Netflix Monday: 'Lost in La Mancha'

Filmmaking is hard. Anyone who ever worked on a film knows this, and anyone who is familiar with how they're made can infer as much. In watching them and hearing so many success stories, though, it’s easy to forget the tribulations. If films are godsends simply for being made, then miracles happen more than once a week at the cineplex — especially with blockbusters, among the most tedious and cumbersome to pull strings for in the industry. With many investors comes multiple voices, and sometimes sacrifices need to be overcome and pride has to be forsaken for the sake of completion. Sure, the process can lead to something great at times — like it did with Gravity, for instance — but a flat-out disaster like this weekend’s Fantastic Four can also come through this crapshoot. Especially when the passion dies inside the filmmaker.

With different reports/speculation floating on the web right now, it’s unclear where exactly things went wrong with Josh Trank’s movie. We know the superhero franchise-starter didn’t fall into his initial vision and, in the process of dealing with the stress and trying to adjust his picture to Fox’s high demands, something fell apart. It’s not all-too-uncommon in the business and, often, these activities and arguments go on quietly behind-the-scenes. They don’t fall under such tight public scrutiny. That Fantastic Four’s mishandlings are getting this much attention is a little heartbreaking for the 31-year-old filmmaker (if he is, indeed, in the wrong), though it’s not nearly as heartbreaking as what Terry Gilliam went through in trying to bring his visions to reality in 2000, as chronicled in Lost in La Mancha.

Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s absorbing documentary unintentionally explored the plague-ridden disaster behind Gilliam’s production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote now 15-years-ago. Unlike Trank’s movie — a term one should use loosely in this regard — this one didn’t come into completion and the problems it had are very, very clear. In witnessing an eccentric, persistent filmmaker attempt to release the story haunting his brain for over a decade, the one-time making-of video journal becomes a Hearts of Darkness-level illumination into the craft of moviemaking in the face of adversity. Though not nearly as raw, it’s more than just an open and honest depiction of artistry and its often-endless woes, particularly with one as supposedly cursed as this property.

Much like Don himself, Gilliam trenches onto this project with full convictions and little sanity. With the set backs, he’s certainly fazed but consistently diligent, working as hard as he can to save his troubled repetition and make the movie his budget, weather, actor’s health and schedule will simply not allow. It’s haunting and inspiring, if not always at the same time, but constantly fascinating. The in-the-moment filmmaking lets you live inside every decision and headache found on set, leaving you wondering how this motion picture will be made even when you know it doesn’t come together by the end. It’s riveting and deeply affecting, and it’s also perhaps the greatest champion to the hard work brought on set by 1st Assistant Directors in the history of cinema.

Narrated by Jeff Bridges, we constantly get a thorough and comprehensive examination of what’s at play and what’s at stake. We follow the pre-production and very brief production stage of the process, but Gilliam constantly remains an allusive figure. Producers, set designers and general crew-members give perspectives into his grand vision, but there’s something always unmistakably caged about the illusive director. When we see him in the moment, magnetized by his own insanity or with a maniacal glee in his laugh as he watches his vivid creations come to life, and you feel his frustrations and motivations bleed out when things go so poorly out-of-his-control. The latter is naturally what the Pepe and Fulton like to focus upon, and it’s dutiful and punctilious documentation. But there’s always a sense that we could go deeper into Gilliam’s madness.

Nevertheless, the journey of watching filmmakers be driven to madness for their art is always gripping to watch. There’s more than one reason why 8 ½ is considered one of the best films of all-time. Much like the preceding Jodorowsky’s Dune and the unreleased The Sweatbox, even from a distant perspective there’s constantly something beneficiary from watching the creative process unfold. It’s infectious to hear one get giddy about their imaginative work, and seeing Gilliam’s soul fade as his passion piece falls apart around him is equally unforgiving. Much like his characters, there’s a constant need in him to present himself as a bedazzled mad hatter, presenting his wildest fantasies and sometimes believing he’s the only one capable of creating his masterwork. It’s hard to compensate with, but it’s often quite rewarding to see when it does come through. He guides the property as competently as possible but, with the problems at stake, it's to no use. This is, again, what makes Lost in La Mancha so shattering for the emotional core.

Gilliam's follies have come to him before — though usually not to this extent or late in the game — but the documentary makes up for the lack of shock in its recounting with tons of attention to personality and integrity. In Gilliam’s rage against sanity, he does personify himself as the daring, confident figure ultimately crippled by forces against his will. At one point, during a script reading, he calls the unfinished film set to be “beautiful and terrible at the same time,” and we’ll never know if this was the case of Gilliam’s long character feature. With the director going for one last go-around with the property with his next film, it’s possible The Man Who Kill Don Quixote could come to pass — although, at this point, it’s probably more a burden he needs to get off his creative chest than a fundamental desire to make what he envisioned repetitively for all these years.

It’s an unenviable task, and really helps enforce the glamor-less, ugly side of moviemaking. Fantastic Four evokes such disheartening feelings too, but watching Gilliam’s movie literally tear apart in front your eyes makes the impact all the more painful. It’s an unromantic look at creativity, and sometimes there’s no saving what you want to give to the world. It’s not about the disaster; it’s just about the little elements causing the collusion before your eyes.