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Lost in La Mancha
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Lost in La Mancha (2002) is a documentary movie narrated by Jeff Bridges about Terry Gilliam's failed attempt to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a movie adaptation of the novel Don Quixote. Lost in La Mancha presents Gilliam's quest to make this movie as eerily similar to Quixote's quest to become a hero.
Finding the source material by Cervantes too vast, Gilliam and his cowriter decided to create their own version of the Quixote story, including a major change inspired by A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The character of Sancho Panza would appear only very early in the film, to be replaced by Toby Grisoni, a twenty-first century marketing executive thrown back through time, whom Quixote mistakes for Panza.
Terry Gilliam was very excited to make this movie, since Don Quixote embodies many of the themes that run through his own work (such as the individual versus society, the concept of sanity, etc.). The entire movie would have been filmed in Spain and throughout Europe.
Jean Rochefort was picked to play Don Quixote, in preparation for which he spent seven months learning English. Toby was to be played by
Johnny Depp, and
Vanessa Paradis would have been his love interest.
Lost in La Mancha tells the story of the film's very delicate schedule and budget, which completely unraveled once production began. On the first day of shooting, the crew discovered that their outdoor filming location was plagued by nearly constant noise from a nearby NATO aircraft target practice area. Gilliam decided to continue capturing footage, expecting to replace the audio in post-production. The second day of shooting featured a flash flood and hail which damaged equipment, and permanently changed the appearance of the location, where some shots had not yet been completed.
Days later, it became clear that Rochefort was injured, and within a week Gilliam learned that Rochefort had a herniated disc[1] and would be unable to continue filming. This ended production completely, and resulted in a record $15 million insurance claim. The insurance company currently owns the script to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.
The
Lost in La Mancha filmmakers,
Keith Fulton and
Louis Pepe, previously made a documentary about Gilliam's film
Twelve Monkeys, titled
The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys, and were strongly supported by Gilliam throughout their filming.
Footnotes
