381 - The Fisher King, United States, 1991. Dir. Terry Gilliam.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

381 - The Fisher King, United States, 1991.  Dir. Terry Gilliam.

I love you, and I think you're the greatest thing since spice racks.

That may not look like the most romantic line ever written, but when Robin Williams as Parry says it to Amanda Plummer as Lydia, it is the most wonderful thing a guarded, brokenhearted girl could ever hope to hear.

Lydia works as a cubicle accountant at a publishing firm, and the homeless widower Parry has been watching her from afar and loving her.

She does not know that.  She is cynical.  Jaded.  She has been hurt before.  And she does not wish to be again.  She does not trust.

They have gone on their date at the behest of their new friends, Jack and Anne, and after an extremely awkward opening, they hit it off grandly at dinner.

Now he is walking her home.

And she is getting pretty nervous.

She informs him, "You don't have to say nice things to me.  It's a little old-fashioned considering what we are about to do."

He asks her, "What are we about to do?"

And she explains, "You're walking me home.  And you'll probably want to come upstairs for some coffee.  And we'll probably have a drink and talk and get to know each other better.  Get comfortable.  You'll sleep over.  And in the morning you'll awake and you'll be distant.  And you won't be able to stay for breakfast.  Maybe just a cup of coffee.  Then we'll exchange phone numbers.  And you'll leave.  And never call.  I'll get to work and I'll feel so good for the first hour.  And then, ever so slowly, I'll turn into a piece of dirt."

She sums it up.  This is what happens.  She knows this is what happens because it has happened to her.  It is better not to get your heart involved.

But Parry is different.  He loved his wife.  She died in a restaurant shooting.  He was knocked comatose.  When he came to, he forgot that he was Henry Sagan, college teacher at Hunter College.  He knew himself as Parry.  He heard voices.  He was in search of the Holy Grail.  (Some billionaire has it in his library on Fifth Avenue.  If only Parry can get inside.)  And every time Parry starts to return to reality in his mind, a Red Knight guarding the portal comes forward to stop him.

Yet whatever Parry has lost in memory function, he has retained in heart.  In spades.  He rescued Jack Lucas from suicide and murder in the same night.  When others give him money, he gives it to others.  And he has been following Lydia now on her morning commute for quite some time--not as a stalker, but as a guardian angel.

When she got off the train at Grand Central Station, she entered the Terminal and he saw her.  And the music started and all the crowd suddenly fell in love.  They paired up and began to dance a waltz.  Not Johann Strauss II's The Blue Danube, as was originally planned, but a waltz composed by the film's composer, George Fenton, so that it would build to a crescendo at just the right moment.  It is a lovely piece of filmmaking, and it demonstrates the love in Parry's heart as only cinema can.

So when he tells her he loves her and compares her to spice racks, she believes him.  And her heart melts.  He says, "I'd be knocked out if I could have that first kiss.  And I won't be distant.  I'll come back in the morning, and I'll call you if you let me."

O what a date.  O what a night.

She goes inside, and he goes on his way.

Then he remembers he forgot to get her phone number.

And the Red Knight reappears.  And blocks the threshold.  Parry begs him.  "Please let me have this.  Let me have it!"

And you can feel Robin Williams speaking on behalf of every human who has ever lived. Who has ever longed.  Who has ever prayed.

Please.

This movie stars Jeff Bridges.  Robin Williams is the supporting character.  And yet in the Oscar campaign he was submitted and nominated for Best Actor, as the lead.  And you watch, as he plays the perfect foil to Bridges' misanthropic narcissist Jack Lucas, amazed by the great love in his heart.  And you think of all the performances you have seen Robin Williams give.  And you wonder if maybe he was not quite acting.  That maybe Robin Williams' own heart was that large.  And that full of love.

Terry Gilliam referred to both him and Amanda Plummer as being filled with tremendous vulnerabilities.  And covering them with their madcap humor.  We can see that.

And when Jack Lucas sits by Parry's hospital bed as Parry lies in a catatonic state, you remember when it was the other way around, when Robin Williams was the doctor, Dr. Malcolm Sayer, attending to Robert De Niro's Leonard Lowe, when Lowe lay in a catatonic state, in Penny Marshall's drama from the year before, 1990's Awakenings.

And when Jack Lucas contributes to the suicide of Edwin Malnick.  And Parry rescues Jack Lucas from his own suicide.  And Jack Lucas saves Langdon Carmichael from his suicide.  You wonder who could have rescued Robin Williams.  If only someone could have.  If only someone could

Terry Gilliam never lets up on telling the truth about the human condition.  Sometimes that makes his films harder to watch.  Sometimes it makes him come across as a cynic.

But the first step to finding salvation is understanding Original Sin.  That we are all in this together.  We are all born into it.  Ugly.  Broken.  Guilty.  We need a Savior who is outside ourselves, because we cannot find it on our own.  No one is better than anyone else.  Everyone is evil.


Jeff Bridges is fantastic in this film.  As he always is.  He is an actor's actor.  And he carries the story on his broad, strong shoulders.

Amanda Plummer hits the right balance of vulnerable and tough as Lydia.  You know her as Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction (1994), and as Rose Michaels in So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993).  She had appeared with Robin Williams nine years before in The World According to Garp (1982).

Mercedes Ruehl plays Anne.  A woman who loves Jack Lucas even at his lowest.  She stands by him when he loses his penthouse Manhattan apartment and moves in with her above the video rental store.  While Parry knows how to love but has lost his love, Jack does not know how to love.  And he needs Parry, and Anne, to show him.

In 1987, Nicolas Cage told Cher, "I'm in love with you," and she slapped him.  "Snap out of it!"  And won the Oscar. 

In 1991, Jeff Bridges tells Mercedes Ruehl, "I think, I realize, I love you," and she slaps him.  "You love me, huh?  You son of a b****!"  And wins the Oscar.

Maybe there is something to this.  Wanna win an Oscar?  Have a man tell you he loves you and then slap him.

This film begins harshly.  Coldly.  Cruelly.  And yet it is full of heart throughout and ends surprisingly.

Terry Gilliam tells us he broke all three of his filmmaking rules when he made it.  1) He directed a script written by someone else.  2)  He worked with a major studio.  3)  He filmed it in America.

It is also the first film he made completely devoid of any Monty Python personnel.

The budget is smaller.  It is more disciplined.

And frankly, it is better for it.  It is still very much a Terry Gilliam film, but it is aided by the input of others, beginning with Richard LaGavenese's strong script.

Gilliam should break his rules again.

(He will with Twelve Monkeys (1995) and The Brothers Grimm (2005).)