15 Movies That Say More About Their Makers Than They Realise

4. The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus - Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam is infamous for working within huge restrictions on more or less every film he's made, be they budget, casting or editing-related, but he's never been bound by his own imagination at the very least. While his tendency to devise incredibly striking and creative dream or fantasy sequences has cropped up in most of his films, the one in which Gilliam's own personality is most reflected is perhaps The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, Heath Ledger's final film which features that actor as a con man and Christopher Plummer as the titular Doctor, a mystical old man who holds the key to countless fantastical worlds in his head. It's Parnassus who draws the comparisons with Gilliam, as he is initially presented as a doddering old codger (the director has always been self-effacing) who's capable of much more than people give him credit for (much like Gilliam in the face of bean-counting Hollywood executives who couldn't possibly trust such a volatile man with such large sums of money). The comparison might also extend to Terry Gilliam's sense of grandeur, as Parnassus is in an eternal battle with Tom Waits' devil for the soul of his daughter - but the inimitable auteur likely doesn't think his movies are soul-saving, we'd wager. Life-changing, perhaps...