Marc:

I used Gilliam's The Fisher King in my English 11 class and my students loved it, I hope as much as I did...scatological excess noted. Although that didn't seem to bother the boys.

Broke them up into groups to study the Red Castle to the Grail to Perceval (Parry) to The Red Knight, to Chess and even the Tarot, both the major and minor arcana.

They were to apply their research to Gilliam's movie and any current events or Presidents/Kings/ or even Headmasters.

One student boldly asserted, "Sir, FDR was as crippled as was the dust-bowled land during his Depression era Presidency!"

You are spot on with Oedipus and TS Eliot's The Wasteland.

The Double Hook, a great often overlooked novel set in a small Canadian village, was written in homage to TS Eliot and The Fisher King Myth...(even though Eliot's publishing house turned the novel down.)

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Double_Hook

"The Old Lady fishes on everyone's property, yet this act of fishing is negative and symbolic of death. The Old Lady has no use for the fish, she simply continually kills them without using them for nourishment. "

"This act can be seen as a Christian parable: as The Old Lady kills fish she can be viewed as the Anti-Christ, since Jesus used one fish to feed a whole town. "

"The idea of the fisher in the damaged land also unavoidably recalls the Arthurian legends of the Fisher King."

Look forward to your work, especially given current fires and droughts and storms and floods.

Thanks for the response.