No matter how hopeless: Terry Gilliam's mad quest

Terry Gilliam's infamously delayed Don Quixote is finally happening on Amazon, says Terry Gilliam
By Jacob Kastrenakes
on June 11, 2015 12:16 pm

Terry Gilliam really wants to make an adaptation of Don Quixote. He's been trying to get it made since the late ’90s — Variety reports that he's made seven attempts in total — but this latest attempt may finally get it done. At least, a series of reports and quotes from Gilliam suggest as much. And the most surprising part: it may happen thanks to Amazon.

IS IT REALLY ACTUALLY FINALLY TRULY HAPPENING?

Gilliam told Indiewire this week that Amazon is partially funding his adaptation, titled The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, and that it plans to stream the film following a short run in theaters. Assuming production doesn't go awry again — it can't happen again, right? — this would be a smart grab by Amazon. It might not attract wide attention, but it'll certainly get Amazon credit from cinephiles, which isn't a bad way to kick off its original film program.

There hasn't been an official announcement from Amazon (perhaps it would rather wait, given the film's history), but the story seems to be adding up. Gilliam said back in Augustthat his Don Quixote had funding, and Deadline later reported quite vaguely that he had a deal with Amazon. Now Gilliam is stitching the stories together. There's even been casting news, which at the very least shows that there's real movement here. The film is, once again, supposed to shoot next year. Entertainment Weekly reports that it received confirmation of the news from Amazon.

Perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising that it took a new media company looking to make a name for itself to make this risky, fan-favorite project start heading toward reality again. It's essentially the same strategy Netflix took when it restarted Arrested Development or, to a lesser extent, that Hulu is trying to take with The Mindy Project. It may not appeal to an enormous audience, but it makes people pay attention.

GILLIAM'S QUIXOTE HAS HAD AN UNFORTUNATE HISTORY

And Gilliam fans have certainly been paying attention to the long and strange journey that The Man Who Killed Don Quixote has taken on its way to the screen. In the late ’90s, Gilliam began work on the project and eventually started filming, in 2000, with Johnny Depp in the lead role. A series of issues, including flash floods that destroyed sets, quickly caused production to shut down. Since then, Gilliam has tried unsuccessfully to get the movie going again with different actors. Now, even the script is different.

"I keep incorporating my own life into it and shifting it," Gilliam told The Wrap in August. "The basic underlying premise of the version Johnny was involved in was that he actually was going to be transported back to the 17th century, and now it all takes place now, it’s contemporary. It’s more about how movies can damage people." Basically, it sounds like the story is going meta and incorporating history of the failed Don Quixote into the newDon Quixote. Hopefully we'll all be watching it on Amazon next year.

SOURCE INDIEWIRE

If you'd like to hear Richard Kiley's majestic performance of The Impossible Dream, start the video at 7:00. This was one of those things that doesn't happen any more: a 10-minute chunk of live theatre presented on The Ed Sullivan Show, uncut and uninterrupted. Kiley's performance here far surpasses the many studio versions, since his voice is actually not at its best (no doubt they'd already done a matinee performance that day) but slightly rough around the edges. Like any great singer, he decided to use it rather than fight it, giving him a heartbreaking catch in his voice in a few places, as if he is about to weep. The makeup seems overdone mainly because they're probably still in makeup from the matinee performance, and the facial expressions are exaggerated but would look fine from the audience. This is theatre, people.

And to Terry: FOLLOW THAT STAR!

Searching for Rich Correll, take 2

(This post originally ran more than three years ago. Since then, a lot has happened - The Glass Character finally saw print! - and a lot didn't. It is of some benefit to realize there was a time, ONLY three years ago, when I didn't think I'd connect with RC at all.  I have his phone number in LA now, which would've seemed like a miracle then. So something must have happened in the interim. But I have no idea if he has read my book, if he even received it. By the way, back in 2011, I could not find a single up-to-date photo of Rich Correll, so had to use these grainy shots from when he was a child actor. I kept them simply because I like them.)

I can remember a time when I wouldn't touch a computer, afraid it would give me one of those searing visible cracks I always get on car doors. (No one else seems to get these, kinda like people whose watches stop for no reason.)

Then I touched one, though I know not when. There was no internet then, just a Tandy computer I lovingly called Jessica, a daisy wheel printer, and a fax machine. I don't remember my first foray into the internet, or even what it was called then. The Information Highway, I think, and if you tried to use it, some techie guy would brand you a "newbie".

For a long time I was afraid of it and was sure I'd never use it and that it would be daunting and impossible to use and I would feel bloody stupid if I even tried. My kids were printing stuff out on long rolls that you tore off like chunks of toilet paper, with a sort of perforated border with holes in it on the sides. They printed out arcane secret information about the X Files and stuff like that. It was interesting, yes, but intimidating, something for the young.

I don't remember when I found out what a download was, probably last week sometime. I was thrown into the water and swam badly, still swim badly for the most part, but here I am with, drum roll please, not only a web site (which is mostly an ad for my novels) but a blog.

Then, the other day something very strange happened. One second I hated the idea of social networking, knew nothing about it and felt like it was all written in a foreign language, like Armenian or something, then the next second I was "on" Facebook.

I still don't really know how to use it, because there are no instructions. You're just supposed to know. Once more I have that queasy feeling I got to the party late, too late to ever catch up. But I didn't do it to "network". I did it to find one person.

This person, rare as an exotic deer or a species no one has ever seen before, is so elusive I can't find an updated image of him. These pictures are from his child star days, when he had an ongoing role on Leave it to Beaver. There would appear to be no reliable information for contacting him, just a few wretchedly inappropriate mailing addresses, though the Lord only knows I've tried.

The two-and-a-half people who follow this blog might know that I kvetch a lot about the fact that I've written a novel about Harold Lloyd, the silent film genius, and so far can't get anyone in Canada interested in publishing it. People all over the place are telling me to self-publish, and I don't see how that would work if you had to book your own tours, readings, etc., do all your own distribution and promotion, get it in all the stores and on the net, pay for your own ads, etc. etc. and not go bankrupt.

\

I thought when you published your book, you made money. Silly me. But there's a book crisis going on, and no one knows quite where they stand. This means everyone's suddenly an expert telling everyone else what they should do. But paper books are  becoming obsolete, which means that the retail chains will eventually close (and let's not think about those small independent stores that have tried to survive a plague of almost Biblical proportions). Most if not all of the publishing industry will exist online. But when you're between systems, it's disorienting. Writers have to scramble, create their own books, or just endure the slammed doors that eventually lead to a bad case of clinical depression.

SOOOOOO,  to get to the actual point of all this, I'm searching for Rich Correll, the Hollywood polymath who co-invented the character/global phenomenon Hannah Montana and who has been directing hit Disney programs (the kind Caitlin slavishly watches) for years. He has done, and is doing, tons of other stuff in the industry as well, but that's not the real reason I'm looking.

I want to find Rich Correll because he was like a second son to Harold Lloyd: he knew Harold Lloyd, he loved Harold Lloyd, and he just strikes me as someone who might actually be willing to help me realize this labour of the heart, or at least to understand why I did it, and why it means so agonizingly much to me.

Or not. Maybe it'll just be the usual best of luck with this I've heard every other time I've made a "contact", which as far as I am concerned means about as much as a Facebook "friend".  Hard to say. Maybe he's too busy suing the Disney Corporation for $5 million (and imagine suing Mickey Mouse! This is both quixotic and admirable.) I don't know. I just feel at this point like I need to talk to someone who loves Harold Lloyd as much as I do.

It's funny to be in this position now. Everyone seems to be saying, "Accept less." Or even "give it up, it'll never happen". I know I can do this, I know I will do this, but I'm lost in a labyrinth. For this reason, to try to find Rich Correll whom I've been tracking like a bloodhound for months, I joined Facebook and found myself, once again, a stranger in a strange land.

As usual, as with everything I have ever done, I feel like a complete outsider. Some of my "friends" have over 1,000 names on their list, when I have more like nine or ten. It's high school all over again. I sort of blunder around and put up photos, not knowing what else to do. There's a place where you can say "what's on your mind", but judging from the comments, it looks like little snippets of whimsy, not requests for help or advice. Everyone is so cheerful, all day long, all the time. No one has a family crisis or an illness or a reversal of any kind. It's all good! Great things happen to the Facebook gang, non-stop, things so enviable you might  be tempted to wonder if reality isn't being bent just a little, mainly so you'll feel  a whole lot worse about your own life.

I guess I haven't learned Facebook etiquette, its invisible set of rules. When I post comments that are serious, especially about my work, I am usually made to feel like an opportunist who should just shut up and go away. Which I'm supposed to. And which I can't. Not this time.

Over the years I've seen Rich Correll all over the place. I am certain I saw him on Leave it to Beaver, but I was seven or eight years old then and didn't have much appreciation for these things. TV shows just popped out of the screen fully-formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus. But every time there was a documentary on movies it seems he'd show up, and since I did not ever see them in chronological order he would get older, then younger, then middle-aged in the strangest way.

He figured large in the brilliant Kevin Brownlow documentary The Third Genius, a rich dense Christmas pudding of a film just chock-a-block with archival interviews, people who knew Harold "when". This was one of those times he mysteriously got younger, and the reminiscences flowed so easily it was probably one of those things where you could just turn the camera on.

Rich Correll also appeared on the bonus disc in the superb Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection DVD set. At one point, after all the reminiscences, suddenly there was pure magic, more magic than Harold ever pulled off in his entire life as a master conjurer.  He brought out a battered old suitcase full of treasures: Harold Lloyd's makeup kit, full of artifacts going back to the early 1900s. Old gloves (Harold needed a prosthetic glove because half his right hand had been blown off in an accident), tubes of greasepaint, a mirror with his name lettered on it. And pairs and pairs of horn-rimmed glasses. Harold Lloyd's glasses. Though Harold referred to his alter ego as the Glass Character, these were empty frames with no glass in them.


This is why I want to talk to Rich Correll. Harold Lloyd bequeathed this battered old case of magic to him. He has it in his possession. If Harold's spirit is anywhere, it's there, and Rich Correll holds it in his hands.

Order The Glass Character from:

Thistledown Press 

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Character-Margaret-Gunning/dp/1927068886/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395534131&sr=1-1&keywords=the+glass+character

Chapters/Indigo.ca

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%2520glass%2520character%2520margaret%2520gunning&ikwsec=Home

No matter how hopeless

"This is the greatest mystery of the human mind - the inductive leap. Everything falls into place, irrelevancies relate, dissonance becomes harmony, and nonsense wears a crown of meaning. But the clarifying leap springs from the rich soil of confusion, and the leaper is not unfamiliar with pain."


I didn't write that, troops. It was that Steinbeck feller, you know, the clever one. And I don't know for sure why it leapt into my mind at this late hour, or how dissonances are going to relate in this-hyarr particular post.

It all goes round and round. You put a book out, it has taken you years and years to get to this point, it's suddenly "out", and you're sitting there waiting for something to happen. It doesn't transport your life or change the fact you need to lose weight or even lift your intermittent depression interspersed by Walmartian visitations of euphoria.


No kidding. Right in the middle of Walmart, the retiree's home away from home, looking for an economy-size sack of birdseed for my bird, I am hit with blinding euphoria: MY BOOK IS OUT. Harold, we made it! After six years of wandering around the desert, of having him roaming around in my head, he is "out", he is the word made flesh. And for that sublime, dazzling moment, I crest the top of the rollercoaster.


By the time I get home my pants are too tight and it's starting all over again. The divine/obscene comedy.

I've been obsessed with Don Quixote. Everybody is obsessed with Don Quixote because he makes them feel better about their own lives. At least we aren't some nut case crashing around with a lance. But we love him at the same time, for he takes the fall. He dies for our sins. There is something Christly about him, and Cervantes knew it. The holy fool. A sort of gaunt, underfed anti-clown. I started listening to the mind-lurching, emotionally-intoxicating Richard Strauss tone poem recently, with Yo Yo Ma on cello as the voice of Quixote. Oh God oh God oh.


And yes, you don't even need words to see and hear him. Then of course I had to go on YouTube to look up that documentary, that Terry Gilliam thing I watched when it first came out. Years ago. How he tried to make a film, an update of Quixote, and everything fell into the shit to a monumental, even Biblical degree. Everything was literally swept away until there was nothing left but rubble. This film made EVERYONE feel better, but everyone, even heroin addicts on death's door! But seriously, schadenfreude aside, what people were really reacting to and feeling deeply was the courage it takes to let your dream fall apart in full view, though thank God WE don't possess that kind of courage and never will.

We say failure is good, but it isn't. Failure is just failure. I guess it's inevitable, but who likes it, who really embraces it? Those motivational speakers are so full of shit their eyes are brown. In spite of Walmart birdseed raptures, my book likely won't go very far. It won't do a Quixote swandive either, but them's the breaks. I don't think Terry Gilliam lost out in the end, for somebody made soup out of the whole thing, and it was fascinating soup.


Most of us have had times when things have seriously fallen apart, when there's nothing we can do to hold it together. Might be serious illness, or a whole lot of people suddenly die in a row, like fucking dominoes. Or a job just falls out from under and there's nothing to dive into, no safety net at all. Or the safety net throws you up in the air so violently you wish you'd landed on cement.

So I hear this burningly idealistic, almost indecently gorgeous Quixote music by Richard Strauss,and then of course I must look up that song, you know, the one that was so popular in the '60s that everybody recorded it, even Liberace. Or Liberace's horse, I forget which. But I found, on an old kinescope of The Ed Sullivan Show, an 11-minute segment, a live, un-lip-synched slice of the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha, when it was brand new and still wet. And I found Richard Kiley singing it with heartbreaking devotion, just beautifully. I found a studio recording of him singing it with much more polish, but I never want to hear that one again. In this one he's standing in front of an audience, garish stage makeup all over his face, and every phrase is shaped as if with his own hands and ends with a little sigh. There's a catch in his voice here and there, as if it's almost too much for him, and the timbre of his voice is like a trumpet or trombone, the burnish and generosity and flash of the vibrato, the chest tones. This is coming from a human being. And I'm thinking.

The song is very short and compact, two minutes, and the lyric simple. The tune is something that sounds like it has always been there.


Dissonances relate. This is all about impossible quests, longing and questing, and holy idiots falling down into the mud. I feel like a goddamn fool sometimes, as if I'm on my fourth marriage and it's coming apart, as if I fell for it again. Haven't learned a thing. I remember when the idea for The Glass Character first leapt into my head. Now he is a book, he's outside myself. He lives, and he's in other people's hands, even if they aren't reading it! He's probably in Rich Correll's hands and Kevin Brownlow's hands, even if THEY aren't reading it. Today in Walmart, with the bag of birdseed in my hand, that was a glorious thing. Though at this moment, sitting here, I am not sure why.

A lot of people identify with Quixote because he is seemingly crazy, but everybody loves him anyway and he never has to go for shock treatments or be in the hospital. It's a freedom not granted to many. A lot of people like Quixote because humanity is very dark indeed, and we all want someone to take the fall for us. That's what drama is all about. Fiction is about trouble, poorly resolved or not resolved at all, and no matter how shitty our lives may be, they're a damn sight less shitty than Ahab's over there, he can be counted on to act it all out for us, to bear the brunt, to be humiliated or even killed in our place.

Sort of Christly, wouldn't you think?

Order The Glass Character from:

Thistledown Press 

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Character-Margaret-Gunning/dp/1927068886/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395534131&sr=1-1&keywords=the+glass+character

Chapters/Indigo.ca

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%2520glass%2520character%2520margaret%2520gunning&ikwsec=Home

The incredible genius of Yo Yo Ma

Every once in a while a piece of music pops into my head unbidden, from who knows where. We had a record of this piece played by Rostropovich, way back when, and listened the grooves off it. It's a gorgeous and amusing tone poem by Richard Strauss based on the adventures of Don Quixote, the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, and his sidekick Sancho Panza (I nearly said Pancho, but that's the Cisco Kid). This is YouTubed in six parts, but still worth hunting down and piecing together. This is my favorite of many favorite parts, the middle section, shimmering and shining with idealism like The Impossible Dream (and I must look up the best version of that one, sung by Richard Kiley). I always weep and bawl while listening to this, but then it seems I weep and bawl all the time now. Harold-itis. I just get the blues - I know I want this too badly. I can't see how anyone will get it, and I've put so many years in. The unreachable star?