This is a blurb I wrote some time ago, 2008 I think, when news came of Terry Gilliam's latest film running into distribution complications. This on top of the lead actor Heath Ledger's untimely death during filming. My frustration with this clearly talented director never being able to achieve the notariety he deserved has dissipated since then now that it has picked up a decent distributor...
Gilliam's Imaginothing
Maybe past his prime, Terry Gilliam continues to make films that have a knack for not being 'completed' in the classic sense, and his latest effort The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus follows suit for as of yet uncertain reasons. Distributors have always had issues with the 'maverick' director's wiley ways, especially since they haven't produced the goods since 12 Monkeys, but this film just happens to contain the very last acting footage of Heath Ledger. Apparently even this savory addition is not enough so sway the Hollywood fatcats, and probably rightly so.
It seems that, at this point in his career, Gilliam should have surpassed the hurtles usually reserved for up-and-coming filmmakers that prevent their work from surfacing onto the cultural plane. The director of Brazil and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas however is struggling more than any established writer/director who might happen to have somewhat off-kilter material to put to celluloid. He may want to take notes on the distribution strategies of socially unacceptable artists such as David Lynch, Crispin Glover or numerous others that inhabit the college film series circuit.
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