(Lost in La Mancha, 2002, Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe)Watching Lost in La Mancha made me realize that this project is probably going to involve me learning a lot of new things about myself. So far I've learned that it took me about 5 years too long to see Boogie Nights, that watching Babe will always make me cry and momentarily question my love of bacon, and that nothing will ever dim my love for Mean Girls. My most recent learning moment came with the viewing of this film, and it boils down to this: I'm not really fond of documentaries.
This is the first documentary from The List that I've watched, and I made an active point to choose one that had subject matter I was interested in. I'm generally not especially fascinated by all of the gritty details about how the film industry cranks out its product, but Lost in La Mancha had a few things going for it. First of all, it's about the failed production of an adaptation of The Man of La Mancha directed by Terry Gilliam. I have a thing for catastrophes and fiascoes, and the production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (the title of the adaptation) is exactly that. I don't know why, but I like when things crash and burn, and I really like it when I can watch and try to understand what made everything come tumbling down. Secondly, Johnny Depp was cast to be the star of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and I'll use any excuse I can to watch Johnny Depp. Finally, even though I've only seen one of his films in its entirety, I find Terry Gilliam to be a pretty fascinating guy. His films are quirky and off the wall, and also deal with subjects like dystopia and sanity, which is pretty much right up my alley. But despite all of those factors, I found Lost in La Mancha to be kind of a snooze.
I honestly don't know why I didn't really like Lost in La Mancha. Maybe it was just too sad watching Terry Gilliam's dream of his film being made fall apart in his hands. He was plagued with problems ranging from lack of funding to an all-to-restrictive schedule to crazy weather. Nothing went right for the guy. And he was clearly doing everything he could to try to save it, and it just didn't happen. My usual enjoyment of watching a catastrophe in action dimmed quite a bit when I was forced to see the faces of the people that it was directly affecting. I wasn't just hearing about a ship that sank over a hundred years ago, or a volcano that erupted and destroyed a whole city two thousand years ago. I was seeing a real, living, breathing person watching their dreams crashing down around them as it happened. Suddenly it wasn't so fun.
Of course, in the end, I can't feel to0 bad for Terry Gilliam. He's already announced that he's making another attempt at The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and it's hard to feel that bad for a guy who fights that hard for something he wants to do. For Gilliam, Lost in La Mancha will most likely just be something that he looks back on as a very large speed bump on his road to making a movie. And if The Man Who Killed Don Quixote ever gets made, I can see it and at least find some satisfaction in knowing that I understand a little more about how it came into being.
This is the first documentary from The List that I've watched, and I made an active point to choose one that had subject matter I was interested in. I'm generally not especially fascinated by all of the gritty details about how the film industry cranks out its product, but Lost in La Mancha had a few things going for it. First of all, it's about the failed production of an adaptation of The Man of La Mancha directed by Terry Gilliam. I have a thing for catastrophes and fiascoes, and the production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (the title of the adaptation) is exactly that. I don't know why, but I like when things crash and burn, and I really like it when I can watch and try to understand what made everything come tumbling down. Secondly, Johnny Depp was cast to be the star of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and I'll use any excuse I can to watch Johnny Depp. Finally, even though I've only seen one of his films in its entirety, I find Terry Gilliam to be a pretty fascinating guy. His films are quirky and off the wall, and also deal with subjects like dystopia and sanity, which is pretty much right up my alley. But despite all of those factors, I found Lost in La Mancha to be kind of a snooze.
I honestly don't know why I didn't really like Lost in La Mancha. Maybe it was just too sad watching Terry Gilliam's dream of his film being made fall apart in his hands. He was plagued with problems ranging from lack of funding to an all-to-restrictive schedule to crazy weather. Nothing went right for the guy. And he was clearly doing everything he could to try to save it, and it just didn't happen. My usual enjoyment of watching a catastrophe in action dimmed quite a bit when I was forced to see the faces of the people that it was directly affecting. I wasn't just hearing about a ship that sank over a hundred years ago, or a volcano that erupted and destroyed a whole city two thousand years ago. I was seeing a real, living, breathing person watching their dreams crashing down around them as it happened. Suddenly it wasn't so fun.
Of course, in the end, I can't feel to0 bad for Terry Gilliam. He's already announced that he's making another attempt at The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and it's hard to feel that bad for a guy who fights that hard for something he wants to do. For Gilliam, Lost in La Mancha will most likely just be something that he looks back on as a very large speed bump on his road to making a movie. And if The Man Who Killed Don Quixote ever gets made, I can see it and at least find some satisfaction in knowing that I understand a little more about how it came into being.
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