European film archivists are working to complete Orson Welles’s long-gestating project, Don Quixote, more than seven decades after the director first began shooting. Led by Welles authority Esteve Riambau, a consortium of institutions in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany has secured the blessing of Oja Kodar, Welles’s longtime partner and collaborator, to reconstruct the film from approximately 30 hours of scattered footage.
How will archivists reconstruct the unfinished film?
The reconstruction process requires consolidating massive amounts of footage held across international archives. According to Esteve Riambau, the team must process 50,000 meters of negative held by the Cineteca Nazionale in Rome, alongside 50,000 meters of 16mm and 35mm film in Spain and an additional 80 minutes of 35mm footage in France.
Riambau, the former head of the Catalan film archive, stated that the team intends to rely strictly on existing material rather than digital manipulation. “We’re not going to invent anything or use special effects to fill in the gaps,” Riambau said. “The idea is to show the original in so far as it’s possible, but it’s like working on a mosaic where there are missing pieces.” Because no definitive script exists, the team is working to organize alternative scenes into a coherent narrative, with completion estimated by 2028.
Orson Welles famously joked about the film’s interminable production, suggesting he might change the title to “When are you going to finish Don Quixote?”
What is the production history of Welles’s Don Quixote?
Welles began filming his adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes’s 1605 novel in 1957. The project was initially conceived as a television film with backing from Frank Sinatra, but that deal eventually collapsed. Throughout the following decades, Welles continued to shoot footage in Mexico, Italy, and Spain whenever he could secure independent funding. He remained dedicated to the project until his death in 1985.
The resulting footage is a mix of black-and-white and color film, with some sequences shot as late as 1976. While the soundtrack remains incomplete, the audio for the lead characters—Don Quixote and Sancho Panza—was voiced by Welles himself, providing an authentic vocal anchor for the final edit.
How does the film differ from the original novel?
While the film draws from Cervantes’s classic text, it is not a traditional adaptation. Riambau notes that Welles “enhanced” certain segments to suit his own cinematic vision. One notable departure involves a puppet theater scene; in the novel, Don Quixote attacks the puppets to save a heroine, but in Welles’s version, the sequence is set in a Mexican cinema where the protagonist attacks the movie screen itself.
This approach reflects the unconventional style that defined Welles’s career, from his 1941 debut Citizen Kane to later works like The Third Man and A Touch of Evil. For Riambau, the project is a vital addition to cinema history: “For me, Welles is much more than a film-maker, he’s more like Michelangelo.”
Frequently Asked Questions
- When will the film be finished? The team currently estimates that the reconstruction will be completed by 2028.
- Who is leading the project? Esteve Riambau, a Welles authority and former head of the Catalan film archive, is leading the reconstruction.
- Is the movie a faithful adaptation? No, the film features “enhanced” scenes, such as a reimagined puppet theater sequence set in a cinema.
- Will there be new CGI added? No. The archival team has stated they will not use special effects to fill in gaps in the narrative.
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