30 years for The Fisher King

On September 10, 1991, Terry Gilliam's movie "The Fisher King" premiered at the Venice International Film Festival.

The film was originally supposed to be directed by James Cameron, but he was busy filming "Terminator 2: Judgment Day". Therefore, Terry Gilliam was involved in the filming.

By 1990, Terry Gilliam had 6 full-length feature films, during the filming of which Gilliam was guided by three principles: 1) never make films based on other people's scripts, 2) not work with major film studios, and 3) never work in America. For the filming of "The Fisher King", Terry Gilliam had to change all three of his principles.

At the aforementioned Venice Film Festival, Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King was nominated for the highest award, the Golden Lion. But the jury of the film festival, chaired by the Italian cinematographer Gian Luigi Rondi, found the picture of the Soviet film director Nikita Mikhalkov "Urga (Territory of Love)" more worthy of this award. Among the 22 nominees for the highest award of the festival was another film quite worthy of victory - "Da hong deng long gao gao gua 大红灯笼高高挎 (Raise the Red Lantern)" by Zhang Yimou. But by the decision of the jury, Terry Gilliam, as well as Zhang Yimou, were awarded the Silver Lion Award for Best Director. But in addition to the Silver Lion, Terry Gilliam was also awarded the Little Golden Lion.

In early 1992, "The Fisher King" received 5 Golden Globe nominations, but won only two of them in the acting categories. For Best Comedy or Musical, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association chose "Beauty and the Beast", and for Best Director, Oliver Stone, director of "JFK", won the award. A little later, "The Fisher King" received 5 Oscar nominations, but not in the most important categories.

Professional film critics have assessed Terry Gilliam's film "The Fisher King" very controversially. For example, the authoritative Russian film critic Sergei Kudryavtsev gave the film 8 points on a 10-point scale. In his review of the film, he noted that "The Fisher King" is "a touching story of the awakening of feelings in looped, machine-like people, a modern extravaganza about human fantasies and irresistible dreams that save one from a deathly and aimless stay in the world."

And the guru of American film critic Roger Ebert, on the contrary, gave Terry Gilliam's film only two stars out of 4 possible and gave such a description to this film: "“The Fisher King” is a disorganized, rambling and eccentric movie that contains some moments of truth, some moments of humor, and many moments of digression."

Another authoritative Russian film critic, known for his ability to notice their socio-political background in film works, Evgeny Nefyodov, noted in his review: “We were lucky to contemplate one of the most profound and uncompromisingly honest studies of the essence of the socio-economic model that Western ideologists solemnly announced almost the crown of evolution, anticipating the serene end of history with the collapse of the socialist system."

The following figures testify to the success of Terry Gilliam's film "The Fisher King" with viewers. With a budget of $ 24 million, the film grossed nearly $ 42 million. 58% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated this movie from 8 to 10.

With that said, FilmGourmand rated Terry Gilliam's "The Fisher King" at 8.087, placing it 590th in the Golden Thousand.