Lost in La Mancha
#25 in my 50 Movie Challenge for 2005. You knew this was coming, didn’t you? To finish my Don Quixote related media, I watched Lost in La Mancha, the documentary of Terry Gilliam’s failed attempt to bring DQ to film. Much was made of the fear of this turning into The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, a costly Gilliam flop. The documentary details the painful deterioration of the film due to an accumulation of almost unbelievable bad fortune. The production is plagued by bad weather, absent actors, military maneuvers, an ill lead actor and more. What I found most interesting was that Gilliam did not intend to film a straight adaptation. His film was to be called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Johnny Depp, sporting a thick mane of dark, wavy hair with a blond streak, was cast as a modern ad agency guy who is transported back in time, and mistaken by DQ for his squire. I was surprised to hear Gilliam has an American accent. I thought he was English because of all the work he’s done with Monty Python, and was chagrined to learn at the IMDB that he’s from my neck of the woods, Minneapolis.
May 26th, 2005 at 11:29 pm
Hey, I LOVED “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen!” It’s a terribly underrated movie, in my humble opinion. But yes, it made like 1/100th of what that month’s biggest film was. Probably “Sea of Love” or something medium-okay like that.