The tortured road to finally getting to watch The Man Who Killed Don Quixote...

Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote had a famously tortured production history.  I don't really need to detail it here.  The first efforts eventually documented in Lost in La Mancha (2002) led more than a decade later to Gilliam successfully completing the film.  And then financiers decided he couldn't release it.  And then Cannes let him screen it (out of competition).  And then, in the US, it got a single day for cinematic screening earlier this year.  And then the home video was finally announced, and that was last Tuesday.

Ah!  Now it would be simple! 

Ha!  Of course not.  Of course not!

I found a Blu-ray copy at Target, but I do not do Blu-ray.  I figured Wal-Mart would definitely have it.  But it didn't.

So I ordered a copy on Amazon.  Simple enough, right?  Except, no!  Amazon didn't even have it officially listed.  There were only "used" copies available.  I ordered one of those.  I checked out Redbox later, but Redbox didn't seem to have it, either.

I have to assume additional hoops were placed even for the home video release.  You have to be very dedicated to have gotten a copy.  I mean, in the age of the internet, it's somewhat standard practice at this point.  I don't know if the movie can be found on cable, or Netflix, or some other service.  But it shouldn't have been this hard!

I mean, I get why Gilliam's original production had problems.  Some of it seemed avoidable, in hindsight.  I'm glad he got to go back and finally make the thing.  I'm still appalled that anyone involved in this effort could then decide they could possibly be justified in blocking it.  I'm appalled that Gilliam didn't have willing investors from the usual channels, from the many, many movies that are made and released without notable incident.  I'm appalled that distribution for the home video release was equally convoluted.  In a sane world, most of this would have sounded positively insane.

But in a weird sort of way, if it weren't all so crazy, would it really be a Terry Gilliam movie? 

So I will appreciate that it got made, and that I got a copy, and that I will get to enjoy it for years to come.  We now live in a world where The Man Who Killed Don Quixote officially exists, and anyone who really wants to see it, can.  That's pretty awesome.