Robin Williams' turn as Parry in The Fisher King is at once outrageously comic and dramatically heartfelt. As a man carrying a great deal of post-traumatic stress that has transformed itself into unbridled joy and glorious delusion, Williams' performance was praised for its nuanced and humane layers. Indeed, Williams, who died in 2014, was known for his singular performing style, alternating an infectious energy and deeply-felt melancholy.
When Williams committed suicide in 2014, after years of suffering from depression, much was made of the supposed link between comedy and tragedy, the profound loneliness or existential sadness lurking behind a comic's joking mask. For better or for worse, Robin Williams has come to stand in for this cultural trope, the figure of the "sad clown." In an article for Time Magazine about this proposed identity, Alexandra Sifferlin wrote, soon after Williams' death, "Research from Oxford University published earlier this year surveyed 523 comedians and compared them to a control group. Their finding? “The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis—both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”
Through this frame, Robin Williams' character in The Fisher King can be read as an integration of the themes of mental illness and humor that were such a motif in his life. Parry struggles to grasp reality, to remain in touch with his real emotions, but in the process, he brings great joy to other people's lives, and teaches them valuable lessons that they might not otherwise have learned had they not embarked into his delusions and unreality.
