I came to this after watching the finally finished Gilliam's Quijote. It probably works better to watch this one, the "sketch", the "failed attempt", after you saw the finished product. That film, the finished one, is imperfect and chaotic. And that's good. It it as a film, what it was as a work in progress. It reveals Gilliam, and has a special place in his carrer. It's the final product of an obsession, and it follows the path of its very theme.This one is nice, because we see in it some of the anchors that were kept in the later finished film, and that would probably have worked better in the original, at least from a cinematic point of view. It is clear that Gilliam had in mind the replacement of the "book layers" of the original Quijote by the layers of films in films. In other words, he wanted a world where several layers of paralel realities would affect each other, contaminate them, blur them. This is something he has been doing all his life as a filmmaker, and as such it is apt that he adapts Quijote. In the book, at least in my reading, Sancho is the pivot, he is the articulation of all the layers, the one that keeps all the madness tolerable, and the one who places us, the "viewers" in the narrative. So having Johnny Depp play that role would have been magnificient. We can only imagine how it would have been, watching the few conversations between Gilliam and Depp in this documentary, watching the short bits of footage that were recorded (the fish fight is amazing) and trying to imagine Depp whenever we see Driver.I got the impression that Depp was the one who suggested what is in fact the beginning of the new film. At least the breaking of the 4th wall in the matter of "la nuit américaine". That shows he understands the layers. He is a very fine actor.Take this little film as a piece of a grander puzzle in the mind of an interesting guy. A Quijote film will probably always be better as a sum of bits and pieces, chaos and unreachable goals... This fits. I had a little too much of burocracy (whose fault, who's gonna pay, who should have done what...) and too little of Gilliam's mind. But these documentaries almost always fall on that trap."The Man Who Killed Quijote" was the first film in 2018 that completes a seamingly "lost project". We'll likely get Welles' The Other Side of the Wind later this year.. Year for completions, and probably for disappointments. Welles also had an ongoing Quijote project for half his life. Ah, those windmills...

Director Terry Gilliam tries to film the classic "Don Quixote de la Mancha" as his "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote". He struggles with financing and moves from Hollywood to Europe. It's a big production but the budget is scaled back from $40 to $32 million. Jean Rochefort is playing Don Quixote joined by Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis. As the production gets going, problems mount and the filming process sputters. This is basically a behind-the-scenes featurette that would be included in the DVD if the movie actually was made. Except this is much better. It's not all sunshine and roses. It shows the struggles and tribulations of a real visionary under the stress of the real world. The material is not quite as epic as "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" but it's still quite compelling.

If you are like me and you are interested in how movies are made, then this is one of those documentaries that you shouldn't miss. Not only does it give a good idea of what needs to be done, how much organization it all asks, which obvious problems sometimes can occur... It also shows perfectly that sometimes really everything in life can go wrong.When you see Terry Gilliam's attempt to shoot the movie "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" completely fail, you can only feel sorry for the man, but at the same time you can't help smiling. Some situations are so unreal that you really start to wonder if there is some kind of curse that hangs over this project. Take for instance the scenes in the Spanish desert. It doesn't rain there for such a long time, but as soon as they start, their equipment is almost completely washed away by a small flood. Also the scenes that were completely spoiled by the F-16's, even though the government promised that this wasn't very likely to happen, were all so unreal.But even though the makers seem to be cursed from the beginning until the end with an actor who appears to be too sick to work, other actors who don't show up on time, a flood, F-16's,... I must say that the parts of the movie that were finished looked very promising. I really hope that he will be able to finish his project once, because I truly believe that it might become a good movie. Just by seeing how much fun he had while watching some scenes, made me look forward to it.As a conclusion I would like to add that this documentary might be interesting to show in all movie classes. Not only does it show the many hours of work that go before the actual shooting, it also shows into detail every possible aspect that might go wrong. I guess that this must be very interesting for all would-be and future directors. I give it at least a 7.5/10.

Terry Gilliam's had a controversial career. His "Brazil" in 1985 upset Universal because it had a "sad" ending, so they cut it apart and replaced the finale with a "happier" version. Gilliam hated their hack job of his work, and illegally screened his original version for a critics' circle -- they voted it one of the best films of the year. Soon Gilliam got his way and the film was released as he had originally intended, and it's now considered a classic.A few years later he released "The Adventures of Baron Manchusen," a fantasy flop that went some $20 million over budget and collapsed at the box office. He quit directing for a while and, when he returned, started work on "Twelve Monkeys." It wasn't the best of shoots and his perfectionism resulted in eccentric, intolerable shooting schedules.In 1998 "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was released and the MPAA hated it, threatening to give it an X rating for its drug content. Released alongside "Godzilla," it flopped, but to this day remains a cult classic.So it's reasonable to say Gilliam is quite an eccentric personality and has had a tumultuous career."The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" was going to be his new film until it crashed. The production was halted because Gilliam couldn't find an actor to play Quixote, flash floods destroyed equipment and one of his shooting locations was in fact a NATO airfield which created quite a problem for the filmmakers.Gilliam's film probably would have been a great twist on the classic tale and I'm sure his eccentric vision would have suited it well. He also had a cameo by Johnny Depp in the movie and it's quite funny as shown in this documentary detailing the events of the production.Gilliam recently said he's going to start production on this again and finish it up. I hope so, it really does look like a promising film.In terms of this documentary itself, it's very insightful and a must-see for any Gilliam fan or aspiring director -- it's entertaining and important, and a great guide on how NOT to make a movie.