As you may know, several years ago Terry Gilliam teamed up with Johnny Depp to make a new, modern film about Don Quixote. The film was never finished because God hates Terry Gilliam. Seriously, if you've never seen Lost in La Mancha, go put it at the top of your Netflix queue right now. It is incontrovertible proof that there is a God and he thinks The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was a shit movie. It's the only logical explanation for the number of things that destroyed Gilliam's lifelong impossible dream.
Or perhaps this was an appropriate lesson God wanted us all to learn. When you dream the impossible dream, you often discover that it is, in fact, impossible.
We're talking floods, prostate issues, planes, sandstorms, whatever. One thing I love about the documentary is how Johnny Depp just seems to take it all in stride. He's like "Oh you want me to sit on the horse for three hours? Okay, cool. Oh you want me to go away and come back in two weeks? Okay, cool. Oh you want me to tattoo your face on my ass? If you think it's good for the movie...."
He strikes me as one very cool dude. Or at least before the Pirates movies. He's probably a real asshole now.
Anyway, despite God's obvious warning against making another Don Quixote film, Terry Gilliam will not go gentle into that good night, goddamit. He's trying again.
He has been working with screenwriter Tony Grisoni - wait, is that really that dude's name? Holy shit - and producer Jeremy Thomas to get The Man Who Killed Don Quixote into production again.
So I say you go, Terry Gilliam. You go and you fight and you win. And if that film doesn't get destroyed by a meteorite, I will buy myself a ticket no matter what the reviews, and I will watch your labor of love. Because any man who would suffer through that tragedy and then work through what must have been a series of difficult meetings to put his baby back into production is a man I respect. Really the comparisons to Don Quixote himself are pretty obvious so I'm not going to make any. I'm just gonna say, go Terry Gilliam. You kick ass.
Yeah. Not to mention the death of Heath Ledger while Gilliam was filming Dr. Parnassius. I'm convinced he's jinxed. (although they did manage to finish the film, so..)
ReplyDeleteMUNCHAUSEN was a famously hellish shoot as well, recounted in a book called Losing the Light.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's this, but I just couldn't resist:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32920
I didn't realize Heath Ledger had died on a Terry Gilliam film. Good grief.
ReplyDeleteAnd Mr. Peel, that was funny. I hadn't seen that before.
It really is a wonder that man keeps on trucking.
Gilliam and Grisoni have been friends for a long time. And Gilliam's film troubles date from the days of the Fear and Loathing fiasco and the public burning of his WGA card. When you're douche bag good things happen to you...
ReplyDeleteHe's either a huge ass in real life, or like...Saint Director.
ReplyDeleteWhat else would explain his monumentally bad luck?