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The Fisher King (1991)

post #1 of 3
2/11/08 at 1:57am
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I *think* I caught this on video around 92-93, but being 15, didn't properly appreciate it. After re-viewing it this week...a damn fine film.

Definitely Gilliam's most human film (okay, I haven't seen Tideland), just a beautiful redemptive story set in the real world with some fantastic flourishes. Great performances all around. Love the camerawork and cinematography, the little inventive ways of shooting New York to make it look almost medieval (the arches of the Brooklyn Bridge, the foggy homeless encampment). Also loved Parry's visions: the evil red knight, the waltzing train station, brilliant stuff.

My only gripe (and it's a small one) is the slow second act when we're introduced to Sofia. A bit strange to spend a good deal of time introducing Parry and revealing the cause of his madness (the death of his wife), and then go directly to how obsessed he is with this new woman. Again, not a deal-breaker, but it killed much of the first act's momentum.
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post #2 of 3
1/16/10 at 7:32pm
Just watched this again this morning for the first time in years, and it's completely charming. It's interesting watching Gilliam work with someone else's script, since it reined in a lot of his tendencies towards excess, and it ends up being a very human film because of it, even with the fantastical elements. And he gets a nicely restrained performance from Williams -- considering he's playing crazy, he could have easily gone off the rails here, but he walks the line perfectly.

And I'd forgotten about that wonderful waltz in Grand Central. Turns out that wasn't in the script, it was Gilliam's idea, and it fits in perfectly.
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post #3 of 3
2/3/11 at 10:13am

I have a pretty low tolerance for Hollywood bullshit, especially when it involves the homeless.  If you go by movies, it would seem that the homeless are a saintly bunch of good-natured rascals who exist solely to teach the well-off (the homed, or homeful) how to be better people before fucking back off under a bridge somewhere. The best part of  Jean Renoir's 1932 film Boudu Saved From Drowning is how, no matter how many people try to fit him in their own image, the  eponymous homeless character remains a hostile and probably mentally disturbed person. You never once wonder how he became homeless. He espouses insults and obscenities, not life-lessons.

 

The Fisher King is not Boudu. I've heard it called Gilliam's sell-out movie and, even though it's pure Gilliam in art design and thematic content, I can see that. It feels compromised, emotionally, in a way that the rest of his movies are notedly not. But that doesn't change the fact that, for all it's bullshit, this movie truly works most of the time. The performances are good to great and Williams' relationship with Amanda Plummer is genuinely touching. And no movie featuring that Grand Central Station ballroom dancing scene can be called a waste.

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