Why Knight of Cups ?

According to Wikipedia:

Knight of Cups is a card used in Latin-suited playing cards, including tarot decks.

In English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards came to be utilized primarily for divinatory purposes.

Upright: the Knight of Cups is a person who is a bringer of ideas, opportunities and offers. He is constantly bored, and in constant need of stimulation, but also artistic and refined. He represents a person who is amiable, intelligent, and full of high principles, but a dreamer who can be easily persuaded or discouraged.

Reversed: the card represents unreliability and recklessness. It indicates fraud, false promises and trickery. It represents a person who has trouble discerning when and where the truth ends and lies begin.

There are other tarot cards such as Knight of Swords (highly ambitious and persistent), Knight of Pentacles (patient, methodical), and Knight of Wands (energized, impulsive).

Christian Bale's character -- Rick -- was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. The press synopsis said he was a comedy screenwriter, which I found very hard to believe (I've never seen a more depressed and lost comedy screenwriter with such a bare work space). And Rick looked like he could be an actor with his chiseled looks instead of a screenwriter. But anyways, the point is, the title refers to the tarot card (and every "chapter" you see in the film was another tarot card i.e. The Tower, High Priestess, Death, etc). Screenwriter Rick would be the thoughtful, artistic type. The cup represents knowledge and Rick, in his own way, delivers words and fictional universes through his profession.

However, the voiceover in the film also refers to a legend about a King from the East who sent his son in search of a pearl in the West. In this case, the pearl could represent that otherness all humans are searching for (solace, love, spiritual enlightenment, true happiness). The legend says the young prince, instead, drank from a cup and fell into a deep slumber. As Rick says in the voiceover: "All those years, living the live of someone I didn't even know."

One of the females he meets even says, "We're not leading the lives we are meant for... we're meant for something else."

Rick's parade of women and parties gave him temporary satisfaction but not fulfillment. As soon as his fling was over he felt empty again, drifting through life with no purpose.

The music theme that recurs throughout the film even sounds "arabesque" and conjures images of Kings, nobility and ancient lands.

https://youtu.be/nJmxzE72KQk

It's modern music made to sound like 19th century classical music. My interpretation of this motif was that the music acted as a kind of majestic voice (from the past? the future?) trying to awaken something in Rick -- calling him to action. He wasn't meant to live his life this way (a boozy, partying womanizer). He was meant for something better.

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better title would have been The Dark Knight of Cups

so many movies, so little time

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