History Film / TheManWhoKilledDonQuixote

The project became known as one of the most infamous cases of DevelopmentHell in the history of moviemaking, with Gilliam unsuccessfully attempting to get it off the ground a total of ''eight times'' over the span of nearly three decades. Pre-production started all the way back in 1991. A first filming attempt happened in 2000 and failed due to unpreparedness, bad luck and various other problems getting in the way. That particular disaster was chronicled in the documentary ''Film/LostInLaMancha'', which was initially intended to be the movie's making-of.

The project became known as one of the most infamous cases of [[TheProductionCurse Production Curse]] in the history of moviemaking, with Gilliam unsuccessfully attempting to get it off the ground a total of ''eight times'' over the span of nearly three decades. Pre-production started all the way back in 1991. A first filming attempt happened in 2000 and failed due to unpreparedness, bad luck and various other problems getting in the way. That particular disaster was chronicled in the documentary ''Film/LostInLaMancha'', which was initially intended to be the movie's making-of.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Humor related to the UsefulNotes/SpanishInquisition plays when Toby's previous claim of having a Jewish grandmother is thrown against him in his 17th century-set dream. In real life, merely having Jewish heritage was not a crime by itself, only hiding it to bypass a prohibition (such as those of religious and chivalry orders) would have been punishable, and even in that case, it would have required solid evidence beyond the verbal accusation of a random peasant (who in this case was a Muslim, not the most reliable source in the Inquisition's eyes).[[note]]Note that, being a American born in TheEighties, it is highly likely that Toby is circumcised regardless of his religion, which would have got him in actual trouble had the Muslim known this. Even then, it would have still not earned Toby an instant burning in the stake, and he could have got away with it by claiming to be a foreign Christian convert.[[/note]] Of course, given that the whole sequence is a dream, it could chalked up to Toby not knowing how the Spanish Inquisition really worked outside of the popular stereotype.

* ArtisticLicenseLawEnforcement: Modern Spain is a first world country with a centuries-long convoluted political background and an equally long history of terrorism (Muslim, Basque, Catalan, left-wing, right-wing, you name it), so there's just no way you could get away with getting a cop shot no matter how much money or connections you had. If anything, by the aforementioned reasons, it could be said Spain is actually one of the hardest countries out there to try to buy your way out of a shootout with a police force.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Humor related to the UsefulNotes/SpanishInquisition plays when Toby's previous claim of having a Jewish grandmother is thrown against him in his 17th century-set dream. In real life, solely being accused of Judaism by a random peasant (who in this case was a Muslim, not the most reliable source in the Inquisition's eyes) would have earned Toby little to no trouble unless solid evidence of the claim was presented as well.[[note]]However, being a American born in the Eighties makes it highly likely that Toby is circumcised regardless of his religion, which would count as the evidence required and get him in trouble in case of it being discovered. It would still not earn him an instant burning in the stake by itself, though.[[/note]] Of course, given that the whole sequence is a dream, it could chalked up to Toby not knowing how the Spanish Inquisition really worked outside of the popular stereotype.
* ArtisticLicenseLaw: Javier's neighbors maintain a shoddy, makeshift Quixotic masquerade for many years in an attempt to help him with his madness, as he seems to have no family or legal support of any kind. In real life, Spain has a stellar healthcare system that is also a big part of their culture, so in a real scenario, Javier would have been hospitalized perfunctorily and without economic expenses at the first signs of madness (and institutionalized, or placed on social support, if his condition happened to require a lifelong treatment), and few would have not considered it the best for him.
* ArtisticLicenseLawEnforcement: Spain is a first world country with a centuries-long convoluted political background and an equally long history of terrorism (Muslim, Basque, Catalan, left-wing, right-wing, you name it), so there's just no way you could get away with getting a cop shot no matter how much money or connections you had. It could be rather said Spain is actually one of the hardest countries out there to try to buy your way out of a shootout with a police force.

* MistakenForTerrorist: Toby sees robed figures hiding in the camp and thinks they are the terrorists the police are looking for, and becomes convinced that he is going to be executed. They are actially illegal immigrants from Morocco who are hiding from the authorities.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Javier/Quixote once reprimands Toby for sounding religiously intolerant towards what he believes to be some praying Moors. The literary Don Quixote would have never defended any kind of religious tolerance, however, as his medieval Christian ideals effectively set him against Islam by definition (he even occasionally speaks against "Pagan" Muslims in the actual text). Possibly an in-universe example, given that Javier is actually a present day man with modern sensibilities, and perhaps he is not familiar enough with the book's details (actually not many Spaniards are) to know how Quixote would have reacted to the Moors in his place. Still, Javier/Quixote also off-handedly says that the Moors worship a "pagan god", so some of the original Don Quixote's sensibilities remain.

* SelfDeprecation: Terry Gilliam made sure the hell he went through all these years to get the movie off the ground is alluded to here and there.
** [[CreditsGag A message at the beginning of the film]] indicates it comes after it's been "25 years in the making... and unmaking."

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: The film plays with this, often leaving initially ambiguous if Javier and Toby's increasingly wacky finds are somehow real or just random but absurdly appropriated happenings. One of them is implied to have been AllJustADream. [[spoiler:Then played straight with Toby at the end when he goes Quixote-mad.]]

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Humor related to the UsefulNotes/SpanishInquisition plays when Toby's previous claim of having a Jewish grandmother is thrown against him in his 17th century-set dream. In real life, solely being accused of being a Jew by a random peasant (who in this case was a Muslim, not the most reliable source in the Inquisition's eyes) would have earned Toby little to no trouble unless solid evidence of the claim was presented as well.[[note]]However, being a American born in the Eighties makes it highly likely that Toby is circumcised regardless of his religion, which would count as the evidence required and get him in trouble in case of it being discovered. It would still not earn him an instant burning in the stake by itself, though.[[note]] Of course, given that the whole sequence is a dream, it could chalked up to Toby not knowing how the Spanish Inquisition really worked outside of the popular stereotype.
* ArtisticLicenseLaw: The film shows Javier's neighbors kindly maintaining a shoddy, makeshift Quixotic masquerade for many years in an attempt to help him with his madness, as he seems to have no family or legal support of any kind. In real life, Spain has a stellar healthcare system that is also a big part of their culture, so in a real scenario, Javier would have been hospitalized perfunctorily and without economic expenses at the first signs of madness (and institucionalized, or placed on social support, if his condition happened to require a lifelong treatment), and few would have not considered it the best for him.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Toby makes fun of LGBTI representation by pretending not to know the exact acronym and treating it lightly when the topic is brought up.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Humor related to the UsefulNotes/SpanishInquisition plays when Toby's previous claim of having a Jewish grandmother is thrown against him in his 17th century-set dream. In real life, solely being accused of being a Jew by a random peasant (who in this case was a Muslim, not the most reliable source in the Inquisition's eyes) would have earned Toby little to no trouble unless solid evidence of the claim was presented as well.[[note]]However, being a American born in the Eighties makes it highly likely that Toby is circumcised regardless of his religion, which would count as evidence and get him in trouble in case of it being discovered. It would still not earn him a burning in the stake by itself, though.[[note]] Of course, given that the whole sequence is a dream, it could chalked up to Toby not knowing how the Spanish Inquisition really worked outside of the popular stereotype.

* ConspicuousConsumption: Russian billionaire and Don Quixote fan Alexei Miiskin throws a very lavish several-days long party in a local castle he bought, with Spanish 16th century costumes for everyone, and the Spanish Holy Week is celebrated during the festivities. Alexei basically throws tons of money around ''because he can'', and for his own amusement.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Toby makes fun of LGBTI representation by pretending not to know the exact acronym when the topic is brought up. He later hallucinates with randomly finding a stash of gold coins of the Spanish Empire in midst of a field, which implies he holds a couple of cultural stereotypes about Spain too.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: Spain is a first world country with a convoluted political background and a very long history of terrorism, so there's just no way you could get away with getting a cop shot no matter how much money or connections you had. By those reasons, it could be rather said Spain is actually one of the hardest countries out there to try to buy your way out of a shootout with a police force.

* MistakenForTerrorist: Toby sees robed figures hiding in the camp and thinks they are the terrorists the police are looking for, and becomes convinced that he is going to be executed. They are actially illegal refugees from Morocco who are hiding from the authorities.

''The Man Who Killed Don Quixote'' is a film directed by Creator/TerryGilliam, and written by Gilliam and Tony Grisoni. It is a fantasy-adventure-comedy inspired by and themed after ''[[Literature/DonQuixote The Ingenious Nobleman Don Quixote of La Mancha]]'', the landmark novel of Spanish literature by Creator/{{Miguel de Cervantes}}.

After many years (and following some other projects of Gilliam that ''also'' ran into {{troubled production}}s), a successful shooting eventually started in October 2016 and completed in June 2017. The film premiered on May 19, 2018 in France during the closure of the Cannes Film Festival, followed by wide releases in some other European countries. Its eventual US release was a one-night theatrical showing on April 10, 2019. A sequel documentary to ''Lost in La Mancha'', titled ''He dreamed of Giants'', by the same directors and dealing with Gilliam's mindset and determination in finishing the film, was released in November 2019.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Javier/Quixote calls English a "protestant language". Part two of ''Don Quixote'' was published in 1515, two years before Martin Luther published his ''Ninety-Five Theses'', the generally-agreed starting point of the Reformation, and fourteen years before the start of the English Reformation. Although similar movements had existed before (such as the Waldensians in France and northern Italy, the Lollards in England and the Hussites in Bohemia), they were not called "protestant" (the term was first used in 1529). Given that Javier is actually a present-day Spaniard, this was likely an intentional anachronism.

* TitleDrop: The name of Toby's first film, ''The Man Who Killed Don Quixote'', is pronounced when his boss buys the DVD from The Gypsy.

* EasilyForgiven: The ''big'' trouble Toby, Javier and the Romani caused at the beginning, which resulted in a cop getting severely injured by his own gun of all things, gets easily forgotten about, as [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney Alexei showers the local police in money to keep them quiet]].

* HandyCuffs: The Romany takes advantage of the fact that his hands are cuffed in front of him to choke one of the police men and take control of the police car.

* MistakenForTerrorist: Toby sees robed figures hiding in the Romani camp and thinks they are the terrorists the police are looking for, and becomes convinced that he is going to be executed. They are actially illegal refugees from Morocco who are hiding from the authorities.

* TitleDrop: The name of Toby's first film, ''The Man Who Killed Don Quixote'', is pronounced when his boss buys the DVD from the Romani man.

* InformedJudaism: Toby mentions having a Jewish grandmother when trying to find common ground with a crypto-Muslim.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Javier/Quixote once reprimands Toby for sounding religiously intolerant towards what he believes to be some praying Moors. The literary Don Quixote would have never defended any kind of religious tolerance, however, as his medieval Christian ideals effectively set him against Islam by definition (he even occasionally speaks against "Pagan" Muslims in the actual text). Possibly an in-universe example, given that Javier is actually a present day man with modern sensibilities, and perhaps he is not familiar enough with the book's details (actually not many Spaniards are) to know how Quixote would have reacted to the Moors in his place.

* ActorAllusion: Creator/OscarJaenada, who starred in a biopic about Gypsy singer Camarón de la Isla (and is popularly believed to be Gypsy in real life), plays another Gypsy here.

* EasilyForgiven: The ''big'' trouble Toby, Javier and the Gypsy caused at the beginning, which resulted in a cop getting severely injured by his own gun of all things, gets easily forgotten about, as [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney Alexei showers the local police in money to keep them quiet]].

* HandyCuffs: The Gypsy takes advantage of the fact that his hands are cuffed in front of him to choke one of the police men and take control of the police car.

* {{Malaproper}}: Javier/Quixote keeps saying "squirrel" instead of "squire". He keeps doing it despite being corrected several times. In the Spanish version, he says "escordero" (or "slag") instead of "escudero," the actual word for "squire."

* MistakenForTerrorist: Toby sees robed figures hiding in the gypsy camp and thinks they are the terrorists the police are looking for, and becomes convinced that he is going to be executed. They are actially illegal refugees from Morocco who are hiding from the authorities.

* TitleDrop: The name of Toby's first film, ''The Man Who Killed Don Quixote'', is pronounced when his boss buys the DVD from the Gypsy man.

* TorosYFlamenco: Subverted. Spain's portrayal in this film is outlandish, almost certainly deliberately so, but it doesn't play any of this trope's classical stereotypes straight (there are no toros, for example, and very little flamenco). Interestingly, the film instead exaggerates other, more modern Spanish stereotypes that only people very acquainted with the country's current landscape might recognize, like the problem with the Moroccan immigration, the high criminality of Spanish gypsies, the national unemployement forcing young adults into desperate jobs, and the perception that the nation is a playground for rich foreigners.

* SpiritualSuccessor: The movie's story of a selfish man teaming up with a delusional "knight" whose situation is largely the former's fault bears a strong resemblance to Gilliam's earlier film, ''Film/TheFisherKing''.