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Director Terry Gilliam watches his crew in Lost in La
Mancha, a film about his aborted Don Quixote movie.
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The most honest words in a movie this year belong to filmmaker Terry Gilliam, spoken midway into directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's movie-about-a-movie documentary Lost in La Mancha.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" Gilliam yells in frustration. "We are so fucked. Fuck!"
It's fall 2000, and Gilliam is cursing about the latest mishaps surrounding his production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The film is an adaptation of the Cervantes epic, this time telling the story of a modern-day ad executive (played by Johnny Depp) who travels back to 17th-century Spain where the legendary Don Quixote (veteran French actor Jean Rochefort) mistakes the ad exec for his sidekick, Sancho.
Gilliam created 12 Monkeys, The Fisher King and Brazil, a film he fought to have released in its original length, but lately he's better known as a director unable to see his projects through their completion. Recently, his adaptation of the cult comic book, Watchmen, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's apocalyptic thriller Good Omens; Tideland, a variation on the Wizard of Oz; and Scaramouche, a sword-clattering romp based on Rafael Sabatini's adventure novel, have all been derailed for one reason or another.
The two key witnesses to the Quixote train wreck are aspiring feature filmmakers Fulton and Pepe. They previously worked alongside Gilliam on The Hamster Factor, a documentary short about the making of Twelve Monkeys. So they were naturals to sign on as the documentary crew responsible for filming the Quixote production. The twisty result is that Lost in La Mancha, easily one of the best of movies of the year, is about a movie that was never finished.
It's an early weekday morning at the beginning of the 2002 Toronto Film Festival, and Fulton and Pepe are buoyant over the enthusiastic audience response to Lost in La Mancha. By the film's closing credits, it's clear that they have captured every disaster experienced by Gilliam. There are noisy Spanish soundstages, absentee actresses, Rochefort's slipped double hernia and a torrential rainstorm that washes away production equipment. Over coffee, at one of the festival hotels, Fulton and Pepe admit they feel embarrassed about recording Gilliam's setbacks. But they rest easy knowing that Gilliam has watched the film and congratulated them for their honest portrayal of a difficult time.
"There was definitely a feeling of journalistic guilt," Fulton says. "We had moments of doubt. We asked Terry, 'Are you comfortable with this?' and he said, 'I may not get a film out of this so you better.' "
Someone who watches Lost in La Mancha might think that Gilliam's career is littered with disasters. The truth, he says, is the exact opposite.
"No matter what I do and no matter how many films I make under budget, they (Hollywood producers) all point to Baron Munchausen," Gilliam says. "Hollywood desperately needs to cling to a version of things. Munchausen, in a sense, is a follow up to the Brazil story. In Brazil you fuck the system and win. You do Munchausen, and you go over the budget and things go out of control.
"But all of my films come in under budget or on budget except for one film -- Munchausen."
There are a handful of excellent non-fiction movies about movies, but few stand on their own like Lost in La Mancha. Les Blank's Burden of Dreams recounts the operatic travails of director Werner Herzog during the making of his South American epic, Fitzcarraldo. The two films complement each other perfectly. Fax Bahr and Eleanor Coppola made the behind-the-scenes film Hearts of Darkness to show the Francis Ford Coppola's extraordinary efforts to make the epic Vietnam War drama, Apocalypse Now. By comparison, Lost in La Mancha has zilch, no finished movie by Gilliam to use as comparison. Fulton and Pepe's film stands alone as a testament to Gilliam's efforts.
Gilliam is good-natured talking about Quixote, easily the greatest failure of his career. He's open about all the mistakes and missteps. The only question Gilliam fails to answer is the one thing everyone wants to know: When are you going to make your next movie?
"I could work nonstop if I just did the scripts that were sent to me," Gilliam says between sips of coffee. "I'm constantly given scripts. It's bizarre. They're expensive, and they're not very good. I send my things, which are less expensive, and they're not made. It's my own perverseness. I don't want to do them. I think: Didn't I just read this?" Gilliam pauses for a moment before erupting in laughter. "I think the job of a good director is to make the executives comfortable, which is something I do not want to do."
Lost in La Mancha was an independent hit in early 2003, playing festivals and art-house cinemas. It looks to reach more audiences this summer via a two-disc DVD release brimming with extra features such as costume designs, storyboards and production stills from the aborted Quixote production. These "making-of" segments give the video release of Lost in La Mancha an added sense of loss that was missing from its theatrical version. Watching the DVD, you feel saddened that Gilliam never finished the movie.
Their collaboration with Gilliam may not have been under the best of circumstances, but the result has been inspiring. Fulton and Pepe aim for their own dramatic stories.
Gilliam began production in late June on his latest movie, an adventure based on the lives of The Brothers Grimm. The movie, starring Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as the famous storytelling brothers, is scheduled to open in theaters in early 2004. For the time being, it looks like his losing streak is over. Then again, with Gilliam, you never know what might happen.
Gilliam's first attempt at making Quixote was a disaster. Yet, he wants to try again. He remains committed to Quixote. Ironically, the movie about his non-movie, Lost in La Mancha, is the one Quixote film that has seen the light of day, proof that the Quixote curse is heresy, at least to a point. ©
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