I thought it was a hoax at first. But then again, sometimes the most believable scenarios are too realistic to feel anything BUT contrived.
I guess the shock is because it's unusual for a man with such knowing problems to have succumbed to them after beating them for so long.
For some reason, this one feels appropriate.
Robin Williams ultimately became known for a name as much as for his work. His career spans not only numerous decades, but also numerous incarnations. He started out as a radical comedian, shifted to serious dramatic actor, and then grafted the two together to become an icon who could alternate between them, solidifying him as an everyman journeyman: a craftsman of many trades who became unremarkable as a result.
Like many comedians--and talented dramatic actors--Williams' power came from pain. A personality of great energy also susceptible to addictive and depressive tendencies, he adapted to them by applying his focus to distracting practices that channeled that emotion into something controllable. And, like all comedians whose pain runs proportional to their talent, he got very very good at it. So well, in fact, that he achieved that rare status or watershed, where nothing else before resembled him, but everything else afterward bore his signature.
The craft held the demons at bay, but the coping techniques lost their strength and eventually he turned to cocaine, which may, in turn, have advanced his skills, but at a cost. With John Belushi's death, the drugs went away but since comedy no longer worked either, he shifted gears to dramatic acting in the 1980s with the hybrid dramedy
Good Morning Vietnam, which was so successful and big at the time that I remember the hype from even back then. It was more than a bit shocking to see America's uber-funnyman juggle both genres with equal deftness; nowadays, it's a common occurrence, but in the 80s, it was as shocking as Williams' plastic slapstick had been in the 1970s. This streak ran until the mid-90s, when he shifted focus again to the constant paycheck of well-paying family adventure films, where his powerful ability to vacillate between comedy and drama were perfect qualities for the broad overreaching projection necessary to transmit poignancy to kids. Unfortunately, the films weren't very good beyond their immediate marketable appeal and for those of us old enough to remember when he was a truly ground-breaking presence in the entertainment world, it was a disappointing change in tone, especially his entire run through the 2000s:
RV?
Bicentennial Man?
License to Wed? Christ, how the mighty had fallen.
Perhaps he felt he couldn't return to his roots given the effects of maturity and the fact that his role as the anarchistic pop culture funnyman had been replaced by Jim Carrey, who--for those of you too young to remember--was THE GOD of comedy in the 1990s. His ability to make his body and face match the energy of his performances actually exceeded Williams and made it a difficult act to follow. But his career was established and now he could do anything without consequence give the foundations of his career the previous 20 years hence.
Williams' transitional abilities made him susceptible to mawkish "serious" films (
Patch Adams, anyone?) and Oscar bait, but when it was tailored right under the right direction, it was something to behold. Like James Gandolfini, Heath Ledger, and Vincent Price, all of whom were actors known more for a particular, typecasting sort of work, Williams' skill with dramatic acting was criminally underrated. People in the know used to joke about how a comedian like him could have once attended Julliard, but no one who saw the scope of his dramatic work could doubt it. While no comedy of his ever truly captured the comic skill she exhibited on
Mork & Mindy or his 1970s standup routines on videotape, there was no shortage of films capturing his dramatic talents. The intensity of his focus and the power of his command meant that most of these films were disturbing in nature, which was at stark odds with his establishing work, but nevertheless, for every
Flubber and
Man of the Year, there was a
One Hour Photo:
For every
Jakob the Liar and
What Dreams May Come, there was a
Good Will Hunting:
Even some of his misfires were more of a result of interesting but poorly-executed/misunderstood/underwhelming quality, but still watchable:
Going through Williams' filmography is kind of like goldpanning: after the initial strike, you have to sift through the dirt to find the gems that poke out and surprise you.
I think that's the aspect of his death that wounds us the most. With him gone, so too is the stream of gleeful surprises and amusements that we've grown used to most of our lives. Now we look back on him, admire what we loved about him, feel the bruise of the disappointments, and sigh at the loss of all left undone.
Goodbye Robin, and thanks for all you've done.
PERSONAL NOTE:
Growing up, I watched syndicated re-runs of
Mork & Mindy and found in Robin Williams my patron saint. There was nobody else on television--or ANYWHERE for that matter who wasn't an animated cartoon--who I could relate to, or recognize myself in. He was both an influence and a kindred spirit, which was the cause of my lifelong dynamic of making friends and enemies with equal success, sometimes even the same people. That benign, anarchic energy was breathtaking and invigorating, though not everyone saw it so.
When Williams moved into dramatic work in the late 80s, that inimitable presence left the film world forever, because by the time he came back to comedies, he had been supplanted by Jim Carrey, and his sobriety and age had tempered that manic energy for its emotional impact and wise-acrey, which is why he was in movies that were funny, but not particularly outstanding. Memorable for those who grew up watching them, but not so much for those who knew him from before. So in a way, Williams passing is more bittersweet for the lost potential than it is for the loss of the man.
I had outgrown Williams years before Carrey showed up on the scene, and I came to appreciate him more for his serious dramatic work than his comedies, most of which I avoided completely. I said my goodbyes to the iconic spaz a long time ago without even realizing it, and when I learned that his death wasn't a hoax, I was more devastated by the lack of loss I felt than anything else. In a way, he hadn't been with us for some time. He was a kind of entertainment staple by this point: a man who was ubiquitous and recognizable, but remembered for his past more than his present. He seemed like the guy we all know in our lives who went from high school-and-college party animal to serious journeyman in his 20s and 30s to become a humble community businessman from his 40s to death...but everyone still talks about his scholastic escapades decades after he graduated. It's the absence of his presence it seems, that bothers us the most:
We can't remember much of a time before him, but can't imagine what the future will be without him.
I also want to take this opportunity to mention 2 very different but worthy curios from his filmography: Bobcat Goldthwait's
World's Greatest Dad, and Kenneth Branagh's magnificent (albeit a tad self-indulgent) 1996 adaptation of
Hamlet:
