Don Quixote

Don Quixotte is the first modern novel. It is also a much appreciated source of cinematic adaptation. Two giants of cinema tried and failed.
First, Orson Welles who is, obviously, a specialist of butchered, unfinished, films. The Magnificient Ambersons reedited by RKO, Touch of Evil, changed and reshot partially by Universal, the alleged original intended version of which is restored differently from one home video release to the next, etc., the mirror sequence in The Lady from Shanghai with an unapproved music track, etc. Frustrations suffered by Orson Welles about his films were constant, and probably largely due to his personality and attitude towards studios.


In his interview for TCM, Charlton Heston talked about filming Touch of Evil and said Orson Welles left abroad before post-production when he had been accepted as a director only because Heston suggested him.  A move that Universal considered betrayal which explains the fate of the film. If you want to hear him (he talks about DeMille too), you can podcast it (Part 1 - Part 2).
Welles started a bizarre enterprise in 1955 : to start shooting without a script his Don Quixotte over decades into the 70s without ever reaching a final cut, anyway none that would allow a theatrical release.
After his death, Jess Franco edited the 10 hours of film and released it in 1992 with a new soundtrack.


Welles' project was a work in progress and carried its fate within itself. Howver, in 2000, Terry Gilliam's project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixotte, seemed a more solid production. Yet it was so problematic that the problems alone spurred a great documentary called Lost In La Mancha, in 2002.

To make a long story short, the health of wonderful French actor Jean Rochefort didn't allow completion of the film, even if many other reasons, like the weather, plagued it.

But Terry Gilliam decided to give it another shot : he replaced Jean Rochefort and Johnny Depp by Robert Duvall and Ewan McGregor. Financial backings announced in may 2010 collapsed a few months afterwards. We still wish him good luck for this adventure.



That's all for today folks!