ROBIN WILLIAMS - A SMILE HAS LEFT US
By Jerry Saravia
As fellow comedians Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal tweeted, there are no words to describe the passing of one of comedy's few geniuses, Robin Williams. Robin had the ability to improvise an idea and build it and build it, and then segue to another idea from left field and build it, and build it and make you laugh in spite of yourself. The difference is that Robin possessed a manic energy and a superhuman speed of delivering jokes, which may range from his kids' demands, to network censors, to the Falkland Islands, to ridiculing politicians and comparing them to Warner Bros. cartoon characters, to even ridiculing his alcoholism and cocaine issues, and so much more. His delivery was rapid-fire, his tone comical and yet just slightly serious-minded without ever sentimentalizing. This is not so true with some of his movies, especially "What Dreams May Come" or "Mrs. Doubtfire," the latter an outstandingly funny movie until it aims for sentimentalizing divorce and its consequences.
Some Robin Williams movies were rotten ("Hook," "Toys," "Popeye," "Father's Day"), some were solid ("Good Will Hunting," "The World According to Garp," "Aladdin") and some were magnificent ("Awakenings," "Moscow on the Hudson," "Insomnia," "Dead Poet's Society," "Good Morning Vietnam") and some were just odd yet intrinsically fascinating ("The Big White," "One Hour Photo"). But there is one film that went beyond expectations, that soared beyond our imagination and asked us to see the humanity of quirky, eccentric characters on a quest to find the Holy Grail. Yes, it is the one-of-a-kind original, Terry Gilliam's masterful "The Fisher King" which contains my favorite Robin Williams performance. In the film, Williams plays a homeless man named Parry who is searching for the Holy Grail, haunted by visions of a blood red knight on a horse in New York City. Williams is warm, humane, gets naked in Central Park for laughs, and shows a romantic who finds bliss and solace not just in the arms of a woman (Amanda Plummer) but also in nature and in the everyday. It turns out that Parry also has a love for humankind (this may also describe Mork in TV's "Mork and Mindy"). That might also describe Robin Williams. The smile may have left us but the memories have not.
