The Big Lebowski

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed!

As I have done in the past, this post derives from a Bryn Mawr Film Institute class on The Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski (1998). It is a funny movie that deals with masculinity and politics in a story that is a variation on film noir and the Western.

  A tumbleweed blows across the screen at the beginning of the movie to the song “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds.” We then see the city of Los Angeles, and California is as far west as you can go on the continental United States. But, LA is a far cry from what the Old West was. In a way the film is about the passage of time and what vanishes and what endures.

 

The main character is the Dude (a hilarious performance by Jeff Bridges). He is a stoner, a modern-day tumbleweed, just floating along, but surviving with little resistance against the forces around him. The Stranger (Sam Elliot), with a Texas drawl, narrates this story, which adds an anachronistic touch to the tale. A “dude” was originally the term for a “city slicker,” someone who dressed in a fancy manner and was out of his element on a ranch. So, the Dude would not fit in with cowboys. But he certainly doesn’t dress like a fashionable gentleman. He likes wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, and he’d rather be in bed or just hanging around his apartment relaxing, smoking a joint.  

 

His chill life is violently interrupted by a couple of goons from pornographer Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara) who burst into his apartment and start banging things up, demanding that Jeffrey Lebowski (the Dude’s name) pay money that is owed by his wife, Bunny. Here is where the film noir aspect comes in. The Coens said that they wanted a comic variation on writer Raymond Chandler (movie titles like The Big Sleep and The Big Heat influence the title of this film). The Dude tries to explain that they have the wrong man because they think he is rich. These guys are not too bright because just looking at the Dude and where he lives would show he is not wealthy. The Dude demonstrates he is a witty guy even under duress, like a film noir detective. When one of the thugs keeps pushing his head into the toilet asking where is the money, the Dude says, “it’s down there somewhere, let me take another look.” When one of the thugs picks up a bowling ball and asks what it is, the Dude replies, “obviously you’re not a golfer.” When the Dude comes out with these occasional cool lines he mirrors the stylized dialogue of a Noir story. Before the henchmen realize the mistaken identity problem, one pees on the Dude’s Oriental rug. The Dude laments this action because, as is repeated in the story, the rug “really tied the room together.” Despite his foggy life, the Dude still wants to have focus where the strands of what’s happening are “tied … together.”

 During the movie, we get some of the Dude’s backstory. He mentions that when he was in college, he “occupied” buildings. He was a protester against “the establishment,” someone associated with the 1960’s radical group Students for a Democratic Society, known as the SDS. He later wants to be represented by lawyers William Kunstler and Ron Kuby who defended radical leaders during that protest era. His activist ways eventually changed into his current go-with-the-flow lifestyle, possibly because his past ventures didn’t generate the change he hoped for.

 

He discovers who is the Big Lebowski (David Huddleston), visits him, and asks for reimbursement for his rug since he is the innocent victim as a result of the borrowing excess of Bunny, the “trophy wife.” Dude can’t escape how the current political scene is dominated by Republicans. Lebowski’s servile aide, Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman), shows pictures of Lebowski’s connection to people like Nancy Reagan. Dude even repeats President George W. Bush’s statement on television that Saddam Hussein’s “aggression will not stand.” The Dude, however, is talking about his rug, and it is ironic that he is quoting a Republican leader. There is a framed mirror on Lebowski’s wall that has the tag of Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, which turns out to be one’s own reflection. Probably Lebowski sees himself that way when he views his own face. Here we see the Dude looking at himself. It is a complicated image. Is the Dude a doppelganger of his rich self? Has he ironically become a member of the Republican collage? We also see a picture of Richard Nixon bowling in the Dude’s apartment. Has he come to identify with his old nemesis because the Dude has taken up bowling? Or, as The Stranger asks, is the Dude “the man for his place and time,” and currently represents the time of the film, the early 1990’s, and deserves to be on the cover of Time?

 Lebowski is elderly and paralyzed in a wheelchair. Does his disabled status reflect the current dysfunctional state of the union? He states that the “bums” like the Dude “lost” the battle to subvert the status quo. But we find out later from his daughter, Maude (Julianne Moore), that her father’s wealth comes from her mother, and Maude manages the money. Lebowski lectures the Dude about how he is a self-made man, but he is the phony who is the “bum.” As one of our class’s instructors noted, Lebowski uses the word “achieve” a great deal. For this rich guy, achievement is measured in wealth, not what one does in life irrespective of accumulated funds. The Dude walks out and steals one of the rugs in the mansion as reimbursement for his loss, exercising his own version of ethics.

 

The Dude finds refuge from the world at the bowling alley with his friends Walter (John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi). As stated in the class, here is a place where these men can “achieve,” by bowling a good game and possibly winning a tournament. Interestingly, we never see the Dude bowl. Does that mean he can’t escape past failures? The Dude is not laid back when it comes to Walter, who infuriates him with his aggressive actions. The Coens said they saw these two acting like a turbulent married couple. Walter makes everything about his past as a soldier in Vietnam. He is a stickler for rules, which majorly contrasts with the easy-going Dude. It may be that the chaos of America’s failure in the Vietnam War causes Walter to overreact in post-war life as he can searches for order after chaos. For instance, Walter pulls out a gun to threaten a bowler who crosses the foul line but still wants his roll to count. The Dude sides with the bowler and wants to relax the rules. Walter also has converted to Judaism, and wants to comply with its religious dictates.

 

Lebowski hires the Dude to deliver a million dollars in ransom for the supposed kidnapping of wife Bunny. He says he thinks the culprits are the same guys who broke into the Dude's place, so the Dude can confirm they are the culprits. Despite his unfocused mind, the Dude channels the film noir private eye and concludes that there is something not right about what appears to be a crime. He knows Bunny needs money and he believes she is faking her own kidnapping to extract a ransom.

 Walter complicates the money drop by going along for the ride and substitutes his dirty underwear in a suitcase for the money bag. He wants to confront the crooks. The whole episode is like the Keystone Cops, ending with the Dude crashing his car which eventually gets stolen out of the bowling alley parking lot, with the money suitcase in it. Lebowski says he heard from the kidnappers that they didn’t receive the ransom, and Lebowski points the finger at the Dude, who is now in trouble with the kidnappers.

 

However, it is not Treehorn’s men who come to threaten the Dude, but a bunch of “nihilists,” including Karl Hungus (Peter Stomare), a porn star who worked with Bunny in adult films (his work name indicates his attribute for the job). These guys want the ransom money from the Dude. They drop a marmot in the Dude’s bathtub as they threaten to cut off his “Johnson.” One of the film’s main themes centers on threatened masculinity. There is the Bob Dylan song that talks about “the man in me.” After Bunny is kidnapped, Lebowski muses about what is the right thing a man should do. When the Dude has his dream sequence, he sees himself being pursued by these nihilists coming at him with castration-threatening enlarged scissors. A huge bowling ball comes at him, ready to squash him. The story implies the use of the bowing pins and balls as symbols of male genitalia. Walter plays the role of the aggressive male, perhaps to compensate for his impotence in not being able to save his fellow soldiers in Vietnam. The Dude may also be suffering from testosterone failure in his inability to bring about change in society in his past. The loss of masculinity is also referred to by the passing of the cowboy era, including the fact that the fictional writer of the TV series Branded is in an iron lung when the Dude and Walter search for the missing money. Even the cab driver tells a story about a woman “bustin’ … agates.”

 

The ironically named character of Jesus (John Turturro), a fellow bowler, is a demonic figure who invades the sanctuary of achievement of these men whose masculinity is on the line. He has partially sheer socks and a painted baby fingernail, which depicts him as more traditionally effeminate than male (Bunny paints her toenails), which may suggest why he overcompensates with his overly machismo posturing. He licks his bowling ball which could be symbolic of a testicle. Walter tells the Dude that Jesus is a pederast, with a record of exposing himself to an eight-year-old child. There are several references to anal intercourse, including Jesus saying he'll take Walter's gun, stick it up his butt and pull the trigger. Our discussion noted that the Coens deflate Jesus’s character by making him look ridiculous in his exaggerated boasting. (As one of our instructors rightly noted, the comical allusions to homophobia probably wouldn’t make it into a film today as being politically incorrect).

 

Maude takes back the rug that the Dude stole from the Lebowski mansion, which he subsequently was allowed to keep. The Dude is on a search for an object, similar to the hunt for the Maltese Falcon. Maude invites the Dude to her artist’s studio where she tells him that the rug was a gift from her mother, so her father had no right to let the Dude have it. Maude says that those so obsessed just with sex do not love, and she puts Bunny is this category. So, there is a distinction drawn here between proving sexuality and the ability to show true emotion in the form of love. She shows the beginning of a porno film that has Bunny in it with Hungus. The film has Hungus as a cable guy visiting the scantily clad Bunny. The Dude delivers one of his funnier lines when Maude says one can imagine what happens next in the film, and the Dude says, “He fixes the cable?” It is here that Maude mentions her father’s lack of personal funds and that he embezzled a million dollars from a charity for children to get the ransom.

 

Treehorn wants his money. He drugs Dude when he doesn't get the right info from him, which gets the Dude in trouble with cops so Treehorn can toss the Dude’s place to look for the cash. In film noir movies the private eye usually gets knocked out. As one of our instructors noted, the Coens fill the blackouts with dreams. The Dude's dream here is like his carpet because it ties the story together. Many of the images already shown in the movie appear here. For example, there are the bowling pins and balls, and the outfit that Hungus wears in the porno (there are numerous other examples on IMDb). The Dude is more of a swaggering male here, dancing suggestively in a Busby Berkeley inspired erotic musical called Gutterballs. He drifts between the legs of the short-skirted dancers, looking upwards. However, there are then the scissors that undermine this macho wish-fulfillment.

The Dude deduces that Lebowski didn’t care what happened to Bunny, and actually wanted to get rid of her because of her gold-digger ways. So, the suitcase he gave them didn’t contain any money and Lebowski was keeping the cash for himself. The twisty noir aspect of the story continues when Bunny shows up drunk, crashing her car into the Lebowski fountain. (There are several car accidents in the film, suggesting how chaos upends order or calmness). She wasn’t kidnapped and was just on a holiday in Palm Springs which she didn’t tell anybody about. The nihilists just used her absence to try to extort money. The Dude confronts Lebowski, correctly concluding that the old man was setting the Dude up as the patsy for the missing money.

In a comical confrontation with the nihilists, Walter gets to do battle one more time and helps defeat the fake kidnappers. But, sadly the innocent Donny has a heart attack in the middle of the confrontation, and dies. There was a foreshadowing of this event, as IMDb points out, since he always threw strikes until just before his demise. There is a humorous burial as Walter allows Donny’s ashes, carried in a coffee can, to blow all over the Dude when Walter attempts to toss them into the ocean.

At the bowling alley, the Dude meets up with the Stranger, and issues his famous line about how, despite everything, “the Dude abides.” The Stranger, addressing the audience, says, “the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin’ itself down through the generations.” IMDb notes that the word “abides” in the script may come from the Bible’s Ecclesiastes, which reads: “One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the Earth abides forever.” The Dude had sex with Maude, and the Stranger says that the Dude will become a father. Despite all the craziness in the world, life still goes on.

The next film is The Accidental Tourist.

The Last Picture Show

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Sometimes I like to write a post about a film discussed at a movie class at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. I hadn’t seen this film since it was initially released so I thought I would revisit it by attending a recent viewing and analysis at the theater. The Last Picture Show (1971), adapted from the novel of the same name, was directed by Peter Bogdanovich, and takes place from November, 1951 to October, 1952 in the fictional Texas town of Anarene (the name sounds like Abilene in the 1948 western, Red River), which was based on author Larry McMurtry’s home town of Archer City, where the movie was shot. This period in American history is a scary time since the end of WWII introduced the specter of a mushroom cloud hanging over civilization as the fear of a nuclear confrontation existed in the background of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Pessimism replaced optimism for the future. The technology of television drew people away from the communal gathering to watch movies at a theater to the seclusion of the living room.

The closest literary equivalents to this tale are the valley of ashes depicted in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s elegiac The Great Gatsby, and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, both works commenting on the spiritual barrenness of the human soul in modern times. Bogdanovich wanted to show the town in decay, bleak and colorless, and his houseguest, the great Orson Welles, encouraged the director to shoot the movie in black and white, which was unheard of at the time of its making, since Hollywood had been filming its feature films in color. The opening of the film has a shot of the town’s movie theater, the Royal, its name conjuring up images of the past majesty of classic cinema. That image is followed by a pan to the left to reveal a main street that looks like a ghost town, with howling wind the only sound heard, as if people have been blown off the face of the earth. The town’s population is so small that the cafe waitress, Genevieve (Eileen Brennan) says at one point, “A person can’t sneeze in this town without somebody offering them a handkerchief.”

Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) is trying to get his dilapidated truck to start. He keeps pulling on the choke knob as the engine sounds like an old man coughing. Our instructor pointed out that the effect was to make the audience feel that the whole place was choking on the dust that seemed to be replacing the town. The sound could signify the community’s death rattle. Sonny and his high school friend, Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges) are on the football team, and they just played the last game of the season. They were badly beaten by their opponents, and the fact that it is the last game and they failed so miserably lends to the atmosphere of defeat that permeates the area. Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson, in a Best Supporting Actor Oscar win for his brief performance, the shortest ever to win the award) says, “This is what I get for betting on my hometown ball team. I ought’a have better sense.” To which oil driller Abilene (Clu Gulager) comments, “Wouldn’t hurt to have a better hometown.” This exchange is darkly funny, but it also shows the awareness of how decrepit the location has become. Even understanding that dire reality, Sam, financially and spiritually, continues to invest in the town, despite the odds. He owns the cafe, the theater, and the pool hall. (There is a bit of foreshadowing as to what will happen to Sonny when, in the pool hall, Abilene tells Sonny to be careful with a pool cue so as not to poke out Abilene’s eye). Sam shows old movies, many of them western classics made by John Ford and Howard Hawks, which depict heroic versions of real-life cowboys who now can only exist, like ghosts, on the theater’s screen.

Sonny and Duane share the truck and live in a boarding house, instead of with their parents, suggesting how the family units here are falling apart. The boys take their girlfriends to Sam’s movie theater, with Duane and Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd) arriving in the truck a bit later, and using the theater to neck. (The movie being shown is Father of the Bride, an idealized version of a marriage and parent-child relationship that ironically contrasts with what happens to Jacy later). Sonny is attracted to Jacy, wanting to share more than just the truck, the football experience, and the place where they live with Duane. Sonny now takes his turn using the truck and parks with his girlfriend, Charlene (Sharon Taggart). Their interaction is anything but romantic. With no foreplay, she mechanically takes off her top and Sonny fondles her breasts as they kiss. Sonny wants to have intercourse, but she seems to think that she is keeping her chaste reputation despite her sexual behavior. She also is angry with Sonny because he hasn’t remembered the one-year anniversary of when they began dating. Her being upset about an anniversary is only a hollow pretense of a bygone romantic era, like a false building front on a movie lot. Preoccupied with his thoughts about Jacy, and not feeling any fulfillment, emotionally or physically with Charlene, he abruptly and inconsiderately breaks off the relationship, a foreshadowing of how he acts later.

As our class instructor stated in his handout, the characters from the younger and older generations “try to find solace and escape from boredom in lost dreams, drinking, temporary and manipulative sexual encounters” and “the local movie theater’s shows.” Roger Ebert, who considered the movie the best film of 1971, said the inhabitants of Anarene seem to have lost their “reason to exist,” and their “only hope is in transgression.” Maybe many of the characters are sexually promiscuous and adulterous because subconsciously they are revolting against the choices they made and the cards that fate has dealt them. We do have a sort of sexual liberation theme here on the part of the women in that characters such as Lois and Ruth seek physical fulfillment for themselves instead of adopting the traditional female role of satisfying male needs.

Coach Popper (Bill Thurman), at a basketball practice session, tells Sonny that he can get him excused from a class if he will drive his wife, Ruth (Cloris Leachman, winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this role) to a doctor appointment. He agrees, but when he shows up to give Ruth the ride, she is disappointed that her husband delegated the job to a student. Ruth is an introvert, but she can’t hide her longstanding emotional pain any longer, and on the way home she starts to cry. She invites Sonny into her home for some soda, and he tries to awkwardly console her, although he appears out of his maturity depth as to what to do to help.

In contrast to the sensitivity between a child and parent in Father of the Bride shown at the movie house, Jacy has a cynical encounter with her mother, Lois (Ellen Burstyn). She is married to a man that has struck it rich in the oil industry, but that hasn’t made her life happy, and Lois doesn’t expect that her daughter will turn out any better than she did. She drinks a great deal, and is having an extramarital affair with Abilene (his name, recalling Red River, indicates how the noble cowboy of western mythology has declined into this womanizing driller who plunders the land, and who does his drilling in places other than the oil fields). She tells Jacy not to marry Duane, but just go to bed with him. Lois says then her daughter will realize that “there is nothing magic about it.” Lois’s jaded view on her current life is devoid of any real connection to another person, and she sees life as a tease heading to a big letdown.

Perhaps because of the negative view on life that her mother dispenses to Jacy, the young woman accepts an invitation from Lester Marlow (Randy Quaid), a rich kid, like herself, to go to a nude swimming party at the house of a wealthy boy, Bobby Sheen (Gary Brockette). Jacy most likely wants to transcend the limitations on life that her mother predicted for her and seeks excitement, acceptance, and maybe adulation from others. She tries to gain being the center of attention by being sexually manipulative. The film is not shy about displaying nudity, and in this pool scene there is, again, no romance or happiness, only sordid lustful preoccupation.

There are other instances in which the movie presents an unseemly sexual environment. The male youths joke about wanting to have sex, and even bring up the idea of bestiality (which apparently was more overt in the book). Later in the movie, one youth, Joe Bob Blanton (Barc Doyle), who is supposedly a religious person, is apprehended before he molests a small girl, implying that religion has fallen on hard times in the twentieth century. The character of Billy (Timothy’s actual brother, Sam Bottoms) is Sonny’s young friend. He is mentally challenged, and is always smiling and friendly. Sonny, and, later, even Duane, have an affectionate ritual they perform with Billy, taking his cap off and turning the bill backwards, a gesture that seems to want to preserve his childlike personality. He is the representation of pure innocence in this fallen world. However, Duane, upset by Jacy’s abandonment of him in favor of the rich crowd, joins his friends in an attempt to get Billy to lose his virginity. Here, the young men act as if they are doing him a favor by introducing Billy to sex, but there is no affection in the encounter, no fulfilling intimacy here. They bring Billy to a woman (Helena Humann) who will agree to having sex for money. She is crude and cruel to Billy, punching him after he prematurely climaxes without successfully having intercourse. Sonny shows up but is too late to stop the prank.

Sam the Lion takes care of Billy, and is outraged at how the boys treated the youth. As Duane cowardly hides in the truck, Sam tells the young men, “You boys can get on out of here, I don’t want to have no more to do with you. Scarin’ a poor, unfortunate creature like Billy so’s you could have a few laughs. I’ve been around that trashy behavior all my life. I’m gettin’ tired of puttin’ up with it.” Sam bans the boys from his cafe, pool hall, and theater as punishment for their behavior. The older man is the moral center of the story and knows the importance of forgiveness. Later, when Genevieve, who is another kind soul in the town, allows Sonny to have some food in the cafe, Sam shows up and allows her to serve Sonny.

Sam takes Sonny and Billy on a fishing trip out to the local pond. Sam reminisces about how he had an exciting love affair with a woman twenty years prior. They would go skinny-dipping in the water next to where he now sits, an older man who has no love in his life. But, the thoughts of her are strong and have fueled him through the years. He tells Sonny, “If she was here, I’d probably be just as crazy now as I was then in about five minutes. Ain’t that ridiculous? Naw, it ain’t really. ‘Cause being crazy about a woman like her is always the right thing to do. Being an old decrepit bag of bones, that’s what’s ridiculous. Gettin’ old.” She was already married, so they could not have a life together. He at least was able to have experienced a true, passionate love, unlike the empty sexual experiences of those in the present. But he, like the town, maybe the country, is in a state of decline, and all he has left are memories, which are sort of like a movie projection in his mind.

Sonny and Duane are looking for some escape from their dull lives and decide to take a short holiday to Mexico to celebrate New Year’s Eve (although the new year doesn’t promise to be any improvement over the old one). Before leaving they encounter Sam, who seems to have regrets about not being carefree like the boys. They ask Sam if he wants to join him. There is a significant pause as he weighs the possibility, (which will be echoed later in a scene with Lois and Sonny). But, he realizes that kind of partying is in his past. He gives the boys some money in a form of vicarious enabling of the younger generation to enjoy the exuberance and thrills he once experienced. After they return from their trip, the boys learn that Sam died of a heart attack. It’s as if whatever was left of the meaningful old times passed away with him. Sam left the theater to Jessie Mosey (Jessie Lee Fulton), who worked there. He gave the cafe to Genevieve, and he left the pool hall to Sonny, which surprises the young man.

Sonny and Ruth begin an affair. It is uncomfortable at first, and they appear unable to communicate their feelings as they go through the physical motions. They probably feel strange about the age difference between them and the fact that Ruth is married. She hints at the problem as to why she has had such a sterile love life. Despite everybody supposedly knowing each other’s business in the town, Ruth asks Sony, “Don’t you know?” Apparently, her husband is gay, so in Ruth’s marriage we have another example of the lack of a meaningful connection. As time passes however, the two become comfortable and happy with each other, and this period of their relationship is a bright spot in an otherwise psychologically overcast world.

The lack of any belief in romantic love is mirrored by how the rich kid, Bobby Sheen, tells Jacy that he won’t have anything to do with her until she loses her virginity. It’s as if the lost souls here don’t want anyone uncorrupted to exist in their defiled existence. Jacy, trying to find her place of acceptance, now recruits Duane to have sex with her so she can be initiated into Bobby’s world. Duane has been treated dismissively by Jacy, and, although he wants to have sex with her, must realize subconsciously, that she is not sincere about caring for him. He is impotent in the encounter, and she scolds him in humiliating fashion. In a reversal of ideas about traditionally acceptable behavior, Jacy complains that she does not want the other young people in the town to think she is still a virgin. Duane is eventually able to do the deed. The unscrupulous Jacy breaks up with him, saying she would rather be with Bobby. Duane, devastated by Jacy’s rejection, again, leaves for an oil drilling job. However, Jacy’s plans are thwarted when Bobby marries someone else, demonstrating a sort of retribution cycle for bad behavior. Jacy is constantly looking for adoration, and comes on to Lois’s lover, Abilene, in a strange bit of competition, as if she is trying to out-seduce her mother. They desecrate the memory of the moral Sam by having sex on one of the pool tables there after hours. But, she does not get the adulation she seeks from Abilene. He has only used her for carnal satisfaction, and coldly disposes of her after they have sex.

Jacy, now feeling rejected herself, and seeking attention again in this vacuous world, finds out from her mother, Lois, (who tries to comfort her daughter since she, too, has some redeemable qualities) about the affair between Sonny and Ruth. Jacy now sets her sights on Sonny, who she knows is attracted to her. Sonny, despite his kindness toward Bobby and his admiration of the ethical Sam, allows himself to be manipulated by Jacy. As he did with his girlfriend, Charlene, he now dumps Ruth. In a heartbreaking scene, the happy Ruth is painting her bedroom blue, Sonny’s favorite color, at the same time he betrays her. As our class instructor pointed out, In the background the song “Blue Velvet” is heard, whose romantic lyrics echo her actions. But, the reality is that her heart will be broken when Sonny does not appear to appreciate her efforts to make him happy. (The songs in the soundtrack are mostly country western, which have a tendency to emphasize the pain of failed romances, which is appropriate for this story).

Duane returns home and has learned that Jacy is dating Sonny. Duane now feels betrayed by his best friend, and the two get into a fight. Duane is holding a beer bottle which breaks, and Sonny’s eye is injured, causing him to have impaired vision. Duane has lost the girl he loved and the loyalty of his best friend. He feels that he has nothing left for him in Anarene, and leaves to join the Army. Sonny, maybe out of guilt for also betraying Ruth, refuses to see her when she comes to visit him at the hospital.

Jacy, in her distorted view of love which amounts to narcissism in this emotionally disconnected environment, feels special because there was a fight between two men for her affection. She tells Sonny that they should elope, which they do, but it is just a pretend marriage, another romantic facade without substance. She left a note for her parents to discover what Jacy planned to do. It was as if the young woman wanted to get caught, and only wished to attain recognition, like a current reality star, who can’t become popular through meritorious achievement, but only through being infamous. They are caught by a policeman and returned home. The marriage is eventually annulled since there wasn’t even time for a consummation, and Jacy eventually goes away to college. Will she find a purposeful path elsewhere? The movie does not offer us any hope that such will be the case.

Lois drives Sonny home after he and Jacy are caught. She seems to understand Sonny’s desire to have a special relationship with someone. She reveals that she is the woman who was Sam the Lion’s great love. She, like him, felt alive in that time together, but all she has now are those memories to remind her of what true love was really like. She is different from other women around her because Sam showed her how alive life can be. She says, “If it wasn’t for Sam, I would have missed it, whatever it is. I’d have been one of them amity types that thinks that playin’ bridge is about the best thing that life has to offer.” But, she stayed in her unfulfilling marriage for the money, and sacrificed an enhanced life with Sam. She now pauses, as did Sam when he contemplated about going with the boys to Mexico. She is thinking about being intimate with Sonny, who may be able to give her back that optimism that young love once promised. But, she passes, realizing, just as did Sam, that the time has passed, and she can’t return to it.

Months pass, and Sonny is at a football game, the sport now a part of his past that can’t be recovered. He learns that Duane is on leave from the Army and he seeks out his old friend. The two reconcile, with Sonny forgiving Duane for the eye injury and Duane renewing their friendship despite Sonny’s relationship with Jacy. It’s as if they are channeling Sam’s quality of compassion. They attend the last movie to be shown at the Royal, which is closing because of poor attendance. The film is Red River, the classic movie about heroes that are now anachronistic in a cynical time. The next day, Sonny sees Duane off at the bus station. He and Jacy could not find meaning for themselves there, and those who have stayed seem to simply exist without purpose.

After Duane leaves, Sonny sees men crowded together on the main street of the town. He finds Billy on the ground after being hit and killed by a truck. The men assembled don’t show any strong feelings, as if dead inside. They just seem to wonder what the boy was doing with a broom in the middle of the street. Sonny is outraged at their lack of compassion. He yells that Billy was just “sweeping.” The boy symbolically seems to be a type of Sisyphus, trying to perform the pointless act of spiritually cleaning a place whose soul had become buried in hopelessness.

With Billy’s death, we have an end to the purity of innocence. Sonny drives out of town, but he can’t leave, and returns. Mythical stories seem to require suffering in order to gain understanding. Sonny is sort of like Oedipus. He has slept with a mother figure in the form of Ruth, and, like Oedipus, sees his wrongdoings only after he is blind. He has hurt others by his betrayals, but he now returns to the town and to Ruth. Perhaps he must symbolically take up Billy’s broom, a sort of moralistic baton inherited by him from Sam. She is angry at him for how she has irreparably hurt her, yelling, “You’ve ruined it and it’s lost completely. Just you needing me won’t make it come back.” Her words could refer to the world’s spiritual loss at large. He silently reaches out to her and gently holds her hand. This simple physical act carries more feeling, caring, and intimacy than all of the detached sexual couplings between the others in the story. Ruth now also shows the genuine human quality of forgiveness that can heal emotional wounds, and she comforts Sonny by saying, in a motherly tone, “Never you mind, honey. Never you mind.”

At the end of the film, we have a sort of bookend to the beginning. The story started in the fall and ends there, showing there has been no progress in the town. The howling wind is back. The camera now pans from left to right and stops as the movie began with a shot of the Royal movie theater, its marquee blank, now dethroned. All that remains are fleeting happy moments and memories.

The next film is Blood Simple.

The Fisher King

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

This 1991 film from director Terry Gilliam, is a redemption tale. The Fisher King, in Arthurian legend, usually refers to a knight who requires the healing of a physical wound, but which symbolizes the salvation of the soul. This movie shows how the two main characters and the women in their lives are on quests to acquire their individual Holy Grails. The story also addresses the issue of homelessness as it relates to the neglect of the poor in an affluent society.

The film starts with the theme song of shock jock Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges, in a terrific performance), which is “Hit the Road Jack.” The song reflects his unsympathetic attitude toward his listeners, but eventually describes how he drops out of show business after feeling responsible for a tragedy. The movie is prescient in depicting how the manipulative power of the media can do harm. The first shot includes a closeup of Jack’s mouth as he speaks into a radio microphone, which emphasizes this theme.

The first person who calls into Jack’s show is a woman who speaks hesitantly and says her husband is driving her crazy finishing her thoughts, which is what Jack sarcastically does. The husband is probably being driven “crazy” by the way the woman speaks, showing how people are at each other's throats because of communication issues. (The movie uses the “crazy” theme to show that irrationality takes on many forms). When the woman says Jack has hit the problem on the head, he says somebody should hit her on the head. So, the form of entertainment he provides is one of degradation. He exploits scandals. But he makes a good observation about the desire in people to achieve notoriety, even if it is an infamous kind. A woman calls in to complain about his comments. Jack points out her hypocrisy when he says she had sex with a senator in the parking lot of Sea World and now wants privacy.

Jack receives a call from Edwin Melnick, who has phoned in before, and now says he saw a woman he was attracted to at an exclusive, upscale spot. He apparently has been lonely for a long time and has tried to meet women. Jack has turned his sad situation into a sideshow, manipulating him into disastrous encounters. Jack, as shock jocks do, attacks everybody, and tells him not to deal with yuppies, who only marry their own kind, causing mental deficiencies due to “inbreeding.” Jack says, “They’re not human.” He calls them evil and says “they must be stopped … It’s us or them.” Edwin says in a quiet voice, “Okay, Jack.” Little does Jack realize what he has set into motion. His sign-off song is “I Got the Power,” which drives home the force inherent in having the big microphone. Jack ends his show talking about having sex with the teenager of his choice, which is not only off-putting, it’s illegal, but implies the rules don’t apply to the very powerful. He finishes his program, akin to the narcissistic bragging of any current day politician, by saying, “Thank God I’m me.”

Off the air, Jack is praised by his agent, Lou Rosen (David Hyde Pierce), in Jack’s limo. Lou says Jack is in demand for a TV job. A beggar knocks on the window of the luxurious car, highlighting the huge discrepancy in the economic situations of the two men. Jack says a couple of bucks won’t make a difference anyway, without thinking that maybe a more equitable allocation of wealth added with compassion might. The scene shows Jack’s pessimism about the human condition.

Back at his condo, Jack, looking in a mirror, stressing his narcissism, says how he hates his cheeks. He is now concerned about his looks because the next day he will be filmed for the first time, and he will be a “voice with a body.” His girlfriend must feel like a confined possession because she says she would like to get out for a change. He bemoans the fact that she doesn’t seem supportive of how important the next day is for him. She tries to cut his ego down to size by saying he’s only doing a sitcom, “not defining pi.” He says he thought his biography should be entitled, “Jack Lucas: The Face Behind the Voice,” but now it will change to “The Face and the Voice,” or just “Jack!” The exclamation point emphasizes his preoccupation with himself.

He dances in his upper story apartment, after going over his lines, and declaring that he’s “got this.” Literally and figuratively on top of the world, Jack then experiences the bomb drop that decimates his life and forces him to confront the repercussions of the reckless use of his power. On the TV he hears his own voice that ignited his listener to violence. Edwin Melnick went to that yuppie bar, an after-work place called “Babbitt’s” (a Sinclair Lewis reference about greed?). He opened fire with a shotgun and killed seven people before shooting himself. Jack looks on horrified as the newscaster says that Melnick was a lonely, invisible man, who went to what was then the social network, the airwaves, “looking for friendship, and finding only pain and tragedy.”

There is a jump forward of three years, and now Jack is sitting at the back of a video store in a rundown part of the city, looking as seedy as the beggar he arrogantly dismissed. He hasn’t changed his negative attitude as he says, “Garbage. People are garbage,” as he reads a tabloid. He will later discover that there are those worth saving among those that people have discarded like trash. It is interesting that although he left one source of media, radio, he latched onto another, video, not quite being able to divorce himself from the entertainment business. Anne (Mercedes Ruehl, winning a supporting actress Oscar for this role) wonders if he’ll do any work, as she sees him reach for some booze, calling it sarcastically his “Breakfast of Champions.” But, he does not want to work because he is resistant to come into contact with others, possibly afraid of social interaction based on his past. Camera shots show people through Jack’s perspective, as faces look distorted, showing how he sees everyone as grotesque. Anne says she loves him, but he is in one of his “emotional abyss” moods, and when he says he hates desperate people, she corrects him by saying he hates people in general. His devaluing of individuals may be a defense mechanism to lessen the impact of his having hurt others.

As they watch a TV show and Anne laughs, he looks grim, and says it’s not funny. He says he watches it to show him how unfunny it is, because he says that the country has no appreciation of quality, and that makes him feel good that he never was in a sitcom. If he was famous because of starring in one, it would mean that he was “not really talented,” which would be a huge blow to someone who is so self-involved. It turns out that the show is the one he was supposed to star in, and he is rationalizing his fall from fame, trying to not feel the pain of that loss. He is still selfish, continuing to only be concerned about his own situation. Anne correctly calls him “sick,” and “self-absorbed.” He hasn’t made any attempts at trying to fix the devastating effects of the shooting on him.

Jack wanders off drunk in the rain. He sees a rich guy with his son as the man is accosted by a beggar, just as Jack once was. The boy gives Jack a Pinocchio doll. Does this gift signify that Jack is lying to himself? Does he have to gain some insight to get out of his self-imposed exile? Jack talks to the doll about how Nietzsche said there are those who are destined for greatness, like, Jack says, Walt Disney (which connects to the doll), and Adolf Hitler (the Nazis appropriated their view of Nietzsche’s works to advance their movement). Both men dealt to a degree in escape from reality, although for benign and evil reasons. The rest of us are what Nietzsche described as “the bungled and the botched.” He says that the majority of people are “the expendable masses,” who “get pushed in front of trains, take poison aspirin, get gunned down in Dairy Queens.” The “gunned down” reference connects to the restaurant massacre, and he seems to now be identifying himself with those who are “teased” into thinking they can be great, but can’t achieve greatness. He asks the Pinocchio doll if he ever feels as if “you’re being punished for your sins?” Of course, Pinocchio was, for his lies and, for quite a while, being denied the chance of becoming a real boy. In a way, Jack is incomplete as a human being, too, and has been psychologically punished for his sins. But he is just bemoaning his experience, not learning from it.

Jack, not being able to deal with his failure and guilt, straps concrete to his feet, goes to city’s river edge, and is ready to drown himself. Local vigilante types drive up to the garbage-strewn area and consider Jack to be part of the vagrant population that has befouled their city. They ironically associate Jack with the same element of society he turned his back on. They pour gasoline on him and are ready to burn him like trash, like one of the garbage people Jack railed against. Parry (Robin Williams, in an Oscar-nominated performance) shows up appearing like a comic version of Don Quixote. (His name sounds like a fencing term, which means to deflect a blow, and could refer to his adopting his knighthood persona as a mental defense mechanism. Also, as IMDb points out, his name can refer to the knight Percival who sought the Holy Grail, or Parsifal, the fool, who brought redemption to the Fisher King, Amfortas, just as Parry helps save Jack). Parry is a street person who comically uses a trash can cover for a shield. He is accompanied by other vagrants, one of whom holds a lug wrench which looks like a cross, adding a religious crusader element to their actions. They begin to sing “I like New York in June/How about you?” It is an ironic song given their predicament, but they are positive-sounding lyrics to help deal with their fate. Here, Jack encounters a man who has also been harmed by life, and Parry, too, has been exiled from the world, but into a realm of fantasy to escape his pain. Parry says there are “three things in this world that you need: Respect for all kinds of life; a nice bowel movement on a regular basis; and a navy blazer.” It sounds silly, but he is just saying that people must care about others first, and then the individual just requires warmth and a decent diet. The lesson is that striving after other things amounts to seeking excesses. Parry is able to sling a ball at one of the attackers, knocking him down. He ties up the man with tape as the other runs off. Parry has rescued Jack from physical harm from himself and others, and later eventually aids in saving him psychologically. Jack says he needs a drink and Perry says humorously that he knows a place with great ambiance.

They go to an outside refuge for street people. Many of those gathered there seem mentally disabled, left to survive on their own. There is a fire burning, looking a bit like a surrealist inferno. The sleeve of Jack’s coat catches fire and he waves it with such force that the flames die out. The response of the area’s denizens is to applaud, like it was theater, so absurd is life to them. They force alcohol on Jack and he passes out, awakening in Parry’s underground “domicile,” a building boiler room (a reference to hell, as are the many inclusions of fire, suggesting the two characters are in a version of Hades). Parry wants to give Jack some food, saying his guest’s stomach must be like a “tabula rasa,” which shows Parry is an intelligent, witty fellow. Parry has auditory hallucinations, engaging in conversations with imaginary “little people” who he says sent him to Jack. He tells them he knows “He’s the one,” referring to Jack, which in knighthood terms, means his “champion,” the one to help Parry. Parry holds up a self-fashioned sword (made from metal from a Ford vehicle, showing how discards can be transformed into something more significant) and declares himself a “knight” on a special quest. He says he and the little people serve God and Parry is the lord’s “janitor,” a sort of refuse superhero acting as an agent of the deity.

Parry says the little people told him to look at a specific issue of an architecture magazine. In a picture there is a trophy, which Parry says is the Holy Grail, “God’s symbol of divine grace,” sitting on a bookshelf. The Holy Grail quest can represent a desire to return to nobility, purity, and salvation. Doubting Jack, who thinks Parry is a benign psychotic, questions Parry’s belief, saying, “Some billionaire has the Holy Grail in his library on Fifth Avenue.” Parry carries forward the joke by saying who would think one would find anything “divine on the Upper East Side,” of New York, since the modern world is in such a state of decline. He tells Jack he can’t get the Grail himself because “he’s” out there. Parry is referring to the Red Knight, an imaginary adversary, which represents the horror from Parry’s trauma blocking his quest for salvation. (IMDb notes that in medieval mythology Parsifal battled the Red Knight, which, like in this story, is a psychological projection of the questing knight). Jack has to leave, and Parry says he shouldn’t be a stranger and they can get together and “rummage,” which sounds like an odd activity for two people to share. But, symbolically, that is exactly what these two men must do, dig into their psyches to unearth their respective happier selves.

On his way out of the boiler room, Jack encounters the apartment superintendent (Al Fann) who says he allows Parry to stay there out of compassion for his tragedy. We find out that fate has brought Jack and Parry together, because Parry’s wife was killed in the yuppie club by Melnick, the man who Jack had spoken to on the radio. Back at the video store, Anne shows her concern for Jack. He doesn’t tell her about his possible suicide attempt. She tells him that she loves him, realizing he doesn't yet have the capacity to say it back, adding “although it wouldn’t break your jaw to try.” He is thinking about Parry now, his guilt magnified by coming into contact with someone who suffered from his actions. He asks Anne if she knows what the Holy Grail is, and she says it was “Jesus’s juice glass.” When asked if she believes in God, she says yes, she was brought up a Catholic, but believes man was made in the devil’s image because “most of the shit that happens comes from man.” She feels women came from God, because God creates, as do women by giving birth to babies. Women are attracted more to the devil, the bad boy, because saints are boring. Which may explain why she is with Jack. She says that the purpose of life is for men and women to get married so the devil and God can get together and work things out. Anne may seem common, but her insight here hits the mark because both Jack and Parry must participate in battles between their inner angels and demons.

Jack returns to Parry’s basement dwelling and encounters the superintendent again, who tells Jack that Parry was in a mental hospital at one point. Parry’s real name is Henry Sagan, and he taught medieval history at Hunter College (which explains his fixation on the Grail story). He didn’t speak for a year, and then invented his Parry persona. Jack looks at a document that has “The Fisher King” written on it, noting the essay deals with a “mythic journey” which is what Parry feels he must undertake. Parry and his wife lived in that building, and the manager let him stay in the basement after getting out of the mental facility. Jack looks at a picture of Parry’s wife as the manager tells him how Parry was very much in love with her.

Back at Anne’s place, Jack looks at the newspaper clippings that contain headlines about Jack’s radio program and the slayings. He says to her that he is cursed, being brought into contact with a man who was damaged by the shootings. He seems to be searching for a way to “just pay the fine and go home.” He still is self-centered, because his primary concern is to end his torment, but the fact that he has guilty feelings is a sign that he can be redeemed.

Jack goes looking for Parry. When he finds him, Parry brings Jack along as he follows a woman, Lydia Sinclair (Amanda Plummer), who is very awkward, bumping into a person, and knocking over paperback books at an outside stand. (IMDb notes that in Holy Grail legend, the Sinclair clan is mentioned, which thus ties Lydia to Parry’s salvation). Parry, although attracted to Lydia, says of her fiction reading, “She’s into trash, but what are you going to do?” This line is funny, but ironically foreshadows that she may be able to care for someone like Parry who lives among the city’s trash. He knows she eats dumplings on Wednesdays, and they see her dropping them in her lap. (Parry presses himself against the restaurant's window to observe Lydia, upsetting upscale-looking customers, which stresses the differences between the have and have-nots). Parry may like Lydia because she is, like him, an outsider. Jack gives Parry some money, a sort of easy way out of making amends. Parry sees it as a generous act, but it’s not what he wants or needs. He gives the money to another street person, which upsets Jack, but which again shows Parry’s caring nature.

Parry takes Jack to the billionaire’s house, which looks, appropriately, like a medieval castle, and where Parry believes the Holy Grail now resides. Jack tells him there is no Holy Grail, but Parry says the Crusades were not just a papal publicity stunt. Jack warns him it will be dangerous for Parry to try to break into the house. He keeps calling Parry derogatory names, such as “moron,” but Parry only sees the good in Jack, thrilled that he wants to protect Parry. He says to Jack, “You’re a real human being. You’re a friend,” which is exactly the opposite of what Jack feels about himself, since he labels himself “scum.” Parry is offering healing words for the damaged Jack.

Jack tells Parry that there are no little people, and starts to tell him that he is making up his story, and used to teach at Hunter College. Parry is not ready to have his protective delusion stripped from him, and he shouts and writhes on the ground. He has a vision of the fire-exuding Red Knight because he is the symbol of his trauma, his hell, that keeps him from facing reality. But, Parry sees the Red Knight turn around and retreat, so Parry feels that the creature is afraid of Jack, who Parry has charged with helping him fight what frightens him. Parry runs off supposedly after the Red Knight. Jack follows him, showing how he does care about Parry. When he catches up to him in Central Park up on a rock, Parry tells him about the Red Knight. Jack, ready to call it quits, looks up to the sky and says that he wants to let it be known he gave Parry some money. He appears to be talking to God. Parry has a quizzical look on his face. He is the man who talks to imaginary little people, but asks Jack who is he talking to, which in an irreverent way, lumps belief in God with the delusions of the mentally ill.

There is screaming by a man that interrupts their discussion. He has been knocked over by affluent types (again class disparity is stressed) riding horses. Jack wants to let it go, but Parry, again modeling decency for Jack, says Mother Teresa has retired, so they have to pitch in. The man (Michael Jeter), in response to Jack’s leaning toward leaving, says don’t worry, he’ll be fine bleeding in horse excrement, adding “How very Gandhi-esque of you.” He is able to be funny despite his circumstances. They take him to a hospital emergency room crammed with the casualties of society, where Parry tries to fight the misery of the wounded and demented by singing. (The shot of Jack holding the man reminds one of the Pieta by Michelangelo, with Jack the unlikely nurturing figure he must become). The man they rescued says he was a cabaret singer, (another instance of the need for harmony symbolized by referencing music) but has fallen on hard times since all of his friends have died, which probably refers to the AIDS epidemic. His story points to more evidence of the neglect the nation had towards marginal groups in America during the early HIV era.

Jack, still sticking with Parry, hoping to pay his “fine,” waits with him for Lydia in crowded Grand Central Station, where the homeless are shoved to the sides of the building as the rest of the citizens rush past them, literally and figuratively leaving them behind. The commuters are doing what Jack is trying to do, drop some money in the cups of beggars to dispel their societal guilt. When a coin misses the cup of a war veteran in a wheelchair, Jack says the donor didn’t even look at the man. The veteran says, “He’s paying so he don’t have to look.” By donating a little money, the passerby purchases an exemption from having to face the inequities in society that might cause him to feel he must do something about them. The veteran says that he is like a “traffic light,” because someone at work will think twice about defying his condescending boss when he realizes his life is better than the crippled bum on the street. The thrust here is that the penalty for not compromising oneself in the capitalist game is severe.

Parry sees Lydia in the train station crowd and she is preceded by several nuns (hinting at her saving powers?). She passes by him and then, in Parry’s mind, all of the people begin to dance a waltz, showing how, to him, she has magical powers to bring people together. The usually clumsy Lydia glides effortlessly through the crowd. For Parry and the injured cabaret singer in the park, music symbolizes the need to bring everyone together to remedy a discordant world. The harmony is transient, as the clock strikes five pm, and the spell is broken, like midnight in the Cinderella tale, and there is noisy, frenetic movement again. Meanwhile, in a scene that is in counterpoint to Parry’s romantic daydream, Annie sits alone at a dinner table waiting for Jack. She complains to an empty chair, which is supposed to contain Jack, about how she has had it with his lack of being there for her. (There are several times in the film where people speak to no one, showing the need to connect to others).

It’s nighttime, and Jack and Parry are back in Central Park. Jack is worried that they can get killed there at night. Parry, in contrast, is free from fear, and gets naked, looks at the night spy, and hopes to bust up clouds by staring at them. Parry again appears liberated and Jack is full of negativity. Jack starts to leave in frustration, venting into the air about Parry’s behavior. Parry asks him again who is he talking to, as the line between being crazy and sane is blurred. Jack submits to lying down, but stays clothed. However, he still goes to the dark side by hypothesizing about how they both will be murdered, and the press will note he was next to a naked guy, which will increase the sales of his biography since the media loves sleazy situations (another example of Jack’s self-absorption). Parry notes Jack’s pessimism, with a bit of an understatement, when he says, “you don’t seem like a happy camper.”

Parry then relates his version of the Fisher King story. He says it starts with the King as a boy in the forest to spend a night alone to prove his courage that would make him fit to be a regent. He gets a vision of the Holy Grail surrounded by fire, the “symbol of God’s divine grace.” He hears a voice that tells him, “You shall be keeper of the Grail so that it may heal the hearts of men.” Unfortunately, the boy was “blinded” by thinking about a life “filled with power and glory and beauty.” He feels “invincible,” like a god, and reaches into the fire (there it is again) that houses the Grail. The Grail then vanishes, and he is burned by the fire. As he became older, the wound grew deeper. Life for him lost its “reason,” and he has no faith in anyone, even himself. He couldn’t experience love. “He began to die.” A fool wanders in, not realizing he was speaking to a king, and asks what does the man want. The king says he needs some water. The fool takes a cup, fills it with water, and the king drinks. The king finds that it heals his wound, and realizes the cup he holds is the Holy Grail. He asks the fool how did he find it, and the fool says he does not know. He only knew that the King was thirsty. The story could relate to Jack, since he was arrogant and only sought worldly gain for himself, and Parry could be considered the “fool” who saves him. But, in the movie, the good deed must be reciprocated, and Jack must also help Parry. The story points to the healing power of compassion.

Parry says he heard the Fisher King story at a lecture once, and he starts to say it was at Hunter College. Just as he about to have a breakthrough to reality, he imagines seeing the Red Knight again, spouting that hellfire, which scares him back into the protection of his mental fortress. Jack diverts him by asking why he hasn’t asked Lydia for a date. Parry says he hasn’t earned the right, which fits in with the knightly code of chivalry he has adopted. Jack says that she can help him get the Grail because the love of a woman “keeps you going, gives you strength, and makes you feel like you can do anything.” Parry asks Jack is that what his girlfriend does for him, and Jack says “sure.” Parry can see Jack is not sincere in his expressed happiness, so he recalls the Pinocchio doll that Jack gave him, by pretending to show a growing a long nose, implying that Jack is lying. But, Jack here at least acknowledges the possibility of the power of love.

Jack tells Anne that if he gets Parry and Lydia together things might turn out better for him. Jack has upped his quest for redemption by exchanging his money offer for an attempt at matchmaking. He tries to lure Lydia to the video store by calling her and saying she has won free rentals, even though she tells him she does not have a tape player. She hangs up, so Jack sends the cabaret singer from the park to deliver a singing telegram that she should claim her prize. His thick mustache makes him look like one unattractive drag queen as he loudly sings his song, doing a hilarious Ethel Merman turn, at the office where Lydia works. We again have music as the agent used to bring people together.

Jack has Parry pretend he works at the video store. Lydia is definitely kooky as she is overly critical that she only gets ten free rentals and then knocks over lots of tapes. Parry tries to help her, but she only wants Ethel Merman musicals (which shows she, too, secretly seeks to find a romantic dance partner. The love of music is the key - pun intended - that the outsiders share to connect them with others). Lydia likes Anne’s nails, and Jack gets her to promise to do Lydia’s nails that evening so that there is a chance for her to get close to Parry.

While Parry has some food at Anne’s place, he says that a man would be “crazy” not to want to settle down with her. (He, the supposed insane person, comments on the irrational acts of others). Anne’s response is that “most men are,” which refers to Jack and other males. Anne greets Lydia who walks around the apartment looking ill at ease, touching things, not able to be still. She just seems out of place in a social situation. As Anne does Lydia’s nails, she asks if she is seeing anyone, and Lydia says, “Does it look like I am seeing anyone?” Her response is almost hostile, implying it’s obvious that she isn’t involved, which reveals her lack of self-worth. While Anne prepares Lydia for the “date,” Jack is cleaning up Parry, putting on him some of his own clothes, which he comically shortens by using staples. Parry asks about Jack’s feelings toward Anne, so in a way he is reciprocating Jack’s efforts by urging him toward a committed relationship with Anne. Lydia says to Anne that some people are just meant to be alone, which can be a rationalization that justifies an isolationist lifestyle. She says she doesn’t know how to have a conversation, but Anne, helping her gain confidence, argues that is what they are having.

On the double date, we find out that Lydia works at a romance novel publisher, which explains why she checks those types of books out. She calls them trashy, as did Parry earlier, but now he says that “there’s nothing trashy about romance.” He says that in romance there is passion, imagination, and beauty. And he says that one finds some “wonderful things in the trash,” which he should know about as he has gone through a great deal of refuse. He holds up a tiny chair he made from a soda cap and bobby pins, illustrating how artists take from the everyday and turn the stuff of life into art. Jack earlier said that people are “garbage,” as if they should be discarded, and then he finds Parry whose life Jack  has trashed and who he discovers is worth salvaging.

They have dinner at a Chinese restaurant, since Lydia loves dumplings. Of course Lydia drops the food, and also spills water, coughs on the plates, and belches. Parry grabs a dumpling with his hand, and also drops stuff, some of which he appears to be doing to mimic Lydia’s actions, to make her feel more accepted. The two even play with the food. Anne whispers that the two social misfits are “made for each other. It’s scary, but true.” Parry sings the song that Groucho Marx originated about “Lydia the Tattooed Lady,” and the reference to the absurdist humor of the Marx Brothers fits in well with these misfits. As Parry sings, Jack acts more affectionately toward Anne, which maybe shows that helping Parry indeed is also having a positive effect on Jack. Again, music is the positive force that joins people in harmony, as we see the camera pull back and others in the restaurant listen to Parry, becoming part of the musical moment.

The two couples pair off. Jack and Anne are hysterical, laughing at the way the other two played hockey with their food. Anne surprises Jack by quoting the Latin phrase that translates to “love conquers all.” She quickly qualifies it by saying that it doesn’t apply to them. She says that she is very proud of him because he did something good for another person. Jack is complimentary for a change as he tells her that she was “great” and says that he is grateful for her help. They kiss, laugh, and go up to the apartment.

Lydia is so down on relationships that she states unfortunately what many women have experienced. She predicts that Parry, after walking her home, will come up to her apartment, they will get comfortable, he will sleep over, but then will be distant in the morning. They will exchange phone numbers, but he will never call. She will initially be elated but then will feel like dirt. She says why should she put herself through all of this anguish, and runs off. Parry goes after her and says he had no intention of going to her place because he wants something longer lasting than one night. He confesses that he grew fond of her by observing her daily routines, which shows he is willing to put in the time to have a lasting relationship. She sees that he is not just looking for a one-night stand and gives him a kiss.

But the thought of actually being in love again triggers memories of how he lost his last love. The Red Knight appears, the specter that tries to scare him away from any attempt at facing the horror of his past and reintegrating Parry with his real identity, Henry Sagan, so he can move forward. There are bloody images of his wife being killed (the red of the blood is mirrored in the color of the Red Knight), and Parry runs through the streets, fleeing from the memory of that terrible night. His mental illness is depicted in an image of the arms of the oversized borrowed jacket flapping around him, resembling a straitjacket. He flees to the same spot where he met Jack. The vigilantes show up with the shadow of the Red Knight behind them. As one whips out a knifes, Parry substitutes the Red Knight slashing at him with his sword. The men beat him, and Parry offers no resistance as he wants to die rather than relive the horror of the massacre.

Jack feels that he has been released from his guilt based on what he has done for Parry. He calls his agent, who says that Jack can get back into radio if that’s what he wants. Anne is thrilled that he will be working again, and thinks that they can look for a better place to live together. But Jack still hasn’t learned the lesson of true altruism. He still views life as a way to benefit himself. He saw his time with Anne as just a halfway house experience, a temporary place for him to crash, literally and figuratively. He used her and now wants to be on his own to concentrate on his career again, “now that everything’s taken care of,” except for Anne’s feelings. She loves him and is devastated.

Jack then gets a call from the hospital because he gave Parry his wallet to pay for the dinner. Although Parry was beaten, the real problem is that he has fallen back into his catatonic state. The doctor says he will be transferred to the mental institution after the hospital discharges him. Jack does try to make an effort to say he is family, but the doctor says that might allow Parry to be discharged to him, but Jack would not be equipped to care for him. Anne says that Lydia found her prince and now he’s fallen into a coma. It’s sort of a gender reversal of the “Sleeping Beauty” story. She says with bitterness, “some women have no luck,” which includes her. She walks away and Jack says, “I’ll call you,” the phrase that Lydia notes men say when they have no intention of getting in touch.

Jack is back in his arrogant capitalistic saddle, doing a radio show, and he is negotiating other projects, as we wear his theme song, “I Got the Power,” showing how music can also expose the egoism that separates instead of joining people. After exiting a limo, the cabaret singer from the park recognizes Jack and calls out to him, a kind of reminder of how Jack has discarded those that helped him during his tough time. A TV executive (John de Lancie) pitches Jack a tasteless “comedy” about the homeless that will not be depressing, he says, but funny and upbeat. It will have “wacky and wise’ homeless people who are “happy” because “they love the freedom, the adventure” of their situation. So, the thrust here is to cash in on those who are destitute, and make it look okay to exploit them by falsely showing how much they actually have going for them. Jack has seen the homeless, and he knows that they are not happy people. He is so upset about the project that he runs out of the office.

Jack goes to Parry’s boiler room abode and looks at Parry’s book about the Holy Grail. He picks up the Pinocchio doll and brings it to the mental hospital where Parry is a patient. Lydia is there, but doesn’t see Jack, as she talks to an attendant about items she has brought, indicating that she has been a regular visitor to see Parry. Jack places the doll on the bed near the catatonic Parry. Jack argues with himself even though he appears to be talking to the unresponsive Parry (another example of someone not able to converse with another, but here, it’s like a soliloquy, as Jack tries to deal with his internal conflicts). Jack says things have been great, he’s getting a cable show, and has a gorgeous girlfriend. He says he’s not going to do it, he’s not “God” and can’t magically fix things. He is, of course, talking about getting the cup that Parry thought is the Holy Grail. He tries to convince himself that many people have problems but still survive, and it’s easier for Parry to just sit there, in “his comfortable little coma.” But, if he wants to know what hard is, Jack says, “Try being me.” Despite his regained success, it feels empty to him now that he has seen the suffering of others that he helped bring about. He admits to feeling like he has “nothing,’ because what he does have is all superficial. He finally has his epiphany. He says if he does get the cup he’ll not be doing it because he “felt cursed or guilty or responsible.” Those are selfish motives. He says if he does it, “it’s because I want to do this for you.” The unselfish act is the one that is truly a worthy one.

The next image is the castle-like home of the rich person, the one, in a Robin Hood-like act, who must have his treasure taken to help the less fortunate. Jack is wearing Parry’s coat and hat as he participates in the knightly scaling of the fortress. He confronts a stained glass window that resembles the Red Knight, as we hear the horse winnowing, showing how Jack’s life is, to use the musical metaphor, now in sync with that of Parry’s. He even comments that he hears the horse, showing how he is sharing Parry’s hallucination. As he grabs the cup, he notices that the old man who owns the place appears to have taken some pills and may have fallen into a stupor or even has died. Does the man who held the power have to sleep in order for the victim of society to awake?  Jack goes to the mental ward and puts the cup in Parry’s hands, and eventually falls asleep at the foot of the bed. Parry’s hands start to move, stroking the cup. He opens his eyes, and Jack, who has his head turned away from Parry, also has his eyes open. They have become awake both spiritually as well as physically. Parry says he had a dream about being married to a beautiful woman, and asks, “Can I miss her now?”  So his unconscious, repressed past, is now breaking through to his conscious state, and he is ready to now deal with his loss. He thanks Jack for making it possible.

The next day, Lydia visits the mental hospital and is astonished to find Parry’s bed empty. He has been resurrected and he is leading the other patients, in what else, a song, spreading his melodic happiness to others. He and Lydia embrace, and Jack takes his place, leading the group, showing how they all are joined by the music and lyrics. Parry and Lydia’s love is contagious, and Jack realizes he truly loves Anne, now knowing that standing by someone when they are suffering is the real expression of love. After he tells her that he loves her, she smacks him for putting her through it. But then they passionately kiss, knocking over the videos, mirroring Lydia and Parry’s first encounter.

The film concludes with Jack and Parry in the park at night, both now naked, liberated from their mental prisons, looking at the sky. Jack asks, per their previous nighttime park encounter, if he is making the clouds move. Parry asks if Jack is “crazy,” which is funny given Parry’s history, and says it’s due to the wind, of course. His fanciful life as Parry has now mingled with the real-life experience of Henry Sagan. The film ends with, what else, the two of them singing, “How about You?” They look at the skyline of New York and there is a magical movie ending as the lights of the city illuminate and fireworks burst in the air as the fearful fire has been replaced by joyful illumination.

After a week off, the next film is Charly.