Apocalypse then

This year, your local multiplex should have been playing host to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the latest epic from director Terry Gilliam, who redefined modern fantasy cinema with bravura gems such as Brazil, Time Bandits, and 12 Monkeys. Unfortunately, due to a series of unforseen complications ranging from the trivial (financial and contractual difficulties) to the apocalyptic (plague, flooding, and even the thunder of war courtesy of Nato jet-fighters), the main feature has been delayed indefinitely. Instead, we have Lost In La Mancha, a splendidly sad account of Gilliam's battle against the forces of nature which is described as "the first 'un-making of' film documentary" and which offers the kind of dramatic spectacle usually reserved for biblical epics. SEE gigantic sets washed away by God's Burning Rain! FEEL the pain as a humble virus lays low the mighty horseman! HEAR the cries of anguish ("We're fucked!") as the director looks disaster in the face! For most film-makers this would be the end of the world; for Terry Gilliam, it is business as usual, enhancing his near-mythological status as cinema's favourite demented dreamer – our very own Don Quixote.

"As a really pragmatic, sensible, long-term filmmaker, it's really dumb on my part to allow this to continue," laughs Gilliam with a wry, world-weary cackle. "The legend of the out-of-control monster is fun, and it certainly confounds Hollywood executives. It's better than being a boring film-maker. But it also becomes very tiresome at times." Tiresome, but undeniably entertaining, as each new Gilliam epic arrives (or, in this case, doesn't arrive) replete with very public off-screen battles to match the onscreen action. Whether it's Terry taking out full-page ads in the US press demanding that Universal release (rather than recut) Brazil, or Eric Idle challenging the producers of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen to "custard pies at dawn" to resolve mounting disagreements, Gilliam's films always make for great copy.

"It's not planned or anything," insists Gilliam, who is ironically seen in Lost in La Mancha as a model of responsibility, meticulously watching the pennies and fiercely guarding the schedule even as the calamities accumulate. "Basically, we get trapped in stories. So either I'm seen as the giant-killer, as in the case of Brazil, or as the madman with Munchausen. And nobody ever talks about The Fisher King or 12 Monkeys, which were both hugely successful and both got made quietly, because it's boring – it's a dull story. So you get caught in these tales.

"There's not a lot I can do about it. But it's not a good image in the minds of all the people in Hollywood. Of late – I've been through this several times post-Quixote – it's been 'Oh, he's a wonderful, great filmmaker, but he scares me!' These are very timid people who run the show out there now and they want people who make them feel comfortable, not people who worry them."

The worrying story of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote began 15 years ago when producer Jake Eberts was sold on a $20 million movie pitch consisting of just two names; Gilliam and Cervantes. But when Gilliam actually sat down to read Cervantes, he discovered what Orson Welles (who took an unfinished Quixote to his grave) had learned to his cost – that Don Quixote as written is in fact unfilmable. "The book is so vast," says Gilliam with awe, "and to condense it into a film was so limiting. So the project died."

Many years later, however, Gilliam and co-writer Tony Grisoni dreamed up a plot in which a modern-day advertising executive is time-warped back into the 17th century, where he meets Don Quixote who promptly mistakes him for Sancho Panza. "I was very pleased with that script, because it freed me from the restraints of the book, and yet I felt that Cervantes would have quite liked what we'd done. You have a modern, slick advertising executive as a servant to a 17th-century lunatic. In effect, we were able to use the best of Quixote, and weave another tale around it."

Many pre-production nightmares later (including the involvement of a financier who promised $16 million but turned out to be "the German Quixote") and the project was finally up and running in Spain on European money by August 2000, with Johnny Depp (star of Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) signed on to play the arrogant ad-man, while European legend Jean Rochefort learned English from scratch in order to slip into Quixote's saddle. Victory was clearly in sight. And then the filming began ...

"The strange thing was that all through the writing of it, Tony and I always talked about Quixote as suffering; it's about suffering and pain and anguish. And of course that was delivered in bucket loads. When the hurricane struck on the second day of filming, I was reminded of both King Lear and The Wizard of Oz, but even more of Job, because what more punishment could I ask for? It was, in fact, one of the more exhilarating moments for me. When it hit, I went out into the maelstrom and sat under this overhanging rock. It was a great biblical storm – God's vengeance! It was everything you ever hoped for. It howled and shattered and crashed. And the rain was pouring down. And this barren land was suddenly full of waterfalls, just rushing down. And then it turned to hail – hailstones the size of golf-balls. And I'm under this rock going, 'Yes! Yes! Give me everything you've got, you're not gonna get me!'

"Then when it was over, I got out from under my rock, and there was nothing left. The tents were down, the set was gone, the people were gone. And I thought, 'I'm cleansed, I'm free at last! The burden of the film has now been taken off me and I never have to do it again.'"

All of this, and much, much more, is captured on video-tape in Lost in La Mancha, the latest offering from Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, who previously depicted Gilliam at play on 12 Monkeys in their exemplary 'making-of' documentary The Hamster Factor. "They were two graduate film students and at that time I thought it would be good to have a diary of 12 Monkeys. We just gave them a Hi-8 camera and a lot of tape, and I said, 'It's yours, guys. I'm not gonna censor anything, you have access to me all the time. You just make a truthful documentary.' So The Hamster Factor came out and I thought it was a wonderful work. And then when Quixote began I thought, 'Let's bring them on again, have another diary, because something's bound to happen.' And they missed some of the early development, but they arrived in time for the bloodbath."

Fulton and Pepe's account of that "bloodbath" is eye-opening stuff, not least because their unobtrusive cameras are right there in the huddle when the shit comes down. "It's a truthful, honest statement about what happened," agrees Gilliam, who now views Lost in La Mancha (which includes tantalisingly promising footage of massive horseback puppets and lumbering live giants) with a mixture of pain and pride. "I can't watch it because it takes me a week to recover. On the other hand, it's a record of something, and in years to come I'll look back at it and say, 'Yeah, that's interesting.' It being the first documentary about the non-making of a film is kind of nice. It's a huge tragedy. But I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me. I don't want to plead for understanding. If a good tragedy was created here, then fine. And for a lot of us, this is the only postcard we've got of what happened."

A postcard, perhaps, but not a farewell note – at least not if Gilliam has his way. "I'm caught again in this weird dream-nightmare, the Orson Welles tale of trying to make Quixote and never actually making it. And I don't want to end up in that story, because it's his story. In fact, right now meetings are taking place with the lawyers from the insurance company, which is the first stage of buying the script back, and then starting again. In the last few weeks I've bumped into a lot of different people, especially from Hollywood – experienced, good people – who say, 'Oh it's terrible, really awful, I'm so sorry. But of course, you won't be making it now, you'll be moving on.' And I'm saying, 'No! What? Why should I move on?' Yes, I will do other things before. But I am going to make that film. I might have to recast the thing. I might have to do a lot of things that would be different. But I'll make it. It's too good a script, I just know it, and everybody who reads it says it's magic. And what's really nice about Keith and Lou's documentary is that people come away from it saying, 'I want to see that film!' In fact, there was one British company that, on the basis of seeing Lost in La Mancha said, 'We'll give you $4 million just for the UK rights, we don't even want to see the script.' So it's possibly the best sales tool a little filmmaker could ever hope for ..."

Watch this space.

'Lost in La Mancha' opens on 2 August