OSCARS '91: The Fisher King

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CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of murder, grief, trauma, loss, catatonia, mental illness, delusion, guilt, shame, AIDS, homelessness, misogyny, depression.

This week we’re discussing a film that’s one of the most beautiful messes you’ll ever see. Beautiful, because it revels in medieval mythology while telling a story of redemption in our modern lives. Messy, because our director didn’t seem to care about creating a consistent, thorough world for his characters to live in. It’s a movie that doesn’t hold up as well on deeper scrutiny, and yet also hits you right in the heart with a truly lovely story and incredibly strong performances from some of the best actors in the business. If only Terry Gilliam had reigned himself in just a little bit, this would have been absolutely perfect. Grab your armor and weapons from the scrap heap as we watch The Fisher King on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!

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Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from “How About You (Swing Version)” from the soundtrack to the motion picture The Fisher King, written by Burton Lane and arranged by George Fenton. Copyright 1991 Tri-Star Pictures, Inc.; MCA Records, Inc.

Excerpts taken from the film The Fisher King, © 1991 TriStar Pictures, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt taken from “Max” from the soundtrack to the motion picture Cape Fear. Written and composed by Bernard Hermann, and arranged and composed by George Fenton. Copyright 1991 Universal City Studios, Inc. and Amblin Entertainment, Inc.; MCA Records, Inc.