Gilliam has said that he always ends up re-enacting the film he is filming–as he films it. And the analogy between the filmmaker and the knight is irresistible. Gilliam sees visions no one else sees; he has made a career out of tilting at windmills and dreaming impossible dreams. He battled Universal to bring his amazing “Brazil” to the screen. His wild, over budget “Adventures of Baron Munchausen” became a legendary commercial disaster, while his madcap “Twelve Monkeys” became an unexpected success. He’s a fabulist who thinks big, and his visually baroque movies require ample financing. But eight weeks before production begins, his “Quixote” budget has already been whittled down from $40 million to $32 million–half of what he really needs–so there’s no wiggle room in the shooting schedule. Everything has to go without a hitch. Nothing does.
“Lost in La Mancha” isn’t the familiar story of an artist fighting a philistine system. There are no villains in this train wreck: it’s a no-fault catastrophe. There is, however, bad planning, such as the choice of a Spanish “sound studio” that turns out to be a warehouse with horrendous acoustics. Or the location for the first day’s shoot: right next to a NATO base where F-16s scream overhead. Then a hailstorm hits. Then it becomes clear that Rochefort, their 70-year-old Quixote, is in terrible physical pain. Barely able to walk from his horse to his car, the star is rushed off to his doctor in Paris. Filming stops. The European investors sweat, the insurance agent descends and the no-nonsense Australian assistant director, Frank Patterson–Gilliam’s Sancho Panza–threatens to quit.
Anyone who thinks making movies is easy needs to see this hilariously painful cautionary tale. It’s a tribute to Gilliam that he never once took off his mike or asked the filmmakers to stop rolling. Still boyish and playful at 60, his mind teeming with ideas and enthusiasm, he maintains an extraordinary (if increasingly depressed) equilibrium as the captain of his sinking ship. It begins to seem there is a “Quixote curse.” Orson Welles spent decades on his own “Don Quixote” and never finished. But even now Gilliam is trying to buy the rights back from the insurance company. If there’s a windmill in sight, he’s ready to tilt.
