'Don Quixote' directed by Orson Welles
6 May 2022This week’s ‘The Signal From David Katznelson’ newsletter describes how Katznelson has been meaning for many years to read ‘Don Quixote’ by Miguel de Cervantes and has now finally done so. His experience of tackling this genius “first modern novel” sounds remarkably similar to my own (described at length in my review here in January 2012): it was a bit of struggle but the transition into meta-fiction in the second part of the story (when the knight and his squire encounter people who have read the earlier volume and are familiar with their history) is fascinating. David Katznelson also makes the point I did in my review of James Fenton’s stage adaptation of ‘Don Quixote’ (reviewed here in January 2019) that the laughs at the expense of what is effectively mental illness feel a bit uncomfortable at times. Best of all The Signal provides a link to Orson Welles’ unfinished film of ‘Don Quixote’ - which Welles started in 1955 and was working on intermittently until his death in 1985. It’s a bizarre curio, well worth a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RZaalXvhIk
posted by Robin Simpson @ 4:41 pm
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