LOST IN LA MANCHA GIFT 2PK (DVD/2 DISC/EXTRAS) DVD

Lost in La Mancha
For years, one of filmmaker Terry Gilliam's great dreams was to make a screen adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's classic tale Don Quixote, and in 2000 it looked as if his dream was to become a reality. In collaboration with Tony Grisoni, Gilliam had written a script called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, in which a 20th century advertising man accidentally travels back in time and is mistaken by Don Quixote for his faithful companion, Sancho Panza. After ten years of shopping the project to American studios with no success, Gilliam and his producers had secured financing for the film from a consortium of European sources, and Johnny Depp had been cast as the time-tripping adman, with the venerable French actor Jean Rochefort as Don Quixote. However, as the production moved closer to its start date, more and more things began to go wrong -- contracts went unsigned, key cast and crew members had not yet arrived, and the carefully prepared budget seemed stressed to the breaking point. Nevertheless, Gilliam soldiered on, but after a mere six days of shooting, during which Spanish Air Force jets ruined several takes, flash floods destroyed several sets, and Gilliam struggled to keep his dream afloat, Rochefort suffered a severe back injury. The film's financiers decided to cash in their chips and pulled the plug in order to cash in on their insurance, though Gilliam struggled for months afterward to find a way to put the production back on track. Documentary filmmakers Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe had been invited by Gilliam to make a film about the production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and after shooting 80 hours of footage of the chaotic pre-production process as well as the aborted shooting schedule, they instead created Lost In La Mancha, a look at the "un-making" of the film, which along with the story of the project's brief rise and messy collapse, featured a look at several completed scenes from the film, as well as animated versions of the film's storyboards which offered a glimpse of the look and scale of the film Gilliam was attempting to create. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Cast Bernard Bouix as René Cleitman as Johnny Depp as Benjamin Fernandez as Terry Gilliam as Tony Grisoni as Phil Patterson as Nicola Pecorini as Gabriella Pescucci as Jean Rochefort as Jeff Bridges as Narrator

Crew Chaim Bianco - Animator Stefan Avalos - Animator Rosa Bosch - Associate Producer Andrew Curtis - Associate Producer Jaime Siclia Nistal - First Assistant Director Louis Pepe - Director Keith Fulton - Director Keith Fulton - Editor Louis Pepe - Editor Jacob Bricca - Editor Miriam Cutler - Composer (Music Score) Louis Pepe - Cinematographer Lucy Darwin - Producer Michael Kowalski - Sound/Sound Designer Louis Pepe - Screenwriter Keith Fulton - Screenwriter

Lost in La Mancha
Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's Lost in La Mancha is a moderately engaging account of iconoclastic director Terry Gilliam's misbegotten attempt to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, an adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel. Like Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse and Les Blank's Burden of Dreams, Lost in La Mancha shows how a filmmaker's own obsessions can bring about disaster. Unlike those films, Lost in La Mancha is not brilliant filmmaking, and it doesn't stand nearly as well on its own, which is problematic. To begin with, the disasters that befall Gilliam's set aren't particularly dramatic. There's the illness of his leading man, Jean Rochefort, and a badly trained horse that doesn't follow Gilliam's direction as he tries to shoot a scene to impress a group of investors. The most dramatic setback is a particularly violent hailstorm that temporarily decimates the film's desert set. It's also interesting to watch some of the internal conflicts, as Gilliam tries to protect his embattled assistant director, Phil Patterson, who doesn't seem particularly eager to continue with the shoot. As a companion piece to a film that doesn't exist, this is pretty interesting stuff, but as a finished product, in and of itself, it's nothing special. The few teasing glimpses of Gilliam's unfinished film that Fulton and Pepe provide make one hope that some day, Lost in La Mancha will take its rightful place beside its subject on some kind of deluxe DVD package. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
 

Chicago Film Critics Association, Best Documentary (nominated) Telluride Film Festival, Film Presented (nominated)

General Specifications: Language Options: English Subtitle Options: Sound Processing: DD5.1: Dolby Digital w/ sub-woofer channel Additional Features: Exclusive interviews with cast and crew, including Terry Gilliam and Johnny Depp Deleted scenes Video soundbites Costume design, storyboards, and production stills from "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" Salman Rushdie & Terry Gilliam: A conversation from the 29th Telluride Film Festival IFC Focus: Terry Gilliam Theatrical Trailer DVD Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1: Pre-1954 Standard MPAA Rating: R DVD Discs Included: 2 DVD Sides: 2 DVD DVD Region Code: Content Length: 93 min Part of Series: IFC Presents   DVD Chapters: Side #1 -- Lost in La Mancha 1. Opening Sequence [5:50] 2. The Story of Don Quixote [6:57] 3. Storyboards & Giants [4:52] 4. Out of Control [6:19] 5. 6 Weeks Before Production [9:18] 6. 2 Weeks Before Production [1:49] 7. 1 Week Before Production [8:11] 8. Production Day 1 [5:38] 9. Production Day 2 [6:00] 10. Production Days 3 & 4 [4:45] 11. Production Day 5 [6:20] 12. Production Day 6 [5:35] 13. Illness Strikes [5:38] 14. Loss of Momentum [6:26] 15. The Windmills of Reality [3:16] 16. Coming Soon [1:59]