In his second Cervantes Forum lecture, Agustín Sánchez Vidal examines one of Orson Welles’ unfinished projects: his film adaptation of Don Quixote, perhaps the most ambitious ever undertaken. Begun in Mexico in 1957 as a medium-length film entitled Variations on a Theme of Cervantes, it was initially intended for Frank Sinatra’s TV show. During the 1960s, however, it was transformed into a standalone feature film, supported by a documentary series on Spain shot in parallel for Italian television, Nella terra di Don Chisciotte. Welles’ objective was to portray the immortality of Cervantes’ characters by bringing them to contemporary Spain but he found that the country was undergoing a process of modernization, which might leave no room for the hidalgo and his squire. Hence his decision to turn the film into an essay on the land of Don Quixote, which he considered to be his adopted homeland and where his ashes now rest.
Agustín Sánchez Vidal is a Spanish essayist, screenwriter, novelist and academic. His literary works include Bunuel and King Solomon’s Table (2001), The Master Key (2007) and Viñetas (2016), his most recent novel. He lectures on the history of cinema at the University of Zaragoza.
The Cervantes Forum (“Foro Cervantes”) is a collaboration between the University of Oxford and the Instituto Cervantes, which presents renowned Spanish writers to British academia and general public.
The lecture will be in Spanish. Free entrance.
