If Only The Man Who Killed Don Quixote Had Been Made Before We All Knew How Awful Terry Gilliam Is

The saga behind Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote movie has been going on for two decades. He first began pre-production on his film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote in 1998, about a delusional man in a modern, urban setting who is convinced he is Don Quixote. We never got that movie, though. Instead, we got Lost in La Mancha. What was supposed to be a behind-the-scenes documentary ended up chronicling a film plagued with so many setbacks–from a nearby NATO aircraft field used for (very loud) target practice to flash floods to injured actors–it may as well have been cursed.

Lost in La Mancha is heartbreaking and schadenfreudically hilarious, but also made TMWKDQ look like a fantastically creative movie that young Me desperately wanted to exist. Over the years, Gilliam has tried to restart the movie a number of times, but it always fell through. Until now.

Today, the first trailer for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote landed, starring Jonathan Pryce and Adam Driver. It’s incredible to see a movie 20 years in the making finally take shape. And I am only slightly disappointed that I will never see it.

When I first saw Lost in La Mancha, I was in high school. I’m guessing that Terry Gilliam was a garbage person then, too–these things don’t just spring up overnight. But I’d never read an interview with him, and the internet didn’t push constant information in the same way it does now, so I definitely hadn’t read so many of the vile things he’s said over the years. And oh wow, there are a lot.

Here’s a smattering:

• He’s defended Johnny Depp against accusations of assault, insinuating that Amber Heard was lying about being abused. His exact disgusting quote (which he felt comfortable putting in writing on Facebook) was “Like many of Johnny Depp’s friends I’m discovering that Amber is a better actress than I thought.. if only the ‘bruise’ would stay in one place.”
• He said some really gross things about Michelle Williams after Heath Ledger’s death, basically shaming her for turning Ledger from a cool, chill party guy into, you know, a partner and a father.
• He compared the #MeToo movement to “mob rule” and “got silly.” But wait, that one gets so much worse …
• In talking about the many, many allegations of harassment and assault against Harvey Weinstein, Gilliam mocked that “It is a world of victims.” His comments all basically amount to saying the women who were harassed or assaulted brought it on themselves. Of the women who slept with Weinstein, he says “Harvey opened the door for a few people, a night with Harvey — that’s the price you pay.”
• But that’s on them, I guess, because, he says, “I know enough girls who were in Harvey’s suites who were not victims and walked out.”
• He says Matt Damon got “beaten to death” just for saying “all men are not rapists.” R.I.P., Matt Damon.

Additionally, Sarah Polley has recalled the trauma she experienced working with Gilliam on The Adventures of Baron Munchausen when she just nine years old. Back in 2005, when she read that Gilliam was returning to Canada to direct another movie starring a young girl, Polley says she contacted ACTRA, the Canadian labor union which apparently has much less strict child labor protections, and asked them to keep an eye on the girl in the film. She also sent Gilliam a letter (which you can and should read in full here) to “share a few things about [her] experience working on that movie.”

This paragraph says a lot. Remember she was nine years old here.

Basically, I remember being afraid a lot of the time. I felt incredibly unsafe. I remember a couple of trips to the hospital after being in freezing water for long periods of time, losing quite a bit of my hearing for days at a time due to explosives, having my heart monitored when one went off relatively close to me, etc. I remember running through this long sort of corridor where explosives went off every few feet, things were on fire, etc. I cried hysterically in my dad’s lap and begged him to make sure I wouldn’t have to do it again, but I did. I think I did it quite a few more times. I remember the terrifying scene where we were in the boat and the horse jumped out and ended up surfacing a plastic explosive that went off right under my face. I remember being half trampled by a mob of extras and then repeating the scene several times. I remember working very long hours.

Part of me wishes The Man Who Killed Don Quixote had come out before I knew what garbage Terry Gilliam is. But that part is small, and selfish, because ultimately, I don’t want to support un-outed assholes or abusers either. So I won’t be watching the movie. Not because I think losing my $10 will hurt the box office, but just because I feel better when I don’t watch art made by creeps. There’s so much art out there that isn’t.

The film is expected to premiere at Cannes in May, although who knows? One of the film’s early producers is claiming to still own the legal rights to the movie and that disagreement does not sound like it’s going well. Maybe the curse lives on.

Either way, you can watch the trailer here if you like.

(image: screencap)

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