In Memory of Robin Williams

The wake of a celebrity death is one of the most uplifting times to be on the internet.  The mud-slinging, trolling, and bickering pauses, and in the place of all the noise, we come together to celebrate, eulogize, and remember the person who has passed.  Recently, I've mourned and processed the loss of Roger Ebert and Philip Seymour Hoffman with the friends, acquaintances, and strangers who populate my online community, and I've been profoundly moved by all the messages that pour out.

This one is especially hard, though.  I don't know that I've ever been so shocked by a celebrity's passing as I am today, reading the news of Robin Williams' death.  It's tragic news, not just because of the circumstances or because he was a great actor or that he was so young.  It's all these things and more.  One of the greatest sources of laughter has gone.  Few actors, if any, provided more joy, more laughter, more smiles than Robin Williams did in his decades-spanning career which spanned many media and every genre one can think of.

Today, part of my childhood died.  Robin Williams might be the first actor I knew by name, now that I think of it.  Growing up, I was a Disney lover, lucky to be a kid during the Disney Renaissance of the early nineties.  Aladdin was my favorite movie, inspiring my mom to make me a costume that involved wearing a skin-toned turtleneck with abs drawn on in permanent marker.  Though I dressed like the title character, everyone knew, and everyone still knows, that Aladdin is the movie it is because of Robin Williams' performance as the Genie.  It isn't just one of the great voice performances in film history; it's one of the great performances, period.  Williams' boundless energy, countless impressing, and deep feeling rang in every line, as he performed the vocal acrobatics that brought the character, and the film, to life.

(Here in Los Angeles, there's a star-studded musical at the Hollywood Bowl every summer.  With Aladdin now a Broadway hit, I dreamed of the day that Williams would bring his Genie schtick to the stage under the California sun.  Some dreams don't come true.)

Other Williams performances and films have touched me throughout the years.  Though many deride Patch Adams, it was one of the movies I grew up on, watching it again and again with my brother and our friends, laughing as Williams played the clown for the dying, crying as he mourned the loss of his love.  In a way, it's the film that best captures Williams' life: he provided joy to the masses, people who were downtrodden, lost, sick, and hopeless.  He was always up to play the clown, going to great lengths for a laugh, always with utter sincerity (his recent CBS comedy The Crazy Ones was a generous conduit to his bountiful comedic spirit).

But Williams wasn't just a great comedian; he also flourished in other genres, whether playing creepy in something like Insomnia or nailing inspirational, dramatic turns in dramas like Dead Poets Society (which I was shown in a high school English class, as every student should be) and Good Will Hunting.  Perhaps his best turn came in the under-the-radar dark comedy World's Greatest Dad, about a man who pretends his poetry was written by his late son.  It's a wildly different kind of character for the actor, but he nails every scene.  His range was shocking, considering how unspeakably funny he was.

And still is.  That's the thing about losing a great actor.  We'll now talk about Williams in the past tense.  He did this, he made that, he said this, and so on.  But that's the magic of cinema: it creates a sort of immortality for those involved, especially the actors on screen.  Someday, my kids will watch Aladdin, and Williams' performance will be as vivid, as hilarious, as alive as it was for those of us who got to see it on the big screen back in the day.  With such an impressive, immense body of work (many of which I still need to see), Williams will always be, in a way, alive, and the laughs won't ever stop coming because of his talent, timing, and energy.  He is already missed, and always will be, but he left behind many, many gifts that future generations of movie lovers will treasure just as much as we do.