Why I love Robin Williams’ per­for­mance in The Fish­er King

A door clos­es shut on an emo­tion­al­ly frag­ile wid­ow­er named Par­ry (Robin Williams). He’s just said good­night to his date, Lydia (Aman­da Plum­mer). Through the beveled edge of the glass in the door to Lydia’s home, we watch as the image of Par­ry slips into two, out-of-kil­ter parts. Par­ry then turns and walks away. He sees some­thing and begins to run from it, the dis­cor­dant moment mark­ing the begin­ning of his final descent to a place from where he will sure­ly need deliverance.

It’s a fair bet that in count­less cas­es, we can point to a film that’s pret­ty much the dis­til­la­tion of an actor’s body of work. For Robin Williams, 1991’s The Fish­er King might well be that film. A mod­est­ly scaled fan­ta­sy in which the hyper­re­al ele­ments intrude in inter­mit­tent but vivid ways, the film resets the medieval tale of ​‘The Fish­er King’ to present-day New York. Par­ry is on a long-run­ning quest to find the Holy Grail, a trea­sure that he is con­vinced is to be found in the city. As his jour­ney unfolds, it brings to life the medieval sto­ry of ​‘The Fish­er King’ in which images and ideas about a waste­land being replen­ished and wounds being healed are vital ele­ments of the dra­ma. Every char­ac­ter in the film is in a state of con­stant ruin.

At the time of prin­ci­pal pho­tog­ra­phy, which began in the spring of 1990, Williams was already con­sid­ered a seri­ous movie star thanks in part to the suc­cess of Good Morn­ing, Viet­nam and Dead Poets Soci­ety. Direct­ed by Ter­ry Gilliam, The Fish­er King arguably works so well because it accom­mo­dates Gilliam’s own cre­ative refrains with­in the demands of a major Hol­ly­wood release. The film also sees Williams’ con­sis­tent char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion dove­tail per­fect­ly with his nat­ur­al capac­i­ty for impro­vi­sa­tion. In an inter­view with The Hol­ly­wood Reporter in August 2014, Gilliam said of Williams’ per­for­mance that, ​“It is the whole breadth of Robin, which no oth­er part I think out there does… it’s all there.”

In The Fish­er King, Williams’ char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion embod­ies, in ges­ture and move­ment as much as through spo­ken dia­logue, emo­tion­al states that veer from the man­ic and bold to the sedate and frag­ile. The scene in which Williams res­cues Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) cap­tures the actor’s abil­i­ty to por­tray a char­ac­ter who is both ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly threat­en­ing only to then, in a heart­beat, flip it into some­thing dis­arm­ing­ly play­ful. If dra­ma is found­ed on the prin­ci­ple of the unex­pect­ed out­come, then Par­ry singing the musi­cal num­ber ​‘How About You’ (from the 1941 film Babes on Broad­way) just when you think he’s about to turn vio­lent does the trick.

The Fish­er King was one of sev­er­al fan­tasies that Williams starred in. Most notably, Pop­eye, Hook, Juman­ji and What Dreams May Come each fus­es Williams’ impro­vi­sa­tion­al skills with the demands of the dra­mat­ic plan laid out by a screen­play. But here Williams isn’t play­ing a man­child, and in this regard the film rep­re­sents some­thing of a depar­ture. Par­ry is a dan­ger­ous char­ac­ter. His frag­ile nature is laid bare and, as in Hook, Juman­ji and What Dreams May Come, mem­o­ries play a key part in bring­ing the char­ac­ter both sor­row and joy.

The nec­es­sary coun­ter­point to Par­ry is Bridges’ Jack Lucas, shock-jock of the radio air­waves on a quest of his own. Lucas’ sub­dued man­ner and cyn­i­cism neat­ly com­pli­ments Parry’s obses­sion with chival­ry and pos­si­bil­i­ty. In one ear­ly scene set in Parry’s sub­ter­ranean hide­away, Par­ry explains him­self to Lucas, demon­strat­ing the dif­fer­ent qual­i­ties the actors bring to their respec­tive roles. ​“I’m a knight, on a quest,” Par­ry explains to a bewil­dered Jack. Par­ry is in many ways the quin­tes­sen­tial Gilliam hero: a Don Quixote-esque fig­ure for whom the bor­der between the delights of read­ing and the per­ils of day-to-day real­i­ty have been blurred.

The Fish­er King was the first film Gilliam made after The Adven­tures of Baron Mun­chausen; itself a film about the neces­si­ty of imag­i­na­tion. It stands as the more melan­choly of the two – a con­cen­trat­ed dose of Gilliam’s com­mit­ment to explor­ing the ways imag­i­na­tion can help us to rec­on­cile our place in the world.