Columnist Geoff Carter — Scene Selection: ‘La Mancha’ debacle shows Terry Gilliam’s resiliency

Friday, Aug. 15, 2003 | 8:38 a.m.

Terry Gilliam reminds me of Walt Disney. Not so much around the eyes, perhaps, and Terry, unlike Walt, dresses like an unmade bed and has a haircut that looks suspiciously like a mullet -- but in personality, the two men could be twins. Both came from animation backgrounds, both are fiercely creative, and both are hands-on kind of guys.

And not coincidentally, both men profess an ignorance of how much things will really cost. That's not to say they're spendthrifts -- to his dying day, Walt Disney was all business -- but they'd simply rather not look at the bill.

Disney once famously approved three Disneyland attractions without notifying his brother and financial officer, Roy, who was on vacation. "He can figure out how to pay for these when he gets back," Walt said.

There's a lot of that going around in "Lost in La Mancha" (New Video Group, $29.95), Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's documentary of the (un)making of Terry Gilliam's "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote." What was supposed to be a simple behind-the-scenes documentary became, to the anguish of all concerned, a heart-rending record of the film's self-destruction.

Gilliam has an unfair reputation as a maverick director, largely because of the loud and public battle he fought with Universal Pictures over the mishandling of his classic dystopian fantasy, "Brazil," and the box office failure of "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen." Gilliam explains away those conflicts easily enough, but doesn't explain why he started shooting a picture with half the money he needed and no rehearsal time with his actors.

And he doesn't have to. It's pure Walt Disney syndrome -- Gilliam is intoxicated by the process of creation, and indulges it to the ignorance of all else. His hubris not only costs him and his crew dearly, but robs us of seeing what could have been one of the most visually innovative movies of recent years: the few minutes of film he did manage to get are breathtakingly beautiful. It's classic Gilliam: dramatic camera angles, elaborate sets, snazzy visual effects.

That is to say, it will have all those elements, if Gilliam can buy back the rights to his picture and get the sets out of storage. He does take more than a few cruel hits in "La Mancha" -- star Jean Rochefort falls ill, an unseasonable hailstorm destroys a set, and a day of shooting is lost when a set is practically strafed by fighter jets -- but the facts are plain: He didn't have the money or personnel needed to make his film, yet went ahead anyway.

Fulton and Pepe are obviously enamored of Gilliam -- as they should be; he's one of the best directors alive -- and are too cowed by Gilliam to explain why he rolled the dice when the odds were plainly stacked against him. Fortunately, the DVD rectifies this oversight with two hourlong interviews of Gilliam -- one by film critic Elvis Mitchell, and a wonderful interview by author Salman Rushdie.

It's this second interview, captured on video at the Telluride Film Festival that makes "Lost in La Mancha" worth renting. Miles away from Hollywood and his financiers, Gilliam opens up to Rushdie (and vice-versa) for a solidly fascinating hour of back-and-forth. Gilliam bangs himself up, toots his own horn softly (when asked by an audience member how he'd make a "Harry Potter" film, he dryly replies, "Better") and asks his interviewer a few good questions, too.

For the most part, however, Rushdie and Gilliam talk about the benefits of a life lived in dreams. "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" may have turned into a nightmare, but "Lost in La Mancha" proves that Terry Gilliam's too stubborn a dreamer to start staying awake on the job. Next time, he'll dream even harder, and somebody will happily figure out a way to pay for it.