The Fisher King

The movie “The Fisher King” directed by Terry Gilliam is about an egotistical shock jock named Jack Lucas who gave unhelpful advices and even insults listeners who calls his show in hope that the radio jockey would help them. However, Lucas’ call out on the last caller would haunt him as the news coverage caught his attention where the shock jock realize that what he have done led to the deaths of several people at the night club. Afterward, a guilt-ridden and unemployed Lucas was seen drinking whisky and became dazed as he tries to walk out of the room. Later in the movie, Lucas was out wandering in the middle of the rain during which he was mistaken for a homeless by a kid who gives him a toy. When Lucas encounters a group of hoodlums who beats him attempts to burn him to death, a homeless man named Parry comes along to save him. After driving the hoodlums away, Parry then introduces himself to Lucas and tells him about the quest in which he must find the Holy Grail.

This movie is about the characters’ quest to find what they were looking for. While the quest mentioned in the movie is about Parry’s attempt to find the Holy Grail, the real quest in the movie was in fact about Lucas’ journey to redeem himself. The incident that Lucas have indirectly caused by mocking the caller, driving him to shoot up the nightclub also resulted in the death of Parry’s wife. Lucas took it upon himself to help Parry find love that he lost in order to make up for the tragedy he helped caused. While Parry’s stated quest is to find the Holy Grail, he actually have two quests. One of his quests was to overcome the trauma he suffered due to death of his wife. As it is shown in the film, Parry would have flashbacks of the event in which his wife was killed in front of him and often times hallucinated, causing him to see a red knight trying to kill him. Parry’s other quest is to rediscover his new love after the said traumatizing incident. One of the main moments of the film is when Parry was stalking a woman named Lydia in the Grand Central Station. At that moment, Parry’s imagination is depicted as the people in the Grand Central Station starts dancing like they’re in a ballroom. Once everyone were done dancing, Parry’s imagination comes to an end as the people in the Grand Central Station stops and goes back to what they were doing.

As time went by, Lucas would help Parry by setting him up with Lydia but the attempt would become ruined as a result of the trauma Parry suffered as a result of the tragic death of his wife. At that point Lucas would give up on Parry until toward the end of the film when he gave the homeless a trophy as the Holy Grail (which he stole from the mansion in Upper East Side), thus helping him to complete his “quest”. This in turn helped Parry overcome his trauma, allowing Lucas to complete his quest as Parry rediscover his love and became together with Lydia. Lucas and Parry would become friends, demonstrating the development of characters in which the two have underwent and the lesson that is learned which is to help one another in times of need.

I enjoy the film as it demonstrates the how consequence of the action of one person can have on the other as shown in the beginning when Lucas mocked his listeners and refused to give out helpful advice, leading to one to go one a rampage which in turn affects Parry. Both Lucas and Parry each went through their own respective journeys to find what they needed. Lucas’ quest was to find redemption while Parry’s quest was to find salvation, both of which are connected to each other. Once their journey is finished, the two men became close as a family as they both went through changes that shaped them throughout the film. There’s even a symbolism as Lucas breaks into the mansion by scaling up several floors to bypass security, making it looked as if he was climbing into a castle to find the grail, helping to complete Parry’s quest and break him out of his trauma. The one part I don’t like the film aside from how the two thugs (the same whom Parry saved Lucas from) who attacked Parry were never seen getting their comeuppance. Makes you wonder if they got off scot-free as they were never heard from again after that scene. Overall, it’s a good film as it mixes humor and drama together with elements of a medieval theme. The ending is like a fairytale where things were resolved due to instances of adventures and risks (such as Lucas’ burglary mentioned earlier) where it is then capped off with fireworks, wrapping it up nicely.

4 stars out of 5

Radio (Shows portrayed in films)

On radio, the media can have messages being relayed to the certain parts of the world. Radio have been developed over periods of time as it would be made easier to listen to. The radio stations have different forms of media that are relayed. There can be a radio show, music stations, news reports, and even a talk show. Like many other forms of media, radio can have huge influence on the political standpoint as well.

What happen is that there are talk show hosts who would voice their opinions and often times have partisan bias. There are cases which demonstrates the political leanings of the hosts as the shows are geared towards the listeners with the similar political views. Some of the portrayals of how radio shows are done can be seen in movies to show the audience what could be the behind the scene of the shows. Although the portrayals by the films may not be entirely accurate, it does show how the hosts can be passionate about what they do on their radio talk shows.

In the movie called “Talk Radio”, a radio host named Barry Champlain ranted about how the media tends to have its fixation on the negative part of the world. This leads to Champlain’s rant on how the media then feeds on the fear of the people to get the attention they would sought after. Once the rant was over, the radio host receives phone calls and some of the callers began to make some sarcastic comments in regards to the show. In another segment from the film, “Pump Up The Volume” where the radio host named Mark Hunter made a commentary about the news regarding a kid doing something that got him into trouble. Then the host rambles on why what the kid did was stupid and starts stating how there are detriments to suicide in a very psychotic manner. Lastly, in the movie called, “The Fisher King”, the host named Jack Lucas serves as more of a shock jock who negatively answers the phone calls he receives and often times didn’t offer a helpful advice to the callers.

Of the three film segments, the clip from “The Fisher King” comes off as more realistic because these kinds of hosts known as “shock jocks” does often times tends to be patronizing to the callers in order to attract listeners. Then there is the fact that the segments from “Talk Radio” and “Pump Up The Volume” looked as if the actors were overacting so they can try to increase the tension of the scene. In “The Fisher King”, the portrayal of Jack Luca’s radio show was on target as it also features the sound effects the host would use to patronize and even cut off the callers before they could finish what they’re trying to say. More often than not, the shock jock would also say something controversial so the listeners would tune in and at times, brings publicity to the radio station.

At the same time, the segment from “Talk Radio” is the one I enjoyed the most because it came off as if the host was putting up quite a show and it sounds interesting. If would have listen to Champlain’s radio show had it existed in real life. It’s a fun and interesting segment and how the callers respond to Champlain’s rant are hilarious. In a way it can be realistic as there are political pundits such as Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken who would do the same thing with their rants, at times getting too passionate in certain degrees.