Gilliam's Lost in La Mancha

[colwood]

With the limited release of Lost in La Mancha, it got me thinking. Orson's love and struggle to get Don Quixote filmed is well documented. The new Lost in La Mancha film documents another filmaker's attempt to film this story that he so loved.

My question, has any filmaker had success in completing and releasing a good, english-language, theatrical version of Don Quixote?

(I haven't seen the Gilliam doc yet but hope to the next time I get into NY.)

[colwood]

I was able to get into NY today and had a chance to see the documentary Lost in La Mancha. For anyone who is not familiar with it, it chronicles the end of director Terry Gilliam's ten-year quest to make a film of Don Quixote.

First and foremost, as I suspected it might, it included some (less than a minute probably) footage of Welles' unfinished version. It noted Welles' two decade quest to get the film done. It's similar to the brief recount of Welles' Heart of Darkness adaptation at the beginning of the doc Hearts of Darkness. And like the Apocalypse Now-documentary, Lost in La Mancha is a very insightful documentary. It would be extremely funny if it wasn't so tragic.

Gilliam has always been a visionary, his battles with Hollywood are well known (particularly the fiasco surrounding the Adventures of Baron Munchousen). It was his vision, begun in 1990, to bring to the big screen an adaptation of Don Quixote. As it would be too big a gamble for Hollywood, not that they were chomping at the bit to finance it, the film became the most expensive film to ever be financed solely with European capital. Yet the final budget was estimated to be only half of what Gilliam believed he needed.

Gilliam's story was about a modern-day advertising exec, played by Johnny Depp, who finds himself transported back to the time of Don Quixote in 17th century Spain. They meet when the Don rescues him, believing that Depp is Sancho Panza.

The production basically proved Murphy's Law, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Maybe filming Don Quixote is like putting on Macbeth in the theatre; the productions seem to be cursed. I could relay the whole story, but I think it is something that has to be seen to literally be believed. As I said before, it would be one of the funniest films I've ever seen if it was so disheartening.

It is to my sadness that Orson Welles never got to finish his version of Don Quixote and is no longer with us to have that chance. It is to my sadness that Terry Gilliam did not get to finish his version of Don Quixote. With the footage that he was able to get done, and was shown in this doc, I hope he gets the chance one day.

I haven't seen the Jess Franco cut of Welles' Quixote to compare yet, but I think you all would like the film and I hope you go see it if it's playing near you.

[TheMcGuffin]

Once I heard about this documentary I really wanted to see it, just for the simple reaseon that both Gilliam and Welles both covered the same topic of Don Quixote and neither finished it. Also the fact that i see alot of Welles in Gilliam. I have not done enough reading on Gilliam to know if it is a valid statement or not, but I some how watch the Trial and feel that that film in particular influenced alot of his work. The fact that they are both maverick filmmakers and have had clashes with studio heads and constant budget problems puts alot in common with the two. One of these days weekends i am going to drive into LA and catch a screening of it.

As for the Welles version of Quixote...there are some good and some bad things about it (a lot would say more bad than good). Its good to see more Welles work out there in any kind of form (no thanks to beatrice at all). But the film is in such rough form, voices of actors are constantly changeing from incomplete dubbing. I have gone through about half of it, it was pretty painful thus far but definalty try and track a copy down.

Rob

[Mr Clay]

Am tempted to order the Don Quixote DVD from DVDGO in Spain - I purchased Sueva Film's edition of Chimes at Midnight from them, which is magnificent BTW - but have heard so many bad things about it, especially picture quality (let alone dubbing and sound) I wonder if it's really worth it?
But has anyone seen the Costa-Gravas 40 minute edit I've read about? Surely this is a better job than Jesse Franco's?

[jaime marzol]

....................

you are not going to find a don q with good dubbing. it's just one of those things that you get used to when you are a welles fan. it makes you tough. i watch a film with a friend, he's all upset about the dubbing, i'm unfazed, i can handle any dubbing, i'm a welles fan.

i have the franco don q, looks kind of odd. i have a much earlier version of don q (about 200 generations down) that franco edited, and i'm almost sure it's not the same edit as the later franco don q i just got a few months ago.

i need to put the 2 side by side and watch them but have not done so yet. but i will, i will.

[TheMcGuffin]

Jaime...Well put about the dubbing!! I am studying post world war cinema and a characteristic of all the new wave trends from Itally to France to Germany is post-dubbing and i barely notice it at all. Though Don Quixote did push it for me. The biggest problem aside from the actor voices changing every 5 mins is the fact that there is very little abient sound. That makes the change in actor voices much more drastic and tends to bring attention to the bad foley work done on it as well.

rob

[jaime marzol]

................

foley work on don q? i think franco used the foley budget for hookers.

yeah, italian, and french films really push the ticket in the dubbing department, as bad as the japanese godzilla movies. those steve reeves HERCULES movies are unreal in how bad they are dubbed. you have the actor in a wide shot, out in the open, and the dubbing actor you can hear is in a 5 x 5 room, with his mouth eating the mic. it's really funny.

but look at the incredible job of dubbing that was done on AMBERSONS. welles insisting that when the actors dubbed exterior scenes do it up on the roof of the studio.

only european directors that come to mind that got around the dubbing problem were leone, and felini. and leone didn't always get around the dubbing problem, but he did a hell of a job on THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY.

[TheMcGuffin]

I finally caught a screening of Lost in La Mancha while i was home for the weekend in San Francisco and I do have to say it is a very interesting documentary. Its actually rather depressing as you see Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote crumble right before your eyes. Mention is made as well as footage being shown of OW DQ, which was rather interesting. The footage is identical to the DQ DVD. I was very facinated by the movie and very depressed at the same time as freaks of nature and massive amounts of bad luck caused the movie to slip through Gilliam's hands. He had been trying to make the film for over 10 years. This drew many parallels in my mind in that this is what OW must have gone through and felt with his many stalled and "almost attempted" films.

Definatly catch a screening of this film if you get a chance!

Rob

[Jaime N. Christley]

Jonathan Rosenbaum's review of the Gilliam/Don Quixote doc is pretty interesting, and makes some provocative points (including: "I've also seen a couple hours of Welles's unfinished The Other Side of the Wind and The Deep, and I regard his Quixote material as superior in most respects and as one of the greatest achievements in his career.")

http://www.chireader.com/movies/archives/2003/0203/030221.html

[Jeff Wilson]

Rosenbaum makes the very important point that Welles could have finished his Quixote if he had chosen to do so, but he simply didn't. It's an important distinction to make in comparison to Gilliam's nightmares documented in the movie. It will likely never happen, but it would be nice to see all the Quixote footage presented in some kind of fashion, without Franco's scummy fingerprints all over it.

[jaime marzol]

in her article about don q, welles' assistant, i think her name is dorthy stainton? she alludes to the same thing, that welles could have finished don q, but he didn't want to. it was like a favorite son that he didn't want to hold up for public ridicule.

just goes to show you how vicious the press was to welles, so many awfull things were written about his work, that it made him gun shy to release don q. he was just content to sit in the cutting room and have a blast recutting over and over. some of this is also in ROSABELLA.

[Terry]

I don't recognize the clips - Quijote or Around the World outtakes, perhaps?

That sure looks to me like Welles' camerawork...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VJEOO_xyPgc

[Roger Ryan]

Hmm, isn't this some of the footage from "In The Land Of Don Quixote" that Welles shot in the early 60s that found its way into Franco's "Don Quixote de Orson Welles"?

That shot showing Welles himself appears to be late 50s/early 60s vintage (definitely later than the "Around The World" projects).

[mido505]

Perhaps footage from NELLA TERRA DI DON CHIOTTE/IN THE LAND OF DON QUIXOTE, a documentary that Welles shot in Spain for Italian television. According to Jonathan Rosenbaum, Jess Franco padded out his DQ edit with stuff from that doc. That's a very odd shot of Welles near the end of the clip!

[Terry]

That's probably it.

Though from what I saw of the series, it should have been called Baby Beatrice in the Land of Don Quixote

Though she was a doll at the time, so I can't blame Papa Orson for including so much of her