The Curse of Orson Welles - Lost in La Mancha

[Harvey Chartrand]

"Orson Welles tried to make a Don Quixote film for more than 20 years but never managed to complete it, and now his curse seems to have passed on to director Terry Gilliam," says film critic Rich Cline (Shadows on the Wall).
Check the July 26 National Post for a great article about 'Lost in La Mancha', a documentary that chronicles Gilliam's problem-plagued film 'The Man Who Killed Don Quixote', which was eventually shut down by its producers. The film would have starred Jean Rochefort as Quixote and Johnny Depp as Sancho Panza. Gilliam hasn't worked as a director since this debacle in 2000. He is one of the few geniuses left in the film world today and his story is starting to take on Wellesian similarities.

[Jeff Wilson]

I've been reading about this documentary for a while on the Terry Gilliam site I visit, and it sounds fascinating. Gilliam could probably get directing jobs, but like Welles, won't kowtow to the studios that want him to churn out standard product instead of his own personal projects. Too bad some of these execs won't take a chance. The guy is a visionary director. He did recently make a couple commercials for Nike's World Cup promotions, which can be viewed on their web site.

Dreams: The Terry Gilliam Fanzine

[Terry]

Just a publicity stunt for Tideland, but I'm sure Welles would have appreciated the sentiment:



Gods, that's just too painful, even for a joke.

[Roger Ryan]

Sorry about reviving this old thread (started 14 years ago with the last post added a decade back) but the long, long saga of Terry Gilliam trying to complete his film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is still going on. The bad news is that a producer who failed to come through with funding last year is suing to stop Gilliam from finishing the film. The good news is that Gilliam is very close to wrapping up the shoot which started in early March of this year. Here's hoping the lawsuit has little impact in the grand scheme.

This all sounds very Wellesian and there's one more connection to Welles that has just been revealed: in April, Gilliam was shooting in the same cathedral in Ávila, Spain where Welles shot some of the exteriors/interiors for Chimes at Midnight. Gilliam always has a great eye for locations, so it's not a complete surprise he would choose one that Welles found appealing, too.

[Terry]

Posted on Gilliam's FB today:

Sorry for the long silence. I've been busy packing the truck and am now heading home. After 17 years, we have completed the shoot of THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE.
Muchas gracias to all the team and believers. QUIXOTE VIVE!

[NoFake]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/movies/terry-gilliam-trailer-the-man-who-killed-don-quixote.html?emc=edit_fm_20180406&nl=movies-update&nlid=2587867320180406&te=1

[Wellesnet]

Report: Terry Gilliam Hospitalized As The Cannes Decision Whether To Debut ‘Quixote’ Looms:
https://theplaylist.net/terry-gilliam-h ... -20180508/

In our latest installment of the soap opera titled “As ‘Don Quixote’ Turns,” we have yet another wrinkle to report about the long-awaited Terry Gilliam film “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.” Yesterday, two parties presented their cases in a courtroom, which will decide whether or not the 25-years-in-the-making film will see its debut as the closing film of the Cannes Film Festival. However, one person didn’t make it to the courtroom – Terry Gilliam.

The man at the center of the production was not in court due to, reportedly, suffering a minor stroke over the weekend. According to the French publication Nice-Matin, Gilliam was supposed to appear in court but was unable to attend. They also report that, even if ‘Don Quixote’ gets the go-ahead to premiere at the prestigious film festival, Gilliam may not be able to make it to France to introduce the film.

Unfortunately, there are conflicting reports about the severity of Gilliam’s health issues. While Nice-Matin reports that Gilliam had a “stroke,” Le Point reports that the director suffered from some “discomfort” this weekend but didn’t elaborate on the exact health issue. We hope that it’s not nearly as bad as Nice-Matin reports, as it would be tragic for Gilliam to not be able to attend the premiere of his biggest passion project.

"The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" loses U.S. distribution(Variety):
http://variety.com/2018/film/news/terry ... 202804132/

Amazon is poised to pull out of distributing Terry Gilliam’s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” in the United States, Variety has confirmed.

The film has been embroiled in an ongoing legal dispute over its ownership. A court decision on whether it can be screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is expected Wednesday.

“The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” has had a tortured production history. Gilliam started shooting the picture in 1998 with Jean Rochefort as Quixote and Johnny Depp playing a marketing executive who is sent back in time. However, shooting stopped after Rochefort became ill and the film was plagued with financial difficulties and insurance problems. Gilliam’s plagued production was the subject of a 2002 documentary “Lost in La Mancha.” The director tried to re-start the film at several different points, with the likes of Robert Duvall, Michael Palin, John Hurt, Ewan McGregor, and Jack O’Connell all getting attached to the production and falling out as delays mounted and funding fell through.

The completed film stars Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, and Stellan Skarsgård. Amazon signed on to distribute the film in 2015. However, Roy Price, the head of the company’s entertainment operations and the man who approved the deal, was ousted last fall in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal. Amazon has been re-examining the types of films it makes and distributes in his absence.

“The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” was recently at the heart of a legal spat between Gilliam and the film’s former producer Paulo Branco. When unveiling Cannes’ official lineup last week, Fremaux spoke about the film’s legal troubles and suggested it could be added to the slate later. “This movie – as well as others – is in a conflict that’s been brought to the courts,” Fremaux said.

Branco will be giving a presser at his company’s booth inside the Cannes’s Marché du Film this afternoon at 3 p.m. to comment on the decision of the High Court of Paris and the expected announcement of Amazon Studios’s withdrawal.

Gilliam has also been battling health issues. He reportedly suffered a minor stroke over the weekend and was hospitalized.
A spokesperson for the director declined to comment on his reported hospitalization but said, “we can confirm that Terry Gilliam is currently at home preparing for his trip to Cannes next week to promote the film."

[Terry]

Gilliam reports he is fine and will be at Cannes to premiere his film.

https://twitter.com/quixotemovie/status ... 3861022726

https://twitter.com/TerryGilliam/status ... 2402299911

[Le Chiffre]

Good to hear. The whole agonizing saga is now getting a second documentary too:
http://www.vulture.com/2018/05/terry-gi ... ntary.html

Terry Gilliam’s near-Sisyphean task of completing The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is about to get its second nonfiction chronicle. Variety reports that the team behind 2002’s Lost in La Mancha is now prepping He Dreamed of Giants, their follow-up documentary about the farcical burden of Gilliam’s pursuit to complete Don Quixote, a movie he started production on in 1997 that will at last see the light of day on the closing night of the Cannes Film Festival, May 19. The filmmakers say Giants will definitely address the many problems the film faced — cast members dying, money repeatedly running out, legal battles — but that their focus will be on the “internal struggle in an artist’s mind” and Gilliam’s state of mind as he inched closer to completion.

[Wellesnet]

First reviews out of Cannes are mixed, with Rotten Tomatoes at 57%. Some are surprisingly harsh, considering what Gilliam has gone through to get the film finished:

"The movie becomes a tiresome succession of unfunny slapstick clashes and dramatic arcs that go nowhere."
-- The Hollywood Reporter

"After countless false starts and dead ends, Terry Gilliam brings his magnum opus to screen — and it's a loud, belligerent, barely coherent mess."
-- Variety

[Terry]

It's got a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, from 7 reviews.

Here's how his films fared over there:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975): 97%
Jabberwocky (1977): 53%
Time Bandits (1981): 91%
Brazil (1985): 98%
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989): 92%
The Fisher King (1991): 83%
Twelve Monkeys (1995): 88%
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998): 49%
The Brothers Grimm (2005): 38%
Tideland (2006): 30%
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009): 64%
The Zero Theorem (2014): 50%
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018): 57%

Average: 68.5%

For fun, how has our friend Mr. Welles done?

Citizen Kane (1941): 100%
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942): 91%
The Stranger (1946): 96%
The Lady from Shanghai (1948): 86%
Macbeth (1948): 88%
Othello (1951): 92%
Mr. Arkadin (1955): 83%
Touch of Evil (1958): 96%
The Trial (1962): 90%
Chimes at Midnight (1965): 97%
The Immortal Story (1968): 92%
F for Fake (1973): 88%

Average: 91.6%

[Wich2]

First reviews out of Cannes are mixed, with Rotten Tomatoes at 57%. Some are surprisingly harsh, considering what Gilliam has gone through to get the film finished

I hear that, and sympathize. But...

As a great film teacher of mine at NYU, Haig Manoogian (Scorcese's mentor) used to tell us:

"The audience doesn't owe you anything. It doesn't matter how much it rained during your shoot, or how many of your sick actors dropped out, or how part of your negative was damaged. The final film works, or it doesn't."

[Terry]

Village Voice is entertained:

"The Man Who Killed Don Quixote bears the hallmarks of this director at his broadest, nuttiest, and most extreme, with unhinged performances, overt symbolism, and a cacophonous story that has the logic of a thousand dreams happening simultaneously. It is an uncompromising work that will make many viewers frustrated and even furious.

I adored pretty much every single glorious, gorgeous goddamn minute of it."

https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/05/19 ... e-madness/

[Roger Ryan]

If Quixote ranks above Jabberwocky, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas,The Brothers Grimm, Tideland, and The Zero Theorem then it should be fine by me. Arguably, these are Gilliam's weaker movies, but only Jabberwocky (his first as solo director) and Grimm (an attempt to transform a mainstream commercial film into something else) are ones I have trouble being enthused about. Fear & Loathing takes an unfilmable source and conjures up several sequences (and performances) of brilliance even if the whole doesn't hold together. Tideland and The Zero Theorem are small gems where Gilliam is at his most melancholy; his whimsy just barely cuts through the sadness, but the films gain considerably on repeat viewings.

[Terry]

Sounds like we read Gilliam the same way, Roger. Quixote today has a 64% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 83% audience score. I'm intrigued to see where it goes from here, and to see the film of course.