By Karina Wilson
AFI FEST Daily News

What is an Imaginarium? Perhaps it’s best defined as an aquarium for the mind, where the imagination can swim free in a riot of color and spectacle. That seems like a natural habitat for Terry Gilliam, a filmmaker whose fluid ingenuity has entertained audiences for over forty years. While his films have inspired a whole range of reactions, from Academy Award nominations to howls of protest, they never fail to transport us to places where the rules of reality don’t apply, whether it’s a lizard-infested hotel lobby (FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS), a moorland cave that houses a killer bunny (MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL) or a hot air balloon assembled entirely from women’s underwear (THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN). His films have a unique aesthetic, visible in almost every frame, a combination of his trademark wide-angle perspective (the 14mm lens is affectionately known as “the Gilliam”) and attention to baroque details in the mise-en-scène. More than any other, he’s a filmmaker who mines his imagination for inspiration, utilizing the power of cinema to take us to locations we could not reach in any other way.

His first feature since 2005’s TIDELAND, THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS is a return to the grotesque and arabesque aesthetic of some of his earlier work, including the MONTY PYTHON animations. Doctor Parnassus, like Baron Munchausen, runs a ramshackle theatre troupe, clattering round the shadowy streets of nighttime London in the hopes of entertaining a motley crowd of drinkers and shoppers. The show involves luring a member of the audience through a magical mirror and into the titular Imaginarium, where Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) uses his powers (he’s immortal) to amplify their waking dreams into the trip of a lifetime. Some lucky punters emerge from the mirror reborn, others find Mr. Nick (Tom Waits) lurking on the dark side of their daydreams, ready to lure them straight to Hell.

[SinglePic not found]The Parnassus crew is no merry band of players, however. The Doctor broods over a long-ago deal with Mr. Nick that is about to come due. Anton (Andrew Garfield) nurses an unrequited crush on Valentina (Lily Cole) who thinks of nothing but making a getaway, pasting the cover of Ideal Home (“norm porn”) above her bunk, to aid her dreams of regular family life. Percy (Verne Troyer) is Dr. Parnassus’ loyal longtime companion, but even he is getting frustrated by his boss’ drinking and mood swings. Their disequilibrium is disrupted still further when they rescue Tony (Heath Ledger), whom they find hanging underneath Blackfriars Bridge and he too becomes smitten by Lily’s charms. It’s inevitable that they will all end up in the Imaginarium, seeking answers and escape.

No one but Gilliam could conceive of this kind of convoluted fairy tale, an amalgamation of whimsy (shoescapes, fishnet-stockinged policemen) with a world-weary sense that we can be as much trapped by our imaginative outbursts as we are empowered by our flights of fancy. Gilliam’s entire career has consisted of the push-pull between his leaps of imagination and the constraints imposed by studios, financiers, and unlucky circumstances. Therefore Doctor Parnassus is close to his heart, a storyteller who doesn’t always get his message across. He also has plenty to say on the subject of imagination, in its many manifestations, and the way it has driven his work.

Q. How would you define imagination?

A. It’s everybody’s responsibility to have their own imagination. Imagination to me is the thing that you use to reinvent the world daily, to make it worth living in, or even escaping from. Intellect tends to define and limit things and put them in boxes with labels on while imagination is the antithesis of that. Can you be imaginative and intellectual? Well, then you become Einstein and discover that E=MC². Great scientific leaps are leaps of imagination. You build up a huge amount of detail and then you make a leap. Poetry and science are very similar.

Q. Do you think imagination is something you’re born with, or do you develop it in childhood?

A. You can certainly destroy one, so maybe you can develop one! You watch people’s imaginations as they get older get crushed by reality.

Q. What do you think were the main factors in the development of your imagination?

A. Radio. Because you have to invent everything–all you have are the sound effects and voices, you’ve got to put the faces on, build the sets, design costumes. We didn’t have a TV till I was twelve. Also, I lived in the country, where you play. Nature is there just waiting to inspire you, if you look at it and touch it and play in it and fall around in it. We’ve got a house in Italy, it’s very basic, isolated on top of a hill. We’d go there with my son when he was younger and the first day or two he’d be really bored. Then he’d start playing and creating and inventing things. It was wonderful. But he’d come home after the break and turn on the television and clunk, it was all gone.

Q. Whose imagination do you most admire?

It’s an endless list, really. Obviously Hieronymus Bosch, and Bruegel, who was a bit more of a humanist but still possessed enough invention to keep everybody happy for a long time. I used to love Dalí, but I’m not convinced anymore: he was a great showman and his stuff is spectacular but doesn’t linger in the same way as Magritte lingers. I like different kinds of imaginations, the ones that noodle in. The human brain is designed to make sense out of nonsense, and the great Surrealists juxtapose things that don’t make sense, forcing your brain to work overtime trying to fit it all together. A lot of the Symbolists were amazing, like Odilon Redon. Disney was the one who probably got me going the most. SNOW WHITE and PINOCCHIO were stunning. As a kid I had never seen anything like that. Nobody had. PINOCCHIO is a masterpiece, one of my all-time top ten. All those dark shadows, moving around, Bad Boys’ Island, wonderful. And there’s Lewis Carroll. After I did FEAR AND LOATHING I started re-reading Alice again. It’s terrifying. It is so disturbing. And everyone thinks it’s so bouncy–no, it’s really dark, subtle. It will be interesting to see what Tim [Burton] will do with it. He’ll keep it on the safer side, I think.

Q. Alice has no control once she’s down the rabbit hole, it’s scary.

A. People are frightened of that lack of control when it’s present in imagination. The reviews I read of PARNASSUS are split over the big finale, once everyone goes into the Imaginarium. There are those that think that’s the best part, and others think it’s the worst. It’s very interesting–a very simple split. It’s a control thing. People are frightened of losing control. TIDELAND is an example of when people’s imagination skews the wrong way. I approached that completely innocently, I had to. Others took an adult approach with all their phobias, prejudice, all their terror. They hated the movie and wouldn’t talk about it. It doesn’t exist. They hated it. The reviews were horrible. I pushed all the buttons by exploring the bad side of imagination.

We live in Highgate, a nice part of London, the shops are about 100 meters down the road. When my son was twelve he watched too much television, so his imagination said ‘When I go to the shops I’ll be raped, mugged, murdered’ and he wouldn’t go. He was terrified. I suppose that’s Mr. Nick’s way: Fear. And that’s the kind of imagination America’s living with right now, fear of the Other. Won’t people understand that the world is actually a pretty nice place? The bad things are very minor as part of the big picture but everybody lives in fear. More and more, we are encouraged to be fearful, and I hate that. That’s why I don’t like horror or gore films, they frighten me too much and my imagination will go to really dark places if I let it, so I don’t want to encourage it.

Q. Several of your movies portray characters who find relief in the power of imagination but not redemption. Do you think there is an essential conflict between disappearing into your imagination and finding a place in reality?

A. It’s a fine line, two things that have to be balanced properly. Redemption is such a hard thing. I don’t know how many people feel they’ve been redeemed.

Q. But it’s what everyone wants in a screenplay.

A. Where does this come from? Is there some Christian fundamentalist movement behind it? “We all will be redeemed!” Such a weird evangelical thing. Relief–that’s the autobiographical part. I never get beyond relief. I don’t find redemption, just a way of surviving reality.

Q. Like Sam Lowry at the end of BRAZIL?

A. It’s not the greatest, but at least he’s in his own imagination. His idea of imagination is escape from responsibility, so he pays the price, essentially. But it’s still a happy ending.

Q. You’ve had your pick of actors over the years, what attracts you about the imaginative life of a performer, and why do you return to certain people time and time again?

A. I like those who are fearless, basically, who aren’t afraid to be dangerous. I don’t like vanity. I like people who lose themselves in the part and a lot of actors don’t. Even when they’re trying to, they’re still thinking about themselves and I want that to disappear. Actors love it when they actually can pull it off. Colin said at one point he felt he was channeling Heath. You can lose yourself in a friend, and that’s amazing. When I did TWELVE MONKEYS, Brad found this frenzy, this manic quality, which was brilliant. Bruce found what I wanted, which was an interior quality that he’d never played with before. They already had it–I just encouraged it when I saw it, pushed it out a little bit more. A good actor has to be fearless, and also has to trust that I’m not going to expose him when he falls on his face. If they don’t go far enough to fail, they haven’t gone far enough.

Q. How would you describe what happens when an individual enters the Imaginarium?

A. It’s the things they probably are most intrigued with that blossom initially. Like the woman who first goes in–shoes, shopping–and then her second best choice is a one night stand with Johnny [Depp]. The other women, I don’t even ask what they experience, we just know what they’re like when they emerge, mid-orgasmic moment. When Tony runs in there as Jude, his ambition flowers. What I love about Valentina is that her imagination wants normality, IKEA and a three-piece suite.”

Once you’re in there, things start happening. There’s a choice, a crossroads of some sort and you have to consider which way. It’s very simple, the difficult path is the better one. You only get any kind of sense of fulfillment by having worked hard, I’m convinced of it. You can’t just float through life and feel fulfilled. You can’t buy it – unfortunately we live in a society that proclaims that you can. Get that three-ply toilet paper and you’re halfway to heaven. In Britain when the crash occurred last year, Gordon Brown said “we have to get people shopping again.” As a good citizen you have to be a good shopper. Wait a minute – people are deeply in debt, living the wrong life. I think it’s probably the loss of religion, all those things. I’m not a great fan of religion, but it does fill a gap. It makes you consider something larger than yourself, ultimately. But that could be a war, nationalism, even that’s dangerous. For most people it’s family that’s larger than themselves. Otherwise it’s all about me, I control this, these are mine.

Q. What does Parnassus add to people’s imaginations as they pass through his mirror?

A. He claims he’s adding a positive element, by taking their dreams and blowing them up even bigger so they can realize what they are. But he might be a liar. I have a deep suspicion about Parnassus – he might be a bum. He’s lying to his daughter about who he is. He wants to enlighten, encourage the positive rather than the negative, that’s about it.

Q. If you entered the Imaginarium, what do you think would be in there?

A. That’s the kind of thought that I don’t let my mind go to. I think I used to dream all the time, all the things I wanted to do, but I don’t do that now. It’s been beaten out of me. I don’t even trust dreaming about the next film I’m going to make because it probably won’t happen. I’m dealing with fear of failure, so I actually control my imagination in dreams.

Gilliam’s next project looks like it will be the beleaguered THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE, although it’s not yet set in stone. Again, it seems that this is a film that only Gilliam could make, another amalgamation, this time of the Cervantes novel and the tale of a twenty-first century time traveler. Despite his body of work, he’s still finalizing funding, a situation that taps into his worst imaginings–and a plight familiar to filmmakers at every level.

“My fear of failure is that I won’t get the next thing going. Once I’m in it, once I’ve got it, I’m fearless, but it’s getting there. You build your expectations up, and your hopes, and that keeps hurting.”

Faint heart never won film financing, and Gilliam, like Doctor Parnassus, seems determined to triumph over the obstacles and keep the show going on for as long as his imagination can stimulate his loyal following. With several projects beside QUIXOTE on the back-burner, it looks like he will keep his Imaginarium on the road for some time to come.

Karina Wilson writes at Horror Film History.