This program weaves art, music, and literature with Western culture to explore the enormous impact of Cervantes' classic on our world today. Artists, critics, and others, from novelist Carlos Fuentes to General Norman Schwarzkopf, reveal how the work-the most translated in history-has affected their lives. Mixing discussions of the text with music, poems, other writings influenced by Don Quixote, and clips from the many film versions of the work,...

Immersed in tales of knights and dragons and sorcerers and damsels in distress, Senor Quexada proclaims himself a knight and sets out on his first adventure against some nearby windmills that he thinks are giants.

The canonical Spanish classic, now in a beautiful hardcover edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith Don Quixote has become so entranced reading tales of chivalry that he decides to turn knight errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, these exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray--he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants--Sancho acquires cunning and a certain...

The protagonist of Don Quixote finds that he has "survived" for centuries after being created by Miguel de Cervantes, and now wants to learn about his origins-how, where, and why his character came into being. In this film Don Quixote and his loyal squire travel throughout Andalusia searching for information about the life of Cervantes, and the personal and historical events that may have influenced his work. Commentary from biographers and historians...

A critical text of the classic seventeenth century novel about a knight who is obsessed with chivalrous ideals.

With compelling dramatizations filmed at authentic Spanish locations, this program explores the farcical structure of Don Quixote as well as the parallels between Cervantes' magnum opus and his own unusual life. Studying the richness of meaning and moral commentary associated with the would-be knight-errant, the program highlights the universality of Cervantes' narrative-while evoking contrasts with our own age and its vastly different take on idealism,...

Toby is a disillusioned director, currently heading commericals, that becomes pulled into a world of fantasy and memory when he's reunited with a Spanish cobbler who he cast as Don Quixote in a student film years earlier. The old man now believes himself to be the legendary character, and Toby to be Sancho Panza, who must play along with the delusion as he also attempts to fulfill his professional duties and rescue a young woman who believed his seductive...