Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote finally opens across Europe
Jochen Kürten sb
September 27, 2018
Terry Gilliam endured three decades of "ups and downs" to realize his dream adaptation of Cervantes' Don Quixote. Following its Cannes debut, the film that couldn't be made is finally hitting cinemas across Europe.
Image: Diego Lopez Calvin/Tornasol Films/Carisco Producciones
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Don Quixote and the top cursed film projects
Film history lists plenty of movie disasters and alleged masterworks by top directors that never or just barely made it to the screen. Never finished or never shown, here are 10 famous mad movie projects.
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Colle/20thCentFox
Completed after 17 years: 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote'
Filming on Terry Gilliam's legendary Don Quixote project started in 2000, only to be postponed and interrupted several times for various reasons. The 2002 documentary "Lost in La Mancha" showed the nightmarish setbacks of the production. Over the years, the actors and even the story changed. It finally premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. But not all cursed projects were completed...
Image: Diego Lopez Calvin/Tornasol Films/Carisco Producciones
Never shot: Kubrick's 'Napoleon'
Stanley Kubrick's had extremely elaborate plans for his Napoleon Bonaparte epic, but the project failed, even though the screenplay and costumes were all ready. A dissuading factor for producers was the financial flop faced by Sergei Bondartschuk's mega production, Waterloo. Kubrick's preparations weren't entirely in vain: Some material was used in his 1975 work, "Barry Lyndon."
Image: Taschen
Out of luck: Eisenstein's Mexico films
In the early 1930s, famous director Sergei M. Eisenstein planned but failed to shoot a work titled "Que viva Mexico!" in Hollywood. A second venture, a film about Mexican history, failed as well. The material that was actually filmed has been used in various documentaries.
Image: Icestorm
Incomplete projects galore: Orson Welles
Orson Welles is perhaps the master of incomplete films. His classic works are actually outnumbered by projects that were never finished, the most well-known being "The Other Side of the Wind." Welles started shooting it in the 1980s but died before filming ended. Netflix has meanwhile restored and completed the unfinished film, which premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival.
When filming started in 1962, no one knew this was going to be Marilyn Monroe's last movie. Director George Cukor's "Something's Got to Give" was star-crossed from the start because Monroe repeatedly dropped out. Lee Remick was to replace her, only to be vetoed by lead actor Dean Martin. A later documentary shows 37 minutes of the unfinished film.
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Colle/20thCentFox
Experiment with colors: 'Hell'
Iconic German actress Romy Schneider was cast to star in another famous unfinished film, Henri-Georges Clouzot's "L'Enfer" ("Hell," from 1964). The production turned into a nightmare, including because Clouzot had a heart attack. The director later used some sensational color shots of Romy Schneider in his last movie, and a documentary exploring why "Hell" was never completed came out in 2009.
Image: Kinowelt
Crying clowns: Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis' "The Day the Clown Cried" is one of the most mysterious film projects in film history, aiming to tell a story from Nazi Germany using humorous means. The American comedian directed and starred in the 1972 drama. It was completed, but never screened publicly due to legal problems and Lewis' displeasure with the outcome.
Image: STF/AFP/Getty Images
Megalomania: Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola also worked on various projects that never progressed. Among them, he turned to "Megalopolis" in 1984, but the 200-page script about an architect and a mayor quarreling about the future of New York City between was never turned into a movie.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/L. Rebours
A dream not come true: Leone's 'Leningrad'
In the 1980s, Italian director Sergio Leone, himself no stranger to epic movies (above, on set filming "Once upon a time in America"), wanted to make a film about the grueling German siege of Leningrad in World War II. The film was never realized, as the director died in 1989 at the age of 60.
Even the "master of suspense" Alfred Hitchcock couldn't realize all of his projects and ideas. In the late 1950s, he planned to film "No Bail for the Judge," starring Audrey Hepburn, a film about a judge charged with murdering a prostitute. But there were problems, the lead actress withdrew — and Hitchcock moved on to other projects.
Image: Imago/Granata Images
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By far the most exciting thing about the film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which opens today in theaters across Germany and different European countries, is its epic production history that began in 1989. But Terry Gilliam's film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is ultimately a disappointment — at least artistically.
After 29 years of development, endless shoots, prolonged interruptions, completely new casts, and fall outs with various producers, the film is, however, finally hitting the big screen. That's the good news.
Orson Welles also started on his adaptation of Don Quixote — but it was never completedImage: picture alliance/Mary Evans Picture Library
Daring to dream
Gilliam's decades-long journey to make a film that was doomed to never make it to the cinema was already immortalized in Lost in La Mancha, a 2002 documentary that poked fun at the director's failing attempt to get his pet project off the ground. But 16 years later, it can be said that the documentary's directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe spoke too soon, with the revered director of Brazil and 12 Monkeys doggedly completing the film he always believed would be made.
"I just kept going on and on," he told the Guardian before its Cannes premiere in May. "I've never been able to explain why I was so determined, obsessed to make it. After a point I realized that if you're going to do Quixote you've got to become Quixote. You've got to have ups and downs."
Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), circa 1600. 'Don Quixote' is considered his greatest work and was published in 1605 and 1615 Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The British-American writer, actor, animator and director who rose to fame with the Monty Python troupe in the 1970s had long had a dream to bring the great 17th century adventure novel, Don Quixote, to celluloid. In the year 2000, financing had been approved and filming began. But soon the budget ran out. Moreover, lead actor Jean Rochefort fell seriously ill. The project had to be stopped.
Disasters, dramas and financing problems
Gilliam's struggles to realize his passion project, which also featured then-star Johnny Depp, were soon laid bare in the docudrama Lost in La Mancha. But Gilliam didn't give up. A few years later he made another attempt, now with new cast members Robert Duvall and Ewan McGregor. But again the filming was abandoned, largely because the locations were devastated by storms.
But two years ago, and after eight failed attempts, Gilliam managed to shoot the whole film. Again there were new actors, and this time a completely reworked story and new producer — with whom Gilliam again fell out with.
Adam Driver's involvement in the project helped its completionImage: Filmfest München 2018
The final version is the story of a smug advertising director, Toby (Adam Driver), who is is confronted with his past when he is given the chance to direct a high-budget feature about Don Quixote in Spain. Ten years before, Toby was an idealistic young filmmaker who nearby filmed a black-and-white, neorealist version of the story of the sad knight. As the director starts to revisit his former passion project, he himself assumes Don Quixote's alter ego.
A triumph — of sorts
Perhaps the decades of work have simply strained the nerves of all those involved in the project: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote seems overloaded and overambitious with its interlaced narrative construction. The main plot, an attempt to mirror Gilliam's own production failures, hardly grabs the audience — which might explain why the critical reaction in Cannes and at this year's Munich Film Festival was very restrained.
But for all its failures, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is a triumph for simply making it to the big screen.
The Picture Book Landscape of La Mancha
Tourism in the Castilla-La Mancha region thrives off a literary hero – the eccentric Spanish gentleman known as Don Quixote. We take a trip down the “Ruta de Don Quijote” to relive his most famous tales and adventures.
Image: David Blazquez
Cervantes Monument, Madrid
“The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha” was written by Spanish author, poet and playwright Miguel de Cervantes. He died in Madrid on 23 April 1616 and a monument to him has stood in Plaza de España since 1930. During his adventurous lifetime he was a soldier, tax collector and even a prison inmate. His novel is considered a masterpiece of world literature.
Image: picture-alliance/Arcaid/M. Malherbe
Birthplace and Museum, Alcalá de Henares
Where better to start tracing Don Quixote’s footsteps than the UNESCO World Heritage city of Alcalá. Cast in metal, he and fellow literary hero Sancho Panza sit outside the house where Cervantes was born in 1547 to an impoverished aristocratic family. His exact date of birth is unknown, but it’s thought to be September 29. A trip to the house gives visitors a wonderful taste of his checkered life.
Image: Turespana Berlin
Windmills, Consuegra
The “Ruta de Don Quijote” begins south of Madrid and criss-crosses the La Mancha region. When the 11 windmills of Consuegra appear on the horizon, you know you have almost reached the scene of Quixote’s most famous adventure – his battle with the windmills. Visitors can also look around the Sancho Panza mill, which still has the original grinding mechanism from the time of Cervantes.
Image: David Blazquez
The Home of Dulcinea, El Toboso
Don Quixote, down on one knee in the historic center of El Toboso, adoring Dulcinea del Toboso just as he did in the novel. Tradition has it that the woman who provided Cervantes’ inspiration for Dulcinea lived in this dwelling in El Toboso. It now houses a museum about rural life in La Mancha 400 years ago. Visitors can see also see the 200 plus copies of Quixote signed by various famous figures.
Image: Turespana Berlin
Lagunas de Ruidera Natural Park
In the novel, Don Quixote discovers that Merlin the wizard turned Lady Ruidera and her daughters into lagoons. These “Lagunas de Ruidera” are now a UNESCO biosphere reserve in the heart of La Mancha and are considered some of Spain’s most beautiful wetlands, made up of 15 lakes connected by small waterfalls and rivers brimming with fish.
Image: David Blazquez
The Cave of Montesinos, Ossa de Montiel
Spain has around 10,000 caves in total. Some are open to the public and are popular with tourists. The Cave of Montesinos is one of them. In Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote descends into this cave where he has an imaginary encounter with the magician Montesinos and travels through time. Nowadays tourists take literary or geological tours into the depths. At the bottom there is a gushing river.
Image: David Blazquez
Restaurant, Puerto Lápice
The characters in Don Quixote also have to eat and drink, of course. And on the way back to Madrid, tourists can follow in Don Quixote’s footsteps in Puerto Lápice, for example, whose taverns are mentioned by Cervantes. There you can sample simple hearty dishes with lots of vegetables, saffron, accompanied by bread, the world-famous Manchego cheese and a young wine from the region.
Image: David Blazquez
Old Town, Toledo
Cervantes claims to have based the story of Don Quixote on a historical manuscript written by an Arab historian that he found in Toledo. The region’s capital in the north of Castilla-La Mancha was made into a UNESCO world heritage site in 1986. You shouldn’t miss the cathedral, the Mosque Cristo de la Luz and synagogues, like El Tránsito – a legacy of the city’s multicultural past.
