Title: Lost in La Mancha
Release Date: 2003-01-31
Genres: Documentary, Television, Musical & Performing Arts
High essence:
"A horse, Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort and Terry Gilliam in Lost in La Mancha , embarking on the quixotic quest of finding a Pea Soup Andersen's restaurant in the Spanish desert.""While Gilliam struggled to hold his movie together, actor Rochefort came down with a horrible prostate infection, which escalated into a pair of herniated discs."
"All of them, however, have a completed picture attached: the battles they depict ended more or less successfully, and in the most noted examples (such as Hearts of Darkness or Under Pressure: The Making of the Abyss ) actually achieved something memorable."
"French star John Rochefort, cast as the windmill-tilting Don Quixote, finally arrived."
"Who was the person who had to make sure that there were no planes flying overhead?"
"Even so, Gilliam's Quixote would have been the most expensive film ever financed without Hollywood money."
"In Lost in La Mancha , we see Terry Gilliam doing the same thing, as he tries to film his vesion of the story in Spain in September 2000."
Medium essence:
Mark Halverson:- In the summer of 2000, they were also on location in Spain with cameras in hand to witness the final eight weeks of pre-production and the principal shoot of Gilliam's decade-long effort to turn his feverish Quixote dream into reality.
- A horse, Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort and Terry Gilliam in Lost in La Mancha , embarking on the quixotic quest of finding a Pea Soup Andersen's restaurant in the Spanish desert.
- Filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe chronicled the rocky marriage of art and commerce on the set of Gilliam's 12 Monkeys in the 1995 documentary The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys .
Bill Gallo:
- As we see in Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's fascinating but often indulgent documentary Lost in La Mancha , Gilliam's dream project, a characteristically bizarre new take on the most famous dreamer in the history of literature, seems to have been doomed from the start.
- While Gilliam struggled to hold his movie together, actor Rochefort came down with a horrible prostate infection, which escalated into a pair of herniated discs.
- Here's an interesting sidelight: For more than 20 years, narrator Jeff Bridges tells us, Orson Welles dreamed of making a Don Quixote of his own.
Rob Vaux:
- Fulton and Pepe benefit immeasurably from the access they received during the disaster, allowing them to recount all of the hows and whys as The Man Who Killed Don Quixote comes apart.
- We can see Depp starting to get his mojo on, Rochefort's pitch perfect embodiment of Quixote, and Gilliam gazing wistfully as the images from his mind start to take physical form.
- All of them, however, have a completed picture attached: the battles they depict ended more or less successfully, and in the most noted examples (such as Hearts of Darkness or Under Pressure: The Making of the Abyss ) actually achieved something memorable.
Betty Jo Tucker:
- French star John Rochefort, cast as the windmill-tilting Don Quixote, finally arrived.
- But then came the flash floods, the creative squabbles, the insurance/financial snags, and Rochefort's illness.
- Gilliam, of Brazil and Monty Python fame, makes a wonderful subject as he and his crew struggle with overwhelming obstacles like torrential rains, airplane noise, and the illness of a key star.
JoBlo:
- Who was the person who had to make sure that there were no planes flying overhead?
- In other words, this documentary goes a long way in providing us with an entertaining 90 minutes of a production gone terribly awry, but not so much in terms of the persons responsible for it and ways to avoid it in the future (maybe some sit-down interviews with all of the responsibles afterwards might've worked?
- The film is fun to watch though with some of my favorite scenes including the one in which director Gilliam puts his balls on the chopping block and essentially threatens to quit if the producers fire his right-hand man as they seemed to be suggesting, as well as the one in which Johnny Depp is talking to a fish.
Jeffrey M. Anderson:
- That's really all that happens in Lost in La Mancha besides a few production meetings and Gilliam playing with his props and costumes.
- Even so, Gilliam's Quixote would have been the most expensive film ever financed without Hollywood money.
- Despite the ramshackle production, the small bits of finished footage hint at a grand and bizarre film.
:
- They arrive very late in pre-production, which creates problems for various departments, and these get worse once shooting starts.
- Torrential rain washing out their location in the desert north of Madrid is God's little trick, but having no interiors to shoot during bad weather is not His fault.
- In Lost in La Mancha , we see Terry Gilliam doing the same thing, as he tries to film his vesion of the story in Spain in September 2000.
Low essence:
Mark Halverson:- In the summer of 2000, they were also on location in Spain with cameras in hand to witness the final eight weeks of pre-production and the principal shoot of Gilliam's decade-long effort to turn his feverish Quixote dream into reality.
- The critical and financial failure of 1988's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Gilliam's bitter war with studio brass to release an uncut version of Brazil are now legendary.
- The adman is transported into 17th-century Spain and is mistaken by the deluded Don for his fat, short, donkey-riding sidekick, Sancho Panza.
- With Depp's flame, Vanessa Paradis, on board as the fair maiden and with Jean Rochefort picture-perfect as the mustachioed Knight of the Sad Countenance, the project seemed to be properly on course.
- First assistant director Phil Patterson becomes a central force of daily progress (and nearly a scapegoat) on the film, and interviews with the crew and a narration from Jeff Bridges keep the documentary flowing at a brisk clip.
- A horse, Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort and Terry Gilliam in Lost in La Mancha , embarking on the quixotic quest of finding a Pea Soup Andersen's restaurant in the Spanish desert.
- Filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe chronicled the rocky marriage of art and commerce on the set of Gilliam's 12 Monkeys in the 1995 documentary The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys .
Bill Gallo:
- As we see in Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's fascinating but often indulgent documentary Lost in La Mancha , Gilliam's dream project, a characteristically bizarre new take on the most famous dreamer in the history of literature, seems to have been doomed from the start.
- American fighter jets screamed over the film's not-so-remote locations, ruining the sound recording.
- While Gilliam struggled to hold his movie together, actor Rochefort came down with a horrible prostate infection, which escalated into a pair of herniated discs.
- The filmmaker set out for Madrid in August 2000 armed with an elaborate script, a pile of beautifully drawn storyboards and the firm resolve to shoot The Man Who Killed Don Quixote no matter what it took.
- Here's an interesting sidelight: For more than 20 years, narrator Jeff Bridges tells us, Orson Welles dreamed of making a Don Quixote of his own.
- But as irony would have it, Cervantes himself might have created him.
- Upon arrival in Spain, Gilliam learned that his European backers had reduced the film's budget from $40 million to $32 million.
Rob Vaux:
- Fulton and Pepe, who followed Gilliam during his filming of Twelve Monkeys were granted wide access to this new production.
- Quickly thereafter, a freak monsoon -- like the hand of God Himself -- washes most of the set away and renders the entire location unusable.
- After six days of shooting, the dream project is abandoned, and the ominous question arises as to who gets stuck with the check.
- Fulton and Pepe benefit immeasurably from the access they received during the disaster, allowing them to recount all of the hows and whys as The Man Who Killed Don Quixote comes apart.
- We can see Depp starting to get his mojo on, Rochefort's pitch perfect embodiment of Quixote, and Gilliam gazing wistfully as the images from his mind start to take physical form.
- Numerous documentaries have covered such struggles, many of which now appear as extras on the pertinent DVDs.
- All of them, however, have a completed picture attached: the battles they depict ended more or less successfully, and in the most noted examples (such as Hearts of Darkness or Under Pressure: The Making of the Abyss ) actually achieved something memorable.
Betty Jo Tucker:
- After viewing this film at its Telluride premier, I told Gilliam how sorry I was about all his troubles.
- Terry Gilliam, who faced a series of disasters while filming his ambitious screen version of Don Quixote , gave two young moviemakers permission to chronicle his failed project.
- French star John Rochefort, cast as the windmill-tilting Don Quixote, finally arrived.
- But then came the flash floods, the creative squabbles, the insurance/financial snags, and Rochefort's illness.
- Through their extraordinary efforts, Lost in La Mancha emerges as an amazing portrait of the creative spirit with all its frustrations and challenges.
- Gilliam, of Brazil and Monty Python fame, makes a wonderful subject as he and his crew struggle with overwhelming obstacles like torrential rains, airplane noise, and the illness of a key star.
JoBlo:
- Unfortunately for them, a string of bad luck also hits them on every single day of the production, including a soundstage that doesn't provide for the proper acoustics, noisy military jets flying over their outdoor shots, a storm/flood that washes away some of their equipment, a lead actor who is rushed to the hospital and suddenly cannot film anymore, horses that won't cooperate and much more.
- Basically, it's every director's worst nightmare come alive and as a major movie buff, it was fascinating experience to watch, especially in terms of the actual production details, the behind-the-sce d-bus featuring the ultra-super-cool, Johnny Depp.
- Who was the person who had to make sure that there were no planes flying overhead?
- In other words, this documentary goes a long way in providing us with an entertaining 90 minutes of a production gone terribly awry, but not so much in terms of the persons responsible for it and ways to avoid it in the future (maybe some sit-down interviews with all of the responsibles afterwards might've worked?
- The film is fun to watch though with some of my favorite scenes including the one in which director Gilliam puts his balls on the chopping block and essentially threatens to quit if the producers fire his right-hand man as they seemed to be suggesting, as well as the one in which Johnny Depp is talking to a fish.
- Unfortunately for us, it doesn't appear as though there were enough karmic guides around the man this time around, so that he could channel his love of chaos into a completed motion picture.
- As most of us already know by watching any of the extras on a dvd nowadays, the process is almost always a lot more elaborate than you might suspect, but in the case of this project, it seems as though no one, including the gung-ho director himself, knew what they were getting themselves into.
Jeffrey M. Anderson:
- Now we have Lost in La Mancha , a documentary chronicling the ill-fated production of a new version of Don Quixote , this time by maverick director Terry Gilliam ( Brazil , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ).
- Rochefort had spent the previous 7 months learning English (and a Spanish accent) for the part.
- That's really all that happens in Lost in La Mancha besides a few production meetings and Gilliam playing with his props and costumes.
- Even so, Gilliam's Quixote would have been the most expensive film ever financed without Hollywood money.
- Despite the ramshackle production, the small bits of finished footage hint at a grand and bizarre film.
- His extraordinary (and very expensive) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was met by indifference when it was released in 1989, and it flopped.
:
- They arrive very late in pre-production, which creates problems for various departments, and these get worse once shooting starts.
- Torrential rain washing out their location in the desert north of Madrid is God's little trick, but having no interiors to shoot during bad weather is not His fault.
- In Lost in La Mancha , we see Terry Gilliam doing the same thing, as he tries to film his vesion of the story in Spain in September 2000.
Source:
http://www.reeltalkreviews.com/browse/viewitem.asp?type=review&id=381
http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2003-03-06/film.html/1/index.html
http://www.flipsidearchive.com/lostinlamancha.html
http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/2003/lostlamancha.shtml
http://www.joblo.com/reviews.php?mode=joblo_movies&id=267
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=14259