Francisco Reiguera "è" Don Quijote e Akim Tamiroff "è" Sancho.
il resto del film è opera di Jesus Franco, cosa avrebbe fatto Orson Welles non so, certo un capolavoro, vedendo Don Quijote e Sancho, eccezionali e da soli valgono il film, lo si intuisce.
questo film qui non so, ma, pensando che qualcosa di Orson Welles si respira, allora vale la pena guardarlo - Ismaele
…The performances of the two leads are wonderful. The cinematography is frequently gorgeous, and there is a sense of fun that suffuses the film for a large part of its duration.
Reiguera and Tamiroff are, perhaps, the best things about Don Quijote. I cannot even imagine two persons better suited to the roles. The former, with his crazed eyes, elongated face, skinny torso and limbs, and wonderfully proud and eccentric expressions, really is Cervantes' character given flesh. The actor brings out both Don Quijote's lunacy and his dignity. The latter is just as good, however. The viewer, instead of seeing Tamiroff on screen, is only aware of the earthy, rather stupid, but also loyal and devoted squire. The pair are consistently captivating to watch…
…Whatever its faults, and they are severe, Don Quijote is still worth watching. At its best, it is a captivating film, and, even at its worst, it is a noble failure.
da qui
…Welles also had the
miraculous good fortune of casting Spanish actor Francisco Reiguera in the
title role. Reiguera was a minor character actor whose only starring role was
this film and he rose to the occasion brilliantly, encompassing the mournful
countenance and foolish nobility which Cervantes bestowed on his beloved hero.
His performance is one of true physical and emotion regality mixed with the right
degree of daffiness to keep keeps Don Quixote at odds with the world, and his
scenes with Akim Tamiroff’s Sancho Panza are gems to treasure. Reportedly,
Reiguera begged Welles to finish the principal photography on the film in the
early 1970s because he feared he would die before the production was wrapped,
and his fears were justified as he passed away after Welles belated completed
shooting his scenes. Welles’ original plans had Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
surviving an atomic cataclysm, but this was never filmed and the closing shot
of the heroes in silhouette is among the most haunting captured on film.
“Don Quixote de Orson Welles” is, unfortunately,
missing one key sequence which is in the hands of a private collector who
declined to allow its incorporation into the film. The sequence finds Don
Quixote invading a cinema and, disturbed by a battle in the film being shown
therein, charging down the theater’s main aisle and running his lance through
the screen. With luck, this elusive sequence may someday find its way into a
future version of the production.
“Don Quixote de Orson Welles” is everything you
would expect from a Welles film, and so much more that its return is a cause
for celebration. The film is currently being shopped for a distributor and it
is hopeful that Welles’ spin on Cervantes will finally come to the big screen
home it so richly deserves.
da qui
…From what I know about
Welles and the history of the film, Franco’s version is not even an
approximation, never mind a reconstruction. There’s no story here, simply a
random succession of events and images and a whole lot of narrative detours.
But even as a visual record of Welles’ raw footage it’s a travesty. It’s a
given that much of the existing rough cut footage is in rough condition,
showing the signs of wear and tear from years of tinkering on moviolas and
dragging the reels from country to country. But Franco and company have, if
anything, compounded the problems with hazy, blurry copies of the master
footage and video noise introduced as a result of the project’s most egregious
crimes against Welles: the video manipulation of footage to layer images one on
another. At one point, the sails of a windmill are stretched across the screen
(to suggest a windmill come to life and reach out to Quixote? was that in the
notes, Franco, or was it all your inspiration?). The soundtrack is no better.
Franco uses fragments of recorded dialogue (with Welles providing the voices of
both Quixote and Sancho as well as the narration) and fills in the rest of the
film with voices that barely resemble Welles’ work. You have to have to watch
the mouths move just to pick out the speakers in this dissonant audio mess…
da qui
… The full surviving footage shot by
Welles is split between several different locations. Oja Kodar has deposited
some material with the Munich Film Museum, but in the course of making Don Quijote de Orson Welles she had earlier sold much of the
footage to theFilmoteca
Española in Madrid, whose holdings include around 40
minutes edited and dubbed by Welles. Welles' own editing workprint is held by
the Cinémathèque Française in Paris. Additional footage is held by Mauro
Bonnani in Italy, and in at least one other private collection…
da
qui
…Cuando los personajes de Don Quijote
y Sancho finalmente aparecen en escena, se construye el verosímil de la España
del siglo XVII (vestimenta, paisaje, construcciones) sólo con producir un
efecto mayor de ruptura al quebrarlo de forma abrupta: la primera aventura del
hidalgo será con una joven que aparece sorpresivamente en el camino montada en
una motocicleta. Don Quijote intentará salvarla de ese endemoniado aparato
mientras su fiel escudero, siempre realista, le grita: “¡Mire que no es un
monstruo, sino sólo una Vespa!”. A partir de este momento comienza un proceso
de acumulación de signos que vulneran el verosímil, especialmente en la
superposición de tiempos históricos: Sancho queda asombrado frente a un
televisor, observa la luna por un telescopio, cura las heridas a su amo en un
deshuasadero de automóviles.
Estas
rupturas se acrecientan a partir del trabajo con los ángulos de la cámara
y los planos: primeros planos enfocados desde abajo (casi desde el cuello de
los actores) que dan un aspecto grotesco a los personajes; trabajo con el fuera
de campo; utilización de planos picado y contrapicado. Todas estas estrategias,
especialmente la angulación forzada de la cámara, sirven a la desintegración
del punto de vista objetivo, rasgo que, al igual que el resto, se
intensificarán hasta llegar a la escena de los molinos de viento presentada
desde la visión de Don Quijote.
Esta
experimentación con los recursos materiales del cine también se genera a partir
del montaje y la ruptura de la coherencia espacio-temporal: la película se
congela en varias oportunidades en un fotograma al cual se le aplica zoom y el
montaje de cuadros rompen esta coherencia al superponer dos tiempos diferentes:
Don Quijote se enfrenta en pleno día con una procesión religiosa filmada de
noche, sucediéndose alternativamente imágenes nocturnas y diurnas en breves
minutos…
