Robin Williams’s inexhaustible comic force: An eccentric, electric performer who fought his demons o

[DonViejo]

Robin Williams’s inexhaustible comic force: An eccentric, electric performer who fought his demons onscreen

He wasn't a natural fit for movies, and his stardom was a trap. But his lightning comic talent was like no one else

ANDREW O'HEHIR

If Robin Williams’ career as an actor and comedian was in many ways perplexing and difficult to summarize, the man himself was still more so. I didn’t know Williams personally, but like many other people who spent time in San Francisco nightclubs in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, I saw him in public on numerous occasions. He was a voracious music fan and a fixture in the city’s punk, new wave and post-punk music scene during those years, often seen standing by himself at the back of the crowd in all sorts of divey establishments. I can remember lurking by the door for a Monday-night show in the legendary I-Beam on Haight Street, sometime around 1986 – my memory claims the headline band was the Jesus and Mary Chain, but I won’t swear to it – and gradually becoming aware that the older guy standing next to me was Mork from Ork. It seemed almost as implausible then as it does now.

Clubgoers less diffident than I reported that Williams was approachable and friendly enough in those environments, but I never saw him talk to anyone. You should never rely too much on what you know, or think you know, about an actor’s personality in understanding his or her work. (Too many invisible factors are involved, and too much randomness, in terms of what projects actually come to fruition, and in what order.) But as Williams’ career tacked from one extreme to another – from the bathos and schmaltz of “Dead Poets Society” and “Patch Adams” to mainstream farce like “Mrs. Doubtfire” to his dazzling improvised cameos in “Aladdin” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” and many other films – I couldn’t help remembering him as the guy in the back of the nightclub, who had willingly thrust himself out there in public, in an unfamiliar and unpredictable situation, but was all alone.

It’s a cliché to say that Williams’ abundant talent was too eccentric for the movies, and that for all his success the film medium could never contain or capture the things that made him so supercharged as an improv comic or a late-night talk-show guest. That doesn’t make it untrue. Similarly, while the news of Williams’ death by apparent suicide comes as a dreadful shock, the jagged arc of his career felt like one overcorrection after another, as if he were chasing after something he could never find, or escaping something he couldn’t outrun. As with the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Williams’ struggles with drug abuse and alcoholism – and his recent lapses after many years of sobriety – were no secret. But Hoffman always knew exactly what he wanted to do as an actor and pursued his artistic goals with single-minded purpose, however messed up his private life may have been.

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/08/12/rip_robin_williams_an_eccentric_electric_performer_who_fought_his_demons_onscreen/

[get the red out]

1. Depression is an illness

Not a "demon".