2. Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes's mammoth novel Don Quixote is more than just a parody of the "books of chivalry" of the time - what can be argued as one of the precursors to the modern novel, it delves into the contradictions of human nature and presents the reader with a view of society at every level. If any director had the intelligence and cinematic flair to bring it to the screen that director was Orson Welles. At least, it should have been. Welles worked on the project on and off for many years and filmed substantial portions of it over a period covering more than a decade starting in 1957, and Welles was still working on it up to his death in 1985. Unfortunately this labour of love never saw the light of day during his lifetime, and in 1992 an admirer bought the rights to the footage and hatchet jobbed it onto the silver screen. The result was nothing short of a travesty, desecrating Welles's vision not least in the incredibly poor quality film transfer (as is evidenced in the screen shot above). Terry Gilliam also wrestled with the same adaptation for many years for his movie The Man Who Killed Don Quixote before finally giving up - his trials and tribulations are charted in the wonderful documentary Lost in La Mancha. From constant airplane background noises to flash floods, it's a cautionary tale for any overly ambitious filmmaker, of which Gilliam frequently is himself.