The best metaphor I have for the death of Robin Williams is
that a note just dropped out of the bass line of modern entertainment. Some
people are entertainment icons because they are towering presences in their
field – Williams always felt more like a constant presence. Somehow the worlds
of acting in general and comedy specifically were better because he was out
there, a seemingly inexhaustible resource of silliness and brilliance. And he
was prolific. The Internet Movie Database lists over 100 entries for Williams
as an actor alone.
As a performer, Williams came across as an inch deep but a
mile wide. Sure, his output was uneven (there was The Birdcage, say…but also Death
to Smoochy), but, God, was there a lot of it. Williams played silly, he
played sad, he played evil, he played supernatural, he played alien, he played
loud, and he played soft. But he always played. There was a sense of fun about
whatever he did. I’ve heard that the late actor George C. Scott evaluated
others’ performances on whether or not the actors seemed to be enjoying
themselves. Williams invariably passed that test, whatever he was in. And his
energy was contagious. I defy anyone who watched movies or TV from the 1970s
until now to tell me that that some Williams performance or appearance didn’t
move you to laughter or tears or a wonderful mixture of both.
Personally, I was always in awe of his improvisational
abilities. There’s quick-witted…and then there was Robin Williams. Anything,
and I mean anything, could be grist for his comic sensibilities when he got
going, and Williams was always going. Consider the “Inside the Actor’s Studio”
bit now justly making the Youtube tribute rounds where he takes a scarf from
someone in the audience and riffs with it, putting the crowd and usually self-possessed
host James Lipton in stitches. Practice? Sure. But that’s a gift. Robin
Williams had a mind for comedy. It’s just how he worked.
The circumstances of his death are especially tragic. There
will be a tendency to view his career through the lens of his end, and his
reported depression: “That mix of laughter and tears onscreen…that’s what was
going on in his soul, man!” But I
think that’s unfair. Depression is awful and life-destroying. Neither of those
are words I would choose to attach to Robin Williams. Plus, we have no way to
know what was ever in his mind as he performed. It’s enough that the tragedy
ended his life without also letting it define his life.
I instead will remember a man who gave a lot of joy to the
world. My personal favorite performances? His Oscar-winning turn in Good Will Hunting, with its mixture of
hurt, wisdom, and humor; and his madcap turn as the Genie in Aladdin, where animation liberated Williams’s
machine-gun wit from even physical constraints. I confess I am not really a fan
of Dead Poets Society, which many
people are referencing in tribute, but there does seem to be something right about
connecting – as that movie did - Williams to Walt Whitman. Whitman also was infinitely
observant, voluble, big-hearted, individualistic and yet fond of an audience. “I
am large,” he wrote. “I contain multitudes.” So did Williams: multitudes of
characters, multitudes of words, multitudes of emotions. It was our good luck
that he decided to share them with us.
Hear hear.
ReplyDelete