Script To Screen: “The Fisher King”
A notable scene from the 1991 movie The Fisher King, written by Richard LaGravenese.
A notable scene from the 1991 movie The Fisher King, written by Richard LaGravenese.
Plot Summary: A former radio DJ, suicidally despondent because of a terrible mistake he made, finds redemption in helping a deranged homeless man who was an unwitting victim of that mistake.
Scene: Parry (Robin Williams), the “deranged homeless man”, is trying to get his life together and has just had a wonderful evening with a woman (Lydia), seemingly on his way to recovery. But then something from his tormented past rises up into his consciousness.
Here is the movie version of the scene:
Beat for beat, the movie follows closely the script, however, the imagery as executed by director Terry Gilliam elevates the words into a compelling set of visuals.
One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, an ongoing series on Go Into The Story where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
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