Don Quijote de Orson Welles

dbborroughs from Glen Cove, New York does not know what he is talking about. The fact is, he has only seen the Franco version and has nothing to compare it to. The work print floats around occasionally, and it's a million times better that the Franco version. How can anyone call a film crap, when they have never even seen it. Don't ever listen to people that stupid. The fact is that you should even write a review if you have only seen one version of the film, and have no knowledge of the production history, the comment about Wells never intending to release it, is the most ridiculous, ignorant conjecture I have ever heard. No film make spends nearly 10 years of his life making a film, for it to just be a personal toy. He had plenty of projects that never saw release, The Deep, The Other Side of The Wind, etc. The main reason the film was never completed is that one of the principle actors died.

(This review is based on the English language version)

Orson Welles' legendary unfinished epic was just that - unfinished. It should have been left as such, not thrown together in this clumsy, boring compilation of whatever material was available.

While I'm sure it was done with the best of intentions, the filmmakers have not only failed to do justice to Welles' vision, they've also managed to discredit it by inflicting this version upon audiences.

The first thing that strikes the viewer is the amateurish quality of the audio. Not only are the newly dubbed voices rather poor performances, they're also inconsistent - Welles' original recordings (using his own voice, as he often did) have been retained in a handful of scenes, & they don't match at all. There hasn't been the slightest attempt at consistency. Add to that an extremely empty sound mix which has only a bare minimum of sound effects & atmos - a long sequence during a huge festival (including the running of the bulls) sounds like it was recorded in a deserted suburban street with about three people making the sound of a crowd that's meant to be in the thousands.

However, the real problem is the unavoidable fact that 'Don Quixote' was incomplete, & it's glaringly obvious from watching this. The film consists of a handful of scenes strung together & dragged out to ridiculous lengths just to make up the running time. Case in point - the sequence where Sancho searches for Don Quixote in the city goes on forever. It's just Sancho approaching people in the crowd, asking them the same questions over & over again - there is no way that Welles could ever have intended using every single take in its entirety, but that's what appears here. It lasts over twelve minutes, when, in fact, it would most likely have lasted about two minutes absolute maximum in a proper finished version of the film.

While the start of the film is relatively complete & rather well done, the rest has massive holes which simply can't be filled with endless overlay of Spanish countryside & still more shots of Don Quixote & Sancho going back & forth. There's also no ending. No resolution, no conclusion, no punchline, no point.

Although there is material in private collections that was unavailable to the filmmakers, that couldn't possibly account for what would be required to make this into a complete, coherent work. Welles simply didn't complete shooting, largely due to the fact that his lead actor died before they could finish.

However, putting aside the fact that it wasn't complete, & never could be, one would think that just seeing a collection of footage from this masterpiece that might have been would be enough. Unfortunately, by putting it all together in such a slipshod manner, one is left with a very negative impression of the film overall. In particular, what was clearly a terrific performance from Akim Tamiroff as Sancho is utterly ruined with the new voice & with long, drawn out scenes that eventually cause him to be simply irritating.

Orson Welles' vision for this film was something far more ambitious & complex than a simple retelling of the story of Don Quixote, but that's what has been attempted here, & as such, the point is lost. The only person who could have assembled all the material into anything worthwhile would have been Welles himself, & he didn't.

The footage could have been put to far better use in a documentary chronicling the whole saga of Welles trying to make the film. Welles himself even came up with the perfect title for such a doco: "When Are You Going To Finish Don Quixote?"

Both Welles and Terry Gilliam have this dream of bringing this film to the screen. Both have had tragic endings in their productions. But at least we have this footage to show what might have been. Unless Terry Gilliam gets another shot, I would recommend to any film maker who will pull it off to research this film as well as "Lost in La Mancha" to see what should be done visually.

Only when one hear Welles narration on the soundtrack of this dog's dinner of a film, does one get a tiny glimpse of what Welles might have been able to achieve in bringing "Don Quixote" to the screen. From what I saw last night on DVD (purchased by a friend recently in Spain!), my guess is that "Don Quixote" is unfilmable, even by a genius like Welles. The 'director', Jess Franco', is no Welles, to be sure. Where and how Franco got his hands on this footage, is as mysterious as Welles himself. Apparently shot over a number of years, the assembled footage, is a mish mash of stills, unrelated footage, an out-of-sync sound track (scenes of Welles in a car shooting footage like an enthusiastic tourist), and ludicrously dubbed American voices, makes this just a slice of arcane interest. In summary, it was 'interesting' to see, but at the end of the day, it manages to tarnish Welle's reputation, rather than enhance it. Still, with 'Citizen Kane', the truncated "Magnificent Ambersons", & "Chimes At Midnight", to his credit, Welles really doesn't need this kind of 'tribute'.

Those who dismiss this reconstructed film out-of-hand cannot possibly have any appreciation of Welles' genius. The reviewer who calls it a "dog's dinner" is obviously reacting to the unusual and non-linear qualities of Welles' later films. I doubt that he can know very much about either Welles or Quijote. In any case, he fails to see the forest from the trees. Of course there are some scenes and shots in this incomplete film that go nowhere-- BUT this is still the most beautiful, exhilariting, and cinematic version of Cervantes yet put to film. I don't doubt that the film would be better if Welles had been able to finish editing it himself. But even as it is, the great director left his mark on each and every surviving scene. Visually speaking, the film is simply too similar to 'The Trial' and other late Welles classics to be ignored.

The film centers around the idea of Don Quixote (and Sancho) trying to stick to their guns in the midst of the great confusion of modern-day Spain. Such a conceit is absolutely typical of Welles, as are all the other major departures from the novel. Welles was not known for faithfulness. But there are also scenes of pure character drama, and they play so well as to make us believe that Cervantes had written them; Welles was, after all, among the greatest of screenwriters.

Not the least of his triumphs here is in the casting: Akim Tamiroff, one of the screen's greatest and most unsung actors, was born to play Sancho and he does not disappoint. Francisco Reiguera looks and acts more like Cervantes' Knight than any other. Again, the other reviewers fail to appreciate this.

If the film has any really major flaw (apart from the awful English dubbing), it is the additional dialog written by Jess Franco, who was Welles' A.D. on this film. Of course it is difficult to identify, but I take it that most of the dialog is Welles'. The film also goes on too long concerning bull-fighting, but of course this was one of Welles' fascinations and it is probably at least partly his fault.

The real reason this film has been ignored is because a lot of people crave conventional narrative cinema so badly that they deride cinematic art unless it has a "artist's brand name" attached to it. Since Welles' is not entirely responsible for the final cut as we have it, a lot of people feel that its 'fair game' in a way that his other films are not. Well, if you can't stand genius, then stay away from it-- you'll only embarrass yourself trying to deride it.

BEWARE THE English-LANGUAGE DUBBING. Welles obviously never did an English dub of this footage, and the one that is supplied by Welles' reconstructors is a total injustice to the film. It is far better to stick it out with the Spanish track and French sub-titles, even if you don't know a word of French. At least you'll have an idea of the quality of some of the scenes. HOPEFULLY we will see a DVD of this in the US with English subtitles.

Perhaps some further reconstruction is also still possible? BUT it will only happen if Welles fans are supportive of the footage the Welles did indeed achieve.