video/14649920


(I am ambivalent about the film's prospects after seeing these. Lily Cole doesn't seem like much of an actress.)


Offline Sophia

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,574
  • Your elbows, try to lick them
Re: A few short clips from Parnassus
« Reply #129 on: July 26, 2009, 07:36:56 pm »
Well, I won't stay away from "Imaginarium" -  I want to see it. But Gilliam's pathetic dishing of subjective hearsay dirt is in the poorest of taste and he is obviously trying to shift blame over on Michelle Williams - partly to avoid taking any himself.

I am rooting for Michelle, - I hope she'll rise far above pettiness of the Gilliam kind to become a more acknowledged name in movies than she is.

Be that as it may;


At this link are 3 short clips from Parnassus; the first one includes Heath.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809961111/video/14649920


(I am ambivalent about the film's prospects after seeing these. Lily Cole doesn't seem like much of an actress.)



thanks for posting those clips, i loved them and the one with heath is amazing. i am sure his performance will be absolutely fantastic.