the importance of being quixotic
it's been a while since i posted, i know...and i apologize for that--i've been glued to cnn for the past few days...but this morning, I snapped out of my obsessive search for new information on the tragedy in the delta...and allowed my tivo to record something for the first time in four days.
lucky for me...trusty tivo turned to one of my favorite channels--ifc--and recorded Lost in La Mancha, a documentary I've been told to see countless times but just never got around to renting. For the past two hours I've lazed on the couch and watched tragedy unfold for Terry Gilliam and his team as he attempted to put one of the greatest pieces of literature on celluloid. I couldn't tear myself away from the heartbreaking story of Gilliam's dreams being shattered by a string of terrible luck.

There's no shortage of disaster stories in the history of film production, but none have been recorded with such frankness, immediacy and aching sense of disappointment as in Lost in La Mancha… entertaining and instructive... a tantalizing memorial.
Perhaps the best part of the documentary (which views like the best season of Project Greenlight yet), is when one of Gilliam's art directors points out that Gilliam embodies the heart and soul of Don Quixote himself--a man who's fantasy project seems more real and within reach than any project he's ever worked on...and who must come to accept a harsh reality that his fantasies will never come to fruition. About an hour into the film, I resolved to go see Gilliam's latest picture today--in the hopes that my $10.75 will help him finance a second shot at making his film. (Click Here for your TiVo to record Lost in La Mancha for your own viewing pleasure.)

The plot covers the journeys and adventures of Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho Panza. Alonso Quijano is an ordinary Spaniard (an hidalgo, the lowest rank of the Spanish nobility) who is obsessed with stories of knights errant (libros de caballerías), especially those written by Feliciano de Silva. His friends and family think he is crazy when he decides to take the name of Don Quijote de la Mancha and become a knight errant himself (a don being a title of a higher nobility, and a quixote in Spanish was a piece of armor). Then he sorties to wander Spain on his thin horse Rocinante, righting wrongs and protecting the oppressed.

An Aside: Not too long after reading the book, I can remember buying the soundtrack to my favorite television show--Northern Exposure--on which there was a song by a band I'd never heard of, "Magazine 60," called Don Quichotte. Strange song, for sure...but fun nonetheless. Here's a clip...and the whole thing...enjoy.
"One man, scorned and covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world was better for this."Fix your jones for don quixote @ the unabridged online don quixote, don quixote at wikipedia, lost in la mancha, and amazon.com
Posted by sarah t. at 2:03 PM
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