By James David Patrick
For many, Robin Williams’ 2014 suicide became one of those moments. Memories made permanent; a tragedy colored with oddly specific details. JFK. Princess Diana. Robin Williams. It wasn’t just that he made us laugh. Robin Williams created characters that resonated across gender and generation, that tapped into something far more intimate.
Williams had been a fixture on our TV and movie screens for three decades, his personality a more consistent source of electricity than wind or solar energy. Stories of his struggles with addiction and depression were as public as the many incidents of kindness he showed to peers and movie crews. A sense of the fragile, fallible human behind the comic genius made us love him even more. While he’d kept his personal life as private as possible, tabloids had attempted to vilify Robin Williams. Along with regret and lingering self-doubt, he buried those injustices within himself.
I learned about Williams’ death during my family’s annual summer beach vacation. I’d avoided the news until late afternoon… when it came through as a pushed notification on my iPad. Suicide—an incomprehensible finality, I thought, for an entertainer who brought us all so much joy. What a silly, trivial reaction. It should come as no surprise that those who give the most of themselves are often the most troubled. Details hadn’t yet been released, so we didn’t know about his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. The subsequent autopsy found that he had actually suffered from Lewy body dementia, an aggressive and incurable brain disorder. The common associated risk? Suicide.
I slid (perhaps slumped would be more appropriate) onto the floor in a seated position beneath the glass coffee table and attempted to assemble my emotions, or at least process them in a way that made sense. Here was a celebrity—and not even one I’d had the pleasure of interviewing during my time spent writing for entertainment outlets—whose death had affected me as if we’d shared a true personal connection. I’m not one that generally considers celebrity deaths cause for mourning. I am saddened by the loss of a favorite entertainer, certainly, but can’t say I’m often shaken. The loss of Robin Williams felt deflating. Based on the outpouring of affection, I wasn’t alone.
Robin Williams, the performer, had touched millions of lives. He first entered our households as Mork from Ork on Mork & Mindy, a show that represents some of my earliest trace memories of broadcast television. Words flew from his mouth at uncanny speed, ad-libbed on camera, the mental gymnastics impressive, if not inhuman. Maybe, just maybe, he was actually an alien from another galaxy. At the very least a living, breathing cartoon. A younger generation came to know Williams through his voicework as the motormouthed genie in Disney’s Aladdin (1992) and the dad-in-nanny-disguise in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).
He balanced his humor, born from a kinetic, restless brain, with heartfelt performances rooted in the subtle tragedies and hard-won joys of being human. We readily think of his dramatic, supposedly against-type turns in films like Dead Poets Society (1989) and Good Will Hunting (1997), but he balanced comedy with dramatic performances throughout his career. We considered these roles “against type” as a result of our tendency to pigeonhole him as a funny man rather than an actor. While filming Mork & Mindy, he made both Popeye (1980) and The World According to Garp (1982). 1991 saw Williams appear in Sesame Street, Steven Spielberg’s Hook, Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King, and Kenneth Branagh’s Dead Again. He chose projects that challenged him as an actor, never strictly falling back on his 100-megawatt personality. Most importantly, and I think this comes through his best performances, he gave outcasts and eccentrics a voice devoid of cliche and shorthand. He fleshed out underwritten characters and made cartoons (both the drawn and the live-action type) relatable.
Robin Williams would have celebrated his 70th birthday on July 21, 2021. It’s impossible to resist the temptation to play “what if.” What if Williams’ career hadn’t been slowed by a debilitating mental disorder? What if he’d been able to continue his remarkable string of successes without the professional disappointments he’d suffered toward the end of his life?
Seven years after his death, I’ll still watch a great Robin Williams performance and fight back latent tears. If you need a more cathartic cry, queue up Marina Zenovich’s wonderful 2018 documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind. Just wait until Billy Crystal (his longtime friend and Comic Relief partner) and Pam Dawber (his Mork & Mindy co-star) talk about Robin’s last days. Once you’ve had that cry, queue up his stand-up film, Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002). He would have wanted that dose of concentrated laughter to balance out the tears.
It’s much easier to believe that Williams was just summoned back to his home planet, Ork or beyond. While he might not be with us, his indefatigable spirit lives on in the work he left behind and the friends who continue to share stories of his compassion and tenacious creativity.
One of my favorite Robin Williams bits came from his standup act circa 1977. It’s not his funniest material, but it perfectly balances the manic mind with introspection. Williams describes himself 40 years into the future. The crowd’s laughter begins to subside. It’s not that the bit has run out of steam, far from it actually. Williams says “You’ve got to be crazy,” and then pokes his finger through his empty eyeglass frame. “Because what is reality?” Soon, the Roxy has gone silent, totally captivated Robin Williams as he dispenses some of his most famous wisdom. It’s a monologue I’ll never forget.
You got to be crazy.
It’s too late to be sane, too late.
You got to go full-tilt bozo,
‘cause you’re only given a little spark of madness.
If you lose that, you’re nothing.
Don’t ever lose that, ‘cause it keeps you alive.
Let’s celebrate Robin Williams’ life and work the only way we know how—by recommending our favorite Robin Williams movies and performances and keep his spark alive. Some you’ve probably seen… and there are others that may need to be re-discovered. I’ve recently written (in a piece highlighting movie cheeseburgers) about Good Will Hunting and talked at some length about Mrs. Doubtfire on the Cinema Shame podcast with DVD Netflix’s Marketing Manager Annie Jung. Assume, of course, that you should have seen those, and I’ll use this space to dispense enthusiasm for a few other favorites.
The Essentials:
Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989)
Upon Robin Williams’ death, the “O Captain” scene might have run on repeat for 48 hours across your favored news outlet. As a result, you might associate Dead Poets Society with heart-tugging treacle: a sappy classroom drama filled with loud emotional beats and the camaraderie between a great teacher and his willing pupils. If that’s your initial reaction to Dead Poets Society, it’s time for a rewatch—Australian filmmaker Peter Weir does not ruin sentimentality with artificial emotional cues. He’s an actor’s director that facilitates earnest performance. Jim Carrey, Harrison Ford, Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, and Jeff Bridges have all done some of their best, most honest work under Weir’s tutelage.
At face value, this starchy drama about a bunch of rich kids at a New England prep school doesn’t look like much. Driven by character and Robin Williams’ nuance and controlled chaos, Tom Schulman’s script allows for Williams’ inspirational levity to shine through his impassioned monologues before reducing viewers to puddles of quivering goo by the film’s end.
As an 11-year-old kid, I responded to this movie’s message about living in the face of artificial societal constraints—harnessing a rebellious joie de vivre. As an adult, however, I’m more drawn to Williams as a fragile human looking toward these teenagers as hope for the future. The message of Weir’s movie has shifted over time, making it even more impactful. It’s hard to call this Weir’s masterpiece when his filmography is littered with equally likely candidates such as The Truman Show, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, but Dead Poets Society might just be his most nimble piece of moviemaking.
The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam, 1991)
During my Robin Williams rewatches, no film hit me harder than The Fisher King, an empathetic horse kick to my chest. The Arthurian legend, upon which Gilliam’s movie has taken its inspiration, requires a hero and a quest. As the story goes, the Fisher King (aka the Wounded King) has been charged with keeping the Grail, but he’s also physically impaired, incapable of moving under his own power.
Set in a decadent New York City of the early 1990s, Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges), a suicidal former radio talk show host, meets an eccentric homeless man named Parry, a man of Jack’s own making. Parry’s mental health issues contain hallucinations built around the story of the Fisher King and obtaining the Holy Grail. Jack’s guilt causes him to help Parry, to shepherd him through his quest and perhaps introduce him to a woman he admires from afar. If he can assuage his own guilt, maybe he can move forward.
After watching The Fisher King again for the first time in more than a decade, I’ve decided that I’ll never truly accept Robin Williams’ death. Imbued with that “spark of madness,” his playful duality as seer and homeless lunatic tiptoes that boundary between reality and fantasy. No script has ever suited Williams better. In the same breath, he’ll inspire laughter and heartache, fear and empathy.
Gilliam embraces these contrasts in his fantastical vision of New York; the surrealism of possibility is baked into Gilliam’s DNA as a filmmaker. Roger Pratt’s cinematography frames Gotham as a 10th century serfdom filled with the darkest forests and the tallest castles.
Good Morning, Vietnam (Barry Levinson, 1987)
Contemporary GMV critics like to point out aspects of Williams’ Adrian Cronauer and label him irredeemable. The offensive jokes he tells, the disrespect, that he’s the ignorant American blind to the truths and collateral damage of the Vietnam War. Context matters. Time and place matters. An imperfect character cannot be the single reason to discard a piece of filmmaking. Williams was never shy about developing honest characters, and mixing likability with human flaws and fallibility.
As an American radio shock jock in Vietnam, Adrian Cronauer might just be the best big-screen representation of the comedian’s stand-up personality. It’s easy, therefore, to watch Good Morning, Vietnam and merely enjoy the rapid-fire jokes flying over the military airwaves. He’s given the microphone to entertain the troops, to bring a little levity into their days, but as he begins to learn the war’s specific harm through the eyes of a Vietnamese woman, his jokey commentary skews a little too political, too truthful for the American brass.
Levinson dexterously handles the material while giving Williams room to leave his own mark on Mitch Markowitz’s screenplay. The filmmakers gave Williams the opportunity to shape his own dialogue. Many of his lines were improvised and included off-the-cuff impressions of Walter Cronkite, Gomer Pyle, Elvis Presley, and Richard Nixon.
Though some of the movie’s message feels obvious to our eyes, mainstream cinema of the 1980s had just begun to hammer out the various Vietnam injustices in a public forum. Masterpieces like Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) and Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978) had tackled the Vietnam War as an inexplicit horror. A more specific toll had been felt through Peter Davis’ award-winning documentary Hearts and Minds (1974). Good Morning, Vietnam featured one of the biggest stars of the moment in an entertaining and thoughtful film. The role earned him his first Academy Award nomination and expanded the conversation about Vietnam beyond the counterculture.
Deeper Cuts:
The Survivors (Michael Ritchie, 1983)
A flawed and fascinating low-wattage comedy about the divergent paths of two schlubs that thwart a robbery. Robin Williams becomes a gun nut and joins a group of radical, backwoods survivalists and Walter Matthau just wants to be.
As with all of Michael Ritchie’s films, there’s more going on here than a simple elevator pitch would suggest. Ritchie, like most sensible directors, has given Williams some room to operate within the confines of a high-concept, heavily scripted comedy. Williams doesn’t exactly capture the character because his performance skews broader than warranted, but I can’t fault the effort. There’s an earnest attempt to dissect American commercialism and the irrational, fear-driven gun culture.
The ways Ritchie stumbles with The Survivors, an average and forgettable comedy in anyone else’s hands, makes it more than worth watching. A lesser Michael Ritchie film is still better than 95% of everything else.
Popeye (Robert Altman, 1980)
Comic Strip Altman entertains, beguiles, and sets toes tapping in atonal bliss. It’s a fully realized comic book universe that provides a vivid playground for the—can you imagine?—restrained Robin Williams.
Based on the E. C. Segar comics rather than the more recent and visible animated shorts, this co-production between Paramount and Walt Disney Productions made its way to the screen after Paramount lost the bidding war for Annie (1982) and Robert Evans turned his attention to the Popeye property, already under the studio’s auspices. (Paramount held the character’s theatrical rights having released Popeye cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios between 1932 and 1957.)
In 1978, with John Schlesinger directing and Dustin Hoffman originally slated to star as the titular hero opposite Lily Tomlin as Olive Oyl, the production began to disintegrate. Hoffman bailed due to “creative differences” with screenwriter Jules Feiffer. Enter Robert Altman, Robin Williams, and Shelley Duvall (no one on the planet would have been a better Olive Oyl)—a seismic shift away from the project’s original creative team. That pre-production fallout begat casting perfection (and some more tales of difficult production circumstances).
Despite Popeye’s unfortunate reputation, it’s arguably Robin Williams’ most dynamic film performance. He’s disfigured and hidden behind tree-trunk biceps, but the comedian dispenses the character’s speech impediment with a finely tuned calibration for weirdness and emotional earnestness. People like to cite later-career Robin Williams as an epiphany, the actor finally realizing his potential. Before he was a big star, before expectation at least in part dictated his style, Robin Williams gave a master class in crafting a cartoon character. He sings, he fights, he loves, and he gives a two-dimensional tattooed sailor humanity.
The great Robert Altman had the wherewithal to orchestrate beautiful on-set madness. Popeye may not be considered a great film, but it is—and it’s only gotten better with age.
The World According to Garp (George Roy Hill, 1982)
I had three movies in mind for this final pick. Penny Marshall’s Awakenings (1990) features an understated Robin Williams as a shy, inexperienced neurologist working towards a breakthrough with long-term “vegetables,” victims of a sleeping sickness that’s disconnected brain function from body. The actor disappears into the role, casting aside all excess and giving a beautiful performance. It is, however, well known and widely regarded. Mark Romanek’s low-key thriller One Hour Photo (2002) felt like the right choice… until I checked its vitals on Letterboxd and found that more people had logged viewings of Robin Williams as a photo lab sociopath than George Roy Hill’s adaptation of the John Irving novel, The World According to Garp.
I’ve experienced polarizing opinions on the film, and attribute this to John Irving fans who consider the novel unfilmable. Irving’s a taxing but supremely talented writer (when he’s not wallowing in self-indulgence), and George Roy Hill has managed the most difficult part: balancing the novel’s wry, observational wit and deep sadness through a series of vignettes that embraces the source material—not through pitch-perfect regurgitation. He’s smoothed out the rough edges and made it palatable for broader consumption.
Williams heaps on the charm in the role of T.S. Garp, a man who fancies himself a writer and whose main talent seems to be carrying on, unbothered by the relative anarchy swirling around him. He’s also a dog-biter and wrestler, but you’ll have to watch the movie to make sense of the rest of him. There’s a streak of nihilism throughout Garp, one that threatens to derail the entire production, as sane people do insane things when faced with fantastical events. In a weird parallel, Hill’s film echoes The Survivors as it explores the rise of violence in modern American life and the irrational coping mechanisms created in response.
There’s certainly the possibility that the average viewer will sit down to watch The World According to Garp and find themselves unable to connect with the movie on any meaningful level. Garp’s world is bleak and mystical, sometimes reasonable, and sometimes deserving of a curious eyebrow arch. My suggestion? Meet the movie on its terms and give the talented cast (do not overlook stellar turns from Glenn Close and John Lithgow) a chance to perform its strange brand of magic.
James David Patrick is a Pittsburgh-based writer with a movie-watching problem. He has a degree in Film Studies from Emory University that gives him license to discuss Russian Shakespeare adaptations at cocktail parties. You’ll find him crate diving at local record shops. James blogs about movies, music and ‘80s nostalgia at www.thirtyhertzrumble.com. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.