For years the word was going around that Terry Gilliam was preparing to film an adaptation of the famous Spanish novel Don Quixote. But after 10 years of preparations, it seemed Gilliam became his own version of the fictional protagonist—a man jousting at windmills for an idea that would never come to fruition. Moviemakers Louis Pepe and Keith Fulton caught it all on tape and released their documentary, Lost in La Mancha, in New York and Los Angeles on this day in 2003. The movie begins eight weeks before shooting commences on Gilliam’s film and follows the production through difficulties with language barriers, flash floods, illness and the aftermath of trying to get Gilliam’s vision back on track. Unfortunately, neither the fictional story nor the reality version ever saw wide release in the United States.
Moviemaker Quotable: “The reality of filmmaking—and this is probably the most important thing we learned from watching Terry—is that it’s an incredibly fragile process. No matter where you are in your career as a filmmaker, it will always be a balancing act between art and commerce, between your artistic aspirations and the grim reality of available resources.†(Keith Fulton, MovieMaker Magazine, Hands On Pages Issue #19)
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