Force Majeure in LaMancha

Lost in La Mancha

I found a man who is more cursed than I am. Terry Gilliam, the brains behind Monty Python and Life of Brian. I may smile but I’ll not celebrate. Tonight I watched the movie, Lost in La Mancha, a documentary about a thirty two million dollar attempt to shoot a movie about Don Quixote that never made it past the first week of filming (The principle actor, Jean Rochfort got a herniated disk in the first few days of production and could no longer ride a horse among other things.) How, I pose the question to you, would you go on with a movie about Don Quixote with a Don Quixote who could not ride Rosinante? Could it be done? Could a creative genius have saved this film from disintegrating?

What is interesting about this film is how completely cursed it seems to be right from the beginning. It was almost as if from day one, there was an assumption that the movie would not survive production and so the best thing to do was to film the process of its demise and make money off from that. What is even more interesting is that the producer is Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python fame) who seems to have set himself up against God in most of the movies he has done, and God seems to have paid him back for the favors. Grin. Not only does his Don Quixote suffer from the herniated disk, before he even arrives there is some possibility that he will not be able to play the role because of potential prostate cancer. The first day of shooting is constantly interrupted by F-16’s flying maneuvers overhead (in a movie about 16^th century Spain?). The same week, a massive storm front moves in with crashing thunder, howling winds, hail, and a flash flood that takes away a good deal of the camera equipment, and a complete dismantling of the production team, props, and schedule. The set is flooded with mud so they move to another location only to have the sun blotted out by clouds. The following day Quixote must be flown back to his doctors in France for examinations. The movie is toast. The insurance company that covers the film argues that the illness of an actor is a matter of “force majeure” – an act of God that they may not be obligated to cover.  A verse from the Biblical book of Proverbs looms over Gillam’s cast down head (in my mind):

When calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. Then they will call to me but I will not answer

What should the narrative of this meta story sound like? Should one see the catastrophe in purely professional terms? Was the great mistake simply in not thinking about the need for an understudy to a main character as essential as Don Quixote would be? Would it not have been prudent to get assurances from the Spanish airforce that certain times and days would not be used for training exercises? Should one see it in literary terms? As Don Quixote is eventually forced to return to reality in the book, might a movie that prides itself on the celebration of denial and insanity be destined, for karmic reasons, to be defeated by realities? Gilliam closes the documentary with a brief cartoon sketch of Don Quixote being shot in the heart by men in the windmills. Should one see it in theological terms? Did Terry Gilliam finally suffer his comeuppance for making films that ridicule the church, faith, and the creator?

It was interesting to note that Gilliam changed the scene in Don Quixote where the knight-errant frees a number of criminals (thieves, robbers, frauds, etc.) and makes them a band of heretics arrested by the Inquisition; as though he felt the need to go out of his way to use the story of Don Quixote to kick the church where it was vulnerable. Why stick to the script when the opportunity to take advantage of one of Christianity’s worst moments is so tantalizingly possible? Maybe something in the universe kicked back?

Were the factors that doomed this movie “acts of God”? This documentary ends with a note that Gilliam is looking for investors to buy back the rights from the insurance company that had to pay for it and try and rejuvenate the idea. It is a rather Quixotic ending when you think about it: To never give up in the face of overwhelming realities. Thirty two millions dollars seems like a significant injustice. A wrong, that Don Quixote himself might think needs righted.

There are so many narratives to chose from. But in the end, investors will have to decide. Would you invest?