My tribute to Robin Williams

Confession time: Robin Williams has always been one of my favorite actors. As a kid I could watch and rewatch his quick wit and crude manner in Popeye, Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire, Flubber, and, my favorite, Aladdin. As I’ve grown up, his serious films have continued to impressed me, such as Good Morning Vietnam, The Fisher King, Insomnia, Death to Smoochy, One Hour Photo, Good Will Hunting, and his smaller roles in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen or Deconstructing Harry. Williams largely avoids the hit or miss factor that plague so many other actors – if he’s in it, the films probably good, and probably because he is in it. So here is my homage to one of the best actors of all time.
Robin Williams’ big acting debut was the character of Mork in Happy Days, and its spin off Mork and Mindy. His show ran for four seasons, and Williams earned a Golden Globe for his performance – his first of four. While Mork and Mindy was on the air, Williams starred as the titular character in Robert Altman’s Popeye adaptation. Although the film was not well received, it is a marvel in innovative art direction – the dialogue, costumes, sets, color schemes, and architecture gives the film the feeling of a live action cartoon. Mork and Mindy’s run ended in 1982, and Robin Williams continued his career in films. During this period Williams kicked a long standing cocaine habit, and has now been drug free since the early to mid eighties.

Williams achieved A-list status in 1987 as an irreverent disc jockey in Good Morning Vietnam. The film rode the wave of popular Vietnam films that flooded the 1980’s, which included First Blood, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket. What set this film apart from the others is that Robin Williams could switch between a very emotional and dramatic character to a comedic one with great ease. Williams rounded out the eighties with roles as the King of the Moon in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Professor Parrish in the coming of age film Dead Poet Society, which he received his second Oscar nomination for.
By the time 1990 hit, Williams was an established star and Hollywood was his oyster. His first two big starring roles of this decade were alongside other big name actors, in Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King and as Peter Pan in Stephen Spielberg’s film Hook. Both films were great commercial success, and in the case of the former a great critical success as well. The Fisher King shows further depth to Williams’ acting. His character, Parry, is a paranoid schizophrenic who was once a well respected professor until his wife was gunned down before his eyes. Now homeless, Parry wanders the streets of New York in search of (literally) the Holy Grail, but is plagued by visions of a vicious red knight whenever he feels he is close to accomplishing his goal. Williams received a third Oscar nomination for this role. The next year Williams starred as the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin as a debt of gratitude to Disney, who had made him famous with Good Morning Vietnam. Fearing a trend toward a career in voice acting (he was also lending his voice that year to the animated film Furngully) Williams’ contract specified that his name would not be used in marketing. Disney did not honor the contract, and Williams has since had an off and on again relationship with the corporation.
Over the next five years Robin Williams continued to enjoy mainstream success. He starred in films such as Chris Columbus’ Mrs. Doubtfire, Francis Ford Capolla’s Jack, Mike Nichols’ The Bird Cage, and the family film Jumanji. In 1997 Williams won his first and only Academy Award for his work in the film Good Will Hunting as the psychologist who helps Will Hunting (Matt Damon) get over his dark past and embrace the fact that he is a genius. Williams ended the 90s with more a more dramatic direction in the films Bicentennial Man and Patch Adams.

In the early 00’s Williams’ career to a turn into a newer, darker direction, adding a whole new layer of depth to his acting. In Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia Williams plays the role of a murderer who blackmails an officer to save himself from an indictment. The same year he dyed his hair blonde and starred in One Hour Photo, as a lonely middle aged man who works developing photos at a huge department store, stalking the families of the people he takes photos of. His character, Sy Parrish, begins to involve himself in a specific family’s personal life, and eventually confronts the father for cheating on his wife. When the police are called in, Sy admits that his own father exploited him for child porn. Williams, who had so far had mainly made his career as a comic actor, was now beginning to be taken very seriously as a dramatic one. The same year as Insomnia and One Hour Photo, Williams also played a major supporting role as a disgraced children’s icon named “Rainbow” Randolph Smiley in Danny DeVito’s Death To Smoochy. In this film Williams blends his dark and his comedic personas into a disturbed sociopathic drunk who will do anything to ruin the career of Sheldon Mopes (Edward Norton), who has taken over his kids show time slot. Death To Smoochy was a financial disaster, and received mixed to negative reviews. It remains a personal favorite of mine, although that’s a story for another entry.
Williams’ career was strong enough to weather a box office bomb, although his acting has not received significant critical praise since One Hour Photo. His roles in Night at the Museum, World’s Greatest Dad, Happy Feet, Old Dogs, Man of the Year, RV, and Robots have kept him in the public eye, but, in the case of some of those films, the attention he has received has been negative. Williams campaigned unsuccessfully for the role of the Riddler in the upcoming Batman sequel, which announced last week that the villains are to be Bane and Catwoman (Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway, respectively). His other career, standup comedy, has also proved to be successful for him, and I wish him luck and look forward to further entertainment supplied by his comedic and dramatic endeavors.