Lost in La Mancha

Lost in La Mancha (2002) is a British-American documentary by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe — watch it online on iFILM. A film crew set out to document Terry Gilliam finally making his long-dreamed adaptation of Don Quixote. What they captured instead was one of cinema's most spectacular collapses.

Jean Rochefort was set to play the Don, with Johnny Depp as a time-traveling modern American. The production barely made it through week one. NATO jets drowned out sound on location in Spain; flash floods destroyed sets overnight; Rochefort suffered a severe injury that pulled him from the film entirely; the insurance company refused to cover the losses. Gilliam, a filmmaker who has made a career of battling studios and bad luck alike, watched the whole thing fall apart with a kind of exhausted grace.

As a portrait of creative catastrophe, it's more instructive than most making-of films. Stream Lost in La Mancha (2002) online on iFILM.