DON BARRY: From Crazy Dream to Reality
Don Barry got its start in radio. I had just completed a year-long program for the Pacifica Network reading Don Quixote, to make up for the one class I failed during college (the series is available at myromancedq.com). I figured it would be fun to try my hand at making a film of Cervantes book, which had vanquished most previous attempts. I was at a party where I talked about my old friend Barry Gerson and I realized HE was Don Quixote. Don Barry. The next day he called me with a book idea that seemed particularly quixotic, and I mentioned my plan to have him be the noble knight in a mix of fact and fiction that would feature his films. He loved the idea and the real work started. I wrote a script and then, at the urging of my friend Richard, created a radio version of what I was planning with the three main voices of Don Barry -- Sanchia, a narrator, and Barry himself, in place with the music I wanted to work with.
I've long believed that professionalism is a scourge. Why does art need be made only by artists? Isn't creativity inherent in us all? In making Don Barry, I chose to reinvent the wheel in a manner similar to that of the cinema I've long loved, be it the early French New Wave, or Satyajit Ray's leap into Pather Panchali. I had the money, after a lifetime of work, to do this myself. I'd just published a prose-poem account of Covid's early days and a rock & roll road novel, both well received. I could create a film with my writing, my love of film, and the young cinematic talents I'd met since moving to Mexico. Instead of working endless hours to match a budget, we would leap forward towards a new means of telling stories beyond the usual narrative forms set into motion by Cervantes four centuries in the past. We would collectively create our own Quixotic exploration in keeping with our own Don Barry's lifetime of intuitive filmmaking and healing.