connielane (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
connielane) wrote2008-07-07 10:22 am
connielane) wrote2008-07-07 10:22 am
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What the Movies Have Taught Me About NYC, Chapter 8
I haven't said this about the other movies in this series, but I'm going to say it about this one - if you haven't seen it, get thee to Netflix or a video store. This is a special, special film. I rarely think of it when I make lists of favorite movies, but it is definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. I don't know that Terry Gilliam ever did a better job of taking his skewed sensibilities and making them (sort of) mainstream than he did here, and I think this film is truly one of those rare films that's also a piece of art.
Lesson Learned: Find your grail.
What The Fisher King Has Taught Me About NYC
Lesson Learned: Find your grail.
The movie isn't really about the Grail legend, but it makes extensive use of it, mostly as a humorous plot device, but also in a rather interesting way as a part of the story's ultimate theme of forgiveness. The significance of the Holy Grail is not in the chalice itself, but in what it supposedly contained - the blood of Christ, which is universal among all Christian faiths as the substance of forgiveness of sins. Likewise, in the film, Jack's search for the supposed Grail is not about the item itself, which is actually just a bowling trophy. What he seeks to gain by getting the "Grail" for Parry is forgiveness - forgiveness for abandoning Parry and forgiveness for his comments at the beginning of the film that led to a massacre of several bar patrons (including Parry's wife) and set the whole story in motion.
There is so much to love about this film. The cast is absolutely stunning, and if it had come out in another year or if Anthony Hopkins had been nominated as a supporting actor for Silence of the Lambs (which he probably should have been), the Oscar would rightly have belonged to Robin Williams. That single wordless moment when he watches what to everyone else is the bustle of rush hour at Grand Central Station but to him is a beautiful dance because he's watching the woman he loves is spectacular.
As a "New York" film, I feel this is a particularly outstanding piece. It shows a side of New York that is often pushed under the rug, because it's not "sexy" like Wall Street or Sex and the City ... or quirky like Friends or a Woody Allen film ... or even edgy and scary like Taxi Driver and Sweet Smell of Success. Though many scenes in the film occur in Jack's world with Anne, and even a few happen in Jack's "successful" life, the core of the movie takes place in the world of a homeless man. Gilliam makes real magic out of this world of destitution and desperation. It's the version of New York that feels the most real and the most detailed to me, and that really says something to me as a viewer. Namely, that the people we tend to ignore are not so different from us. They are human beings, who have or once had dreams just like the rest of us.
Which brings me to...
No really, here's the real lesson: Don't ignore the homeless man; he can see you not looking.
We had a mayor once in Nashville who, just before he took office, lived on the streets as a homeless man for several days. When he talked about his experiences, it wasn't the hunger or cold that got to him - what struck him the most about that time was that no one looked him in the eye.
That's a recurring theme in The Fisher King. Of course, it's hard to ignore Robin Williams, homeless or not. But look at the scene in the second half of the movie, where Jack is back on top and heading to a meeting about an acting job. Michael Jeter's cabaret-singing homeless man spots him and calls out, only to be ignored by his former friend and dragged away by the police. Even more pointed is the scene with Tom Waits as the disabled veteran. A guy in a suit throws him some money, and when Jack observes that he didn't even look, the veteran says "He's payin' so he don't have to look."
Having worked downtown for so many years and crossed paths with so many heartbreakingly poor, lonely, and unvalued people, I wonder very much about that demographic in New York. I may not be able to help any of them, and if they ask for my help I may very well lie so that I don't have to. But one thing I won't do is avoid their eyes. Because what's worse than not helping someone in need is making them disappear.
There is so much to love about this film. The cast is absolutely stunning, and if it had come out in another year or if Anthony Hopkins had been nominated as a supporting actor for Silence of the Lambs (which he probably should have been), the Oscar would rightly have belonged to Robin Williams. That single wordless moment when he watches what to everyone else is the bustle of rush hour at Grand Central Station but to him is a beautiful dance because he's watching the woman he loves is spectacular.
As a "New York" film, I feel this is a particularly outstanding piece. It shows a side of New York that is often pushed under the rug, because it's not "sexy" like Wall Street or Sex and the City ... or quirky like Friends or a Woody Allen film ... or even edgy and scary like Taxi Driver and Sweet Smell of Success. Though many scenes in the film occur in Jack's world with Anne, and even a few happen in Jack's "successful" life, the core of the movie takes place in the world of a homeless man. Gilliam makes real magic out of this world of destitution and desperation. It's the version of New York that feels the most real and the most detailed to me, and that really says something to me as a viewer. Namely, that the people we tend to ignore are not so different from us. They are human beings, who have or once had dreams just like the rest of us.
Which brings me to...
No really, here's the real lesson: Don't ignore the homeless man; he can see you not looking.
We had a mayor once in Nashville who, just before he took office, lived on the streets as a homeless man for several days. When he talked about his experiences, it wasn't the hunger or cold that got to him - what struck him the most about that time was that no one looked him in the eye.
That's a recurring theme in The Fisher King. Of course, it's hard to ignore Robin Williams, homeless or not. But look at the scene in the second half of the movie, where Jack is back on top and heading to a meeting about an acting job. Michael Jeter's cabaret-singing homeless man spots him and calls out, only to be ignored by his former friend and dragged away by the police. Even more pointed is the scene with Tom Waits as the disabled veteran. A guy in a suit throws him some money, and when Jack observes that he didn't even look, the veteran says "He's payin' so he don't have to look."
Having worked downtown for so many years and crossed paths with so many heartbreakingly poor, lonely, and unvalued people, I wonder very much about that demographic in New York. I may not be able to help any of them, and if they ask for my help I may very well lie so that I don't have to. But one thing I won't do is avoid their eyes. Because what's worse than not helping someone in need is making them disappear.