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The Appropriate Tune: "Fish and Whistle", by John Prine
We're getting down to the wire here folks, only one more movie before we get into the Final 10, which means revisiting one of our first ten directors: Terry Gilliam. Strange to think now that I was barely aware of the entire Monty Python idea back in high school, the prime Monty Python years, and yet years later I find myself waist deep in Python adjacent media, all because of Terry Gilliam. I’ve tried for a while to describe the source of that phenomenon in this paragraph, try to compose some sort of thesis on the nature of cinema but I think the simplest answer I can think of to write here is that I like his style. I’ve loved his films (Baron Munchausen) and I’ve hated them (Doctor Parnassus) and everything in between, but the reason I keep coming back is because I respect his cinematic vision. So it is with Lynch and Carpenter; Even if their movies aren’t perfect, whatever perfect means in an imperfect, I find myself drawn to the way they tell a story because they approach things in such a novel way. Is that how auteur theory works? I think that’s how it works. I don’t know much about movies, even though I’ve reviewed about two hundred of them.
Released in 1991, written by Richard LaGravenese, The Fisher King was directed by Terry Gilliam and was his only film to be released through TriStar, otherwise known as that one company with the flying horse. Everyone’s favorite uncle Jeff Bridges plays Jack Lucas, an inflammatory New York shock jock in the vein of Howard Stern, because who else could it be? Jack is on the cusp of mainstream success, that tantalizing primetime sitcom fruit is within arm’s reach, when one of his listeners takes his flippant comments seriously and goes on a shooting spree, killing seven people as well as himself. Three years later, Jack is a broken man mooching off of his girlfriend Ann, using copious amounts of booze to try and drown the demons. One inebriated night, Jack is mistaken for a homeless person and almost set on fire by a couple psychopaths when he is saved by a homeless man named Parry (played by Robin Williams). Parry isn’t just a homeless man, though; He’s a knight of the Aruthurian persuasion, tasked by God to retrieve the Holy Grail, which just so happens to look like a trophy sitting in local business tycoon Langdon Carmichael’s study. At least that’s what the invisible cherubim tell him, and they also say that Jack happens to be the Chosen One who will facilitate that request. Invisible naked babies know best after all.
Well Jack is ready to get the hell out of Dodge after that revelation when he learns the truth: ‘Parry’ isn’t actually Parry; His name is Henry Sagan, a former college professor of medieval literature at Columbia University. He was at that bar during that rampage, where he got a front row seat to his wife’s face being blown to pieces with a shotgun, causing him to go into catatonic shock and ultimately leading to the state he’s in. Holy intervention, or just a really big coincidence? Either way, Jack decides to try and find some way to help Parry, some way he can pay him back in order to assuage the overwhelming guilt that’s hanging over him. Recompense, but perhaps it should be more mutual aid, as it turns out Jack might be in need of fixing just as much as Parry.
In the case of music, oftentimes the case is to lead with some grand and high-energy song, and then follow it up with the quiet, emotional ballad. So it is in a way with Gilliam here. His last film, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was that grand, high-energy ballad, with the over-the-top special effects and costumes and sweeping vistas and what have you, so it makes sense that he would pull back in his next film (also the fact that it made back less than half its budget at the box office). Still The Fisher King feels magical; the use of saturated colors and New York’s gothic architecture, and the occasions where we slip along into Parry’s delusions really gives the film a magical realist tone, sans the magic. Proof that Terry Gilliam could still make a Terry Gilliam without the trappings of genre films per se, and considering this film made almost double its budget at the box office, I’d say that I’m not the only one to think as much.
Moving onto our cast, we of course have Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams as Jack and Parry respectively, Mercedes Ruehl (who has appeared in The Warriors and Last Action Hero) as the girlfriend/video store owner Ann and Amanda Plummer as Parry’s love interest, Lydia Sinclair. Bridges and Williams give exactly the performance you’d expect from them, rugged/too cool for school and manic with a core of pain respectively. Mercedes does the put-upon assertive Italian woman role that you’ve probably seen hundreds of times in films based in New York, but she does it with heart and she does it well. Amanda Plummer similarly seems like an actor that you’d bet dollars to doughnuts would be a regular in Tim Burton or the Coen’s filmography and so it’s surprising that she never has been, and similarly she does great work as Parry’s very own Dulcinea del Toboso. I find it hard to describe, but it’s as if she projects the exact opposite of charisma. Everything about her, the way the acts, the way she eats seems tailor made to ward off the audience, and to reiterate the fact that Parry ‘sees’ things that other people can’t see, just as he does with Jack. It’s a shame she doesn’t get more screen time.
Which ties into what might be the key issue of this film, which is the romance. Parry and Lydia’s romance being underdeveloped, they only get one real scene together before we’re thrust into the climax of the film, so it doesn’t hit as hard it might have otherwise. The Jack and Ann romance...while it is given a build, I could see the argument that it’s a one-sided, even toxic relationship that’s never really treated as such in the film. Ann is put behind the figurative 8-ball right out of the gate, being put-upon financially and emotionally, and she never gets past it and stands on her own two feet. Even the ending which is framed as sweet and romantic comes across as weak because it's framed around Jack making the smallest possible concession and Ann forgiving him for all past transgressions. I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to romantic entanglements, but I dunno, their whole arc didn’t ring true to me.
Then of course there is the depiction of homeless people (as in a bunch of old mentally ill guys) and mental illness (as in talking fast and acting eccentric), which is treating with a bit more humanity than some but still reeks of Hollywood standards. I don’t necessarily mind it in the case of Parry, as there is a clear line of influence between his character and that of Don Quixote, and anyone who knows Terry Gilliam knows how he feels about La Mancha’s favorite son. If that is the case however, I wish then that we did get to spend some time with Parry and that we got to see more of his hallucinations brought to life. Really get to see him at work as the knight, or fail to work as quixotic tradition would have it. Then again I guess pushing Gilliam to go crazy with it would contradict my praise for doing something down-to-earth after Munchausen, so clearly I don’t know what I’m talking about.
As much as Gilliam’s movies tend to lean towards the cynical and the sarcastic, I think The Fisher King has a sentimental core. The importance of love and of forgiveness; Forgiving others, and allowing yourself to to be forgiven, loving others and allowing yourself to be loved. The Fisher King gets the recommendation, it’s a solid film that plays to Gilliam’s artistic vision while leaving you wanting more, and considering how this blog functions that’s not an empty statement. Grab some Chinese food and a date this Halloween and enjoy. Just remember to avoid any red knights.
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