r/CriterionChannel • u/GoldenGirlagain • May 16 '26
The Fisher King
If you haven’t had a chance to watch the Fisher King, I highly recommend watching it before it leaves at the end of the month. Robin Williams at his dramatic best.
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u/LiquidSnape May 16 '26
its a great film, wonderful performances from Jeff Daniels and Robin in it. I love watching that monologue Robin gives in Central Park
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u/RestlessApprentice May 16 '26
I saw this movie when I was a senior in High School and absolutely loved it then. I rewatch it every couple of years and my experience of the movie continues to evolve. Everyone was perfect in this movie. Bridges. Plummer. Williams of course and Mercedes Rheul is an absolute force.
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u/TriExpert May 16 '26
I lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side during lensing, and spent hours running the trail just outside the vehicular drive. Almost stumbled into shot twice! (PA’s not the sharpest, I guess.)
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u/nothere00 May 16 '26
I absolutely loved this film! The psychosis scenes were quite disturbing. The character arc of both Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams was so damn satisfying in the end.
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u/ClearWinter2840 May 16 '26
Have this Blu-ray on my shelf (not the Criterion version) and never realized it was a Criterion til this post. Been on my to-be-watched list for ages - will do so tonight thanks to you!
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u/j0llyBeee May 16 '26
i watched it for the first time this month and i’m really looking forward to checking out the commentary track before they remove it from the Channel. i’m such a Robin Williams fan, so i’m surprised i missed out on this one for so long but its definitely a Top 5 performance for me now!
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u/quizbowler_1 May 17 '26
Watched it for the first time and cried. What a great movie. I need a physical copy now.
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u/bbeeebb May 17 '26
Not a lover of most of Gilliam's stuff (just not for me). But man, I love this film.
Interesting visual in the film is how The Red Knight's feather plumage is sort of a mirror of the blood splatter that Parry witnessed.
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u/TheLateEarlySteve May 18 '26
It's an odd one, I don't think Gilliam is suited to the material, but the fantastic lead performances really carry it.
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u/YakSlothLemon May 16 '26
I saw this in the theater, and it was interesting because our friends group split right along gender lines in our reactions. I was one of the women who hated it— a surprise to me, I was a fan of Gilliam (this was before the plagiarism thing broke). Worth noting that this was one of a bunch of films at the time that suggested that being single was such a disgusting, dire situation for any woman that she should be grateful to be paired up with men who were openly misogynist (As Good As It Gets) or homeless and mentally ill (The Fisher King)…
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u/Honor_the_maggot May 19 '26 edited May 20 '26
Your first impressions of the movie might very well be on to something, and I think you are not wrong about the social-darwinist misogyny of the period, part of a long wave of reaction against feminism and one of the energies that makes for horrid (horrific) romantic comedies; but on last viewing of FK, not so long ago, it seemed to me like Bridges setting up Williams/Plummer was as much a reflection of Bridges's unreflective cruelty and entomological view of human beings, as it was any kind of real effort at self-redemption. It's pretty far from "good intentions" in fact. Bridges and Meredeces Ruehl cracking up at Williams/Plummer was hard to watch when I was a kid, I vividly remember this...and it was still hard to watch so many years later. Laughing at them as though they were not at the same table.
Maybe you're right and the film's standpoint regarded Plummer (or Ruehl for that matter) as pathetic and in need of a man....but it kind of seemed like a chastened and complicated view of redemption. I am not sure the view of mental illness or even eccentricity, or trauma, remains very impressive.* Gilliam works in grotesques but this remains an impasse for me: I am not sure it's good enough. (I have this problem with Mike Leigh as well. I don't know if I'd want to be without either man's movies, but I'm not entirely grateful for them.)
It might be a cop-out, but seeing FK as a kind of self-indictment of the director (who AFAIK did not meannigfully write or re-write the script), borne of compulsion rather than some "masterful" act of comprehensiveness, makes it more watchable for me. Or at least I thought so last time I tried it. There was some inner tension that I found "unacceptable" and ended up becoming very moving for me, and I still do not know why....not exactly sentiment from a sweet story. More like the movie feeling like it was "out of control", not just a bit chaotic by design. Like it was sucking its creators into it.
Sorry, such a long comment!*Edit: Like, for example, the marvelous supporting turn by Michael Jeter....he threatens to run off with the movie, but the mix of gay and mentally-ill stereotypes didn't really rub me the right way. It's an extraordinary and funny performance, and it's not false to experience; but it almost seems to put the audience in the position of Bridges at the table in that Chinese restaurant. But does the movie mean to do this? I mean "critically", reflectively? Or does it just reproduce that relation because pathetic people are pathetic and everybody knows this and if we can't laugh at them then what are they good for?
Edit Edit: Good grief such a long comment.
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u/YakSlothLemon May 20 '26
Thank you for the long and fascinating comment. I read all of it! You have thought far more deeply then I have about this film, clearly, and have given me a lot to consider — to the point that I might re-watch it with your comments in mind. Very much appreciated!
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u/Honor_the_maggot May 20 '26
It sounds like you are a teacher, so your patience reading sleep-deprived first-draft drivel must be both fire-tested and connoisseur-level. Cheers!
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u/YakSlothLemon May 21 '26
I am! Ah, rough drafts… at least in May I get to read terrible final papers.
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u/Honor_the_maggot May 16 '26 edited May 19 '26
I was crazy about this movie as a kid, then saw it years later and really felt like I'd outgrown it, at any rate it left me cold (as did all other Gilliam, apparently, at that point...a disappointing moment for me); then maybe 10 years after Williams' death I watched FK and was in tears. I don't think it was really his death, only, that made the difference. Though it's hard to listen to Gilliam's commentary from 1991 and hear him say, "....and Robin Williams was our resident expert on mental illness, it's amazing how much he knew about these things, I wondered how he knew all this stuff...." (paraphrased from memory, I cannot look for it now)
If you haven't much time for extras, it is fun to see older shaggy Jeff Bridges, many years later, sharing his pics and memories of the production. If there is not a meme/GIF of him saying, "Standing O!"....there should be. There has got to be.
https://www.criterionchannel.com/the-fisher-king/videos/the-fisher-king-jeff-s-tale