Terry Gilliam Suddenly OK With Pushing Heath Ledger For Oscar
Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus doesn't screen at the Cannes Film Festival until a week from tomorrow, but he's staying plenty busy on the Croisette. After announcing he'll soon return to his infamously cursed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (with or without his original star Johnny Depp), he's not wasting any time selling Parnassus to both buyers and -- he hopes -- Academy voters who took so kindly to Heath Ledger's previous performance.
Wait a second: Terry Gilliam? Courting a posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger? Since when?
Is this the same Terry Gilliam who excoriated Warner Bros. last year for mounting an awards campaign on Ledger's behalf for The Dark Knight? The one quoted as saying, "They'll do anything to publicize their film. That's just what they do and you can't get upset because it's bullshit. They're like a great white shark which devours whatever it can"? Because that Gilliam seems to have had a staggering change of heart, now telling the Times he'd push Parnassus for a Fall '09 release. And why?
"We want to be in that last third for the Academy Awards! Maybe we'll get another award for Heath. We're going to get as many awards as possible for him, long after he's gone."
Look out, Cannes -- you're gonna need a bigger boat.
· Terry Gilliam on Heath Ledger's death and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus [Times Online via The Playlist]
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Comments
Hypocrisy in Hollywood? Stunned.
Dudes, it's called irony. Look it up.
The key point here is Gilliam's "We're gonna get as many awards for him as we can... long after he's gone." Look at the quote in the para above it re. the Dark Knight win: "Wouldn't it have been nice if they'd noticed earlier?"
Gilliam hasn't changed his position one iota. He found and finds the use of Ledger's death to shill for awards morally abhorrent, and he's right. You seriously think he's saying "maybe we'll get another award for Heath" in full sincerity? That's loathing, folks. Back it up and look again.
Oh man it's been almost a year since he passed away. It makes me so sad 🙁 He was such a great actor, I especially loved 'I'm not there' !