A Career in Profile: Robin Williams, 1951-2014

This took a little longer to put together than I had expected, so plenty of people have already had their say, but in recognition of one of the great film careers of the past few decades, I'd like to put my two cents in as well.  With the early half of my childhood taking place through the 1990s, the peak decade of Robin Williams' career, he was one of the few celebrities a child may age had any idea existed.  He was the guy in HOOK, JUMANJI, FLUBBER, BICENTENNIAL MAN and the voice of the Genie in ALADDIN.  Although it's often regarded as Steven Spielberg's worst film, HOOK was one of the first movies I remember watching (it came out in theaters only a few weeks after I was born, but the memories I refer to are of watching the VHS tape at home) and I remain very fond of, especially for Williams' performance, which is very underrated. 
Like most, I had a moment of disbelief when I saw that Robin Williams had died this past Monday.  As stunned as I was by the news, I hadn't registered what a blow it would be on a cultural level, possibly the talked-about celebrity passing since Michael Jackson died five years ago.  Williams hadn't been as active or as bankable a star as he was over a decade ago, but his wide-ranging work still stands fresh in the public mind.  Unfortunately, a lot of the online discussion has shown more of the shortcomings of human understanding as usual, and too many people have a very strong opinion on the issue of suicide.  We shouldn't judge though; it's always a tragedy that a fellow human being would be in such despair that they felt they had no better choice than to end their life prematurely, a greater tragedy is that we as human beings and as a human society were unable to convince the victim otherwise.  It's more important to value a life than to understand or moralize over a person's choice.  Williams may not have died the death of a soldier, he may have lived a flawed and troubled life, but his impact on us as a culture has been indelible, as an actor, a comedian and a philanthropist.


Film Career Highlights

As Popeye, opposite Shelley Duvall in POPEYE.

• 1980- POPEYE  (MUSICAL/FANTASY, PG): Legendary director Robert Altman's live action-musical adaptation of the classic cartoon character "Popeye the Sailor Man", an expensive joint venture between Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions, first brought Robin Williams to the big screen, but without the star power that he would later wield (he was best-known at the time as the alien Mork from the television series Happy Days and its spin-off Mork & Mindy) and a divided critical response, the film went down in history as a flop.  Despite its reputation, like many of today's box office flops, POPEYE did not actually lose money, but did not make enough to warrant the effort on behalf of the studios.  Playing the iconic Popeye showcased Williams as a "living cartoon" though, speaking through half his mouth with a high-pitched, yet gruff voice, one eye squinted shut and a pair of anchor-tattooed prosthetics to make his forearms bulge.  His performance was not on the manic level that he would later become known for, but in retrospect is a fascinating starting point for his film career.

As Adrian Cronauer in GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM.

• 1987- GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM  (COMEDY-DRAMA, R): Following a stay at a rehabilitation clinic to rid himself of an addiction to cocaine (the substance Williams described as "God's way of saying you're making too much money"), Williams pay grade took a dive, making him a viable option for Disney, a studio which built a reputation in the late eighties and early nineties for penny-pinching by hiring burnt-out or on-the-rise talents for modest pay while providing a comeback or breakout role for their stars.  Directed by Barry Levinson, GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM was inspired by the true story of Adrian Cronauer, who worked as a DJ for the U.S. Armed Forces Radio Service.  As Cronauer, Williams broadcasts to the U.S. troops during the Vietnam War and becomes popular with the troops thanks to the same unhinged, irreverent style that aggravates his superiors, as he eventually brushes with the horrors of the war around him.  The film was a huge box office success, critically-acclaimed and earned Williams, who improvised his "On Air" scenes, his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (the award went to Michael Douglas for his iconic performance as Gordon Gekko in WALL STREET).  Unfortunately, GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM is a largely overrated film and not one of Williams' better performances, given too much leash here to improvise, which usually descends into a manic absence of rhyme or reason.  This film also introduces a trope that would factor heavily into Williams' career through the nineties, which was succinctly put by the character Abed in the cult-favorite sitcom Community, "In every movie, there's an authority figure that gets mad at him for making people laugh."
 
• 1989- DEAD POETS SOCIETY  (DRAMA, PG): Williams received a second Academy

  

  As John Keating in DEAD POETS SOCIETY.

  Award nomination for Best Actor in as many years for his role as John Keating, the new English teacher at a conservative New England prep school in 1959 (the award went to Daniel Day-Lewis for MY LEFT FOOT).  Directed by Peter Weir and yet another Disney production (like GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM, released through Disney's mature audiences label "Touchstone Pictures"), DEAD POETS SOCIETY was a critical and commercial hit, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and making popular catchphrases out of "O Captain! My Captain!" in reference to the Walt Whitman poem and "Carpe diem.  Seize the day, boys.  Make your lives extraordinary."  It's oft-imitated, pious and a little trite, the story of an eccentric teacher who inspires his young male students to break out of their stifled upbringings, but it's also the best of its breed.
 

• 1990- AWAKENINGS  (DRAMA, PG-13): Williams branched out into something even more dramatic than he had before starring alongside acting titan Robert De Niro in this truth-based medical drama.  As Dr. Malcolm Sayer (a fictionalized version of the real-life Dr. Oliver Sacks), Williams is a doctor who discovers a new drug in 1969 that he administers to catatonic victims of a 1917-1928 encephalitis lethargica epidemic, including De Niro's Leonard Lowe, who awakens decades after he first succumbed to the disease as a child, finding himself in a whole different world than he last knew.  Williams earned fourth Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.

• 1991- THE FISHER KING  (COMEDY-DRAMA, R) & HOOK  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE, PG): Williams teamed up with two top-of-the-line auteurs in 1991: Terry Gilliam and Steven Spielberg.  Having worked previously with Gilliam in a minor role on THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN three years before, he played a much meatier role in THE FISHER KING as a deluded homeless man who bonds with the has-been radio shock jock whose thoughtless response to an on-air phone call resulted in the mass shooting that killed Williams' wife.  A nice balance for Williams' manic comedic persona and intensity, the role won Williams yet another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (the award went to Anthony Hopkins for his iconic performance as Hannibal Lecter in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS).  Also, he did full-frontal nudity in the film, if that's what your into.  He then headlined one of the biggest films of year in Spielberg's HOOK, which in contrast, was critically-maligned, but I have my own strong opinions on.

• 1992- ALADDIN  (ANIMATED-MUSICAL, G) & TOYS  (FANTASY/COMEDY-DRAMA, PG-13): 1992 found Williams at the peak of his powers as a commercial draw, but found him in two sharply contrasted films, one was one of the biggest films of his career and arguably his most memorable role, while the other was a bizarre box office disaster.  In gratitude to Disney for reinvigorating his career post-rehab with GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM, Williams agreed to voice the Genie in the studio's animated feature film ALADDIN for the minimum fee required by the Screen Actors Guild, vastly less than his usual payment.  In 1992, Williams also reunited with Barry Levinson, the director of GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM on Levinson's long-gestating passion project TOYS, scheduled for release only a month after ALADDIN.  In the interest of protecting the risky TOYS against the formidable Disney marketing machine, Williams agreed to do ALADDIN on the stipulation that his name not be used to market the film and that his character take up no more than 25% of any poster art.  Disney violated the spirit of the agreement however, by emphasizing the Genie nonetheless in the marketing, and while technically not taking up more than 25% of space on the posters, the Genie was displayed with brazenly more prominence.  Williams' unadvertised voice work as the Genie became one of his best-known roles, finally melding the famously "animated" actor's voice and heavily-improvised lines, with high-energy animation, but his relationship soured with the Disney company after that.  TOYS, a really weird and wildly uneven fantasy comedy-drama, starred Williams as the son of an eccentric toy factory owner who has to stop his evil uncle from using the factory to build military toys.  It's a visually sumptuous movie and an incredibly interesting watch, but undoubtedly a disaster, as were the box office returns.

  

  As Leslie Zevo (right), opposite LL Cool J (center) and Michael Gambon (left) in TOYS.

As Daniel Hillard/Euphegenia Doubtfire in MRS. DOUBTFIRE.

• 1993- MRS. DOUBTFIRE  (COMEDY, PG-13): Considered for inflation, Chris Columbus' melodramatic family comedy MRS. DOUBTFIRE was the highest-grossing film of Williams' career.  Playing an affectionate father who goes to extremes to be with his children more after his wife divorces him, Williams stole the show in a drag getup with a grandmotherly English accent.  Successful as it was, a sequel had been announced just last April, but upon recent re-watching, it's not good.  The story of a man who stalks his ex-wife and disguises himself in a bodysuit and makeup to be with his kids is just a little too close to the side of creepy, and Columbus' trademark treacle has never been thicker.

• 1997- GOOD WILL HUNTING  (DRAMA, R) & FLUBBER  (FAMILY-COMEDY, PG): With the famous Harvey Weinstein Oscar-hunting machine behind him, Williams finally won an Academy Award in the category of Best Supporting Actor for his role in GOOD WILL HUNTING, in which he played the therapist of a young but brilliant delinquent in a deferred prosecution agreement.  While a good performance, it wasn't his best, but it was just Williams' year at long last, and although many would argue the case for his competition, it just wasn't as fierce in that category that year.  Having previously resolved his earlier dispute with Disney, Williams also starred in FLUBBER, a lame but commercially successful remake of Disney's 1961 film THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR co-written and produced by John Hughes.  Williams would have another falling out with Disney over the studios budget cuts and marketing of the 1999 Chris Columbus film BICENTENNIAL MAN, which bombed at the box office.

As Sy Parrish in ONE HOUR PHOTO.

• 2002- INSOMNIA  (CRIME-DRAMA, R) & ONE HOUR PHOTO  (DRAMA/THRILLER, R): His box office clout having decreased significantly after the nineties, Williams began appearing in smaller, independently-produced films, more dramatically-based than his mainstream comedy.  In 2002, he gave two of his very best performances, both as disturbed criminals, but not necessarily villains, in two such independent thrillers.  INSOMNIA, directed by Christopher Nolan, just prior to his being selected to direct BATMAN BEGINS, starred Al Pacino as an LAPD detective under investigation for corruption and about to be disgraced by a colleagues testimony who's sent to an Alaskan small town to assist local police with an investigation when an accident results in a comprising situation, allowing the murderer, played by Williams, to blackmail him.  In ONE HOUR PHOTO, Williams took the starring role as a photo technician at a one-hour photo developing clinic in a shopping mart who becomes obsessed with a family whose photos he regularly develops, eventually leading to a psychotic break.  In both roles, Williams exceeds expectations by conveying both an aura of menace and an underlying tragedy.

• 2006- RV (FAMILY-COMEDY, PG), MAN OF THE YEAR  (COMEDY-DRAMA, PG-13), HAPPY FEET  (ANIMATED, PG) & NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM  (COMEDY-FANTASY, PG): While not necessarily a "comeback," considering that none of the roles clicked with the public consciousness the way other performances did at his peak, Williams was a busy man in 2006.  His first return to mainstream comedy since the financial flop DEATH TO SMOOCHY in 2002, he starred in RV as the cliche of a workaholic dad who hijacks a promised family vacation to secretly pursue a business deal and accidentally bonds with his family.  RV was critically savaged and a financial disappointment.  For his other starring role in 2006, Williams once again teamed up with his GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM and TOYS director, Barry Levinson, also somewhat in need of a comeback, with MAN OF THE YEAR, which although marketed more as a comedy, turned out to be surprisingly dark and conspiratorial.  Williams starred as the host of a The Daily Show-esque political news comedy show who runs for President as a stunt and accidentally wins, but the fun is ruined when there turns out to be a voting system conspiracy behind it.  A box office failure, MAN OF THE YEAR's wild unevenness also earned it negative reviews.  In the Academy Award-winning HAPPY FEET, Williams voiced two stand-out comic relief characters and had a small supporting role as President Theodore Roosevelt in the hit family film NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM, a role he reprised in two sequels, one of which is scheduled for release this December.

As Theodore Roosevelt (right), opposite Ben Stiller in NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM.

Movies Available to Watch on Netflix Instant Starring Robin Williams

THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE, 1988) 
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Also Starring: John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Charles McKeown, Winston Dennis, Jack Purvis, Jonathan Pryce, Uma Thurman, Oliver Reed
Rated PG for unspecified reasons (contains some PG-13-level suggestive content, brief nudity and fantasy action).
Credited as Ray D. Tutto, Robin Williams' role in Terry Gilliam's infamously troubled production is really an extended cameo.  John Neville stars as the incomparable Baron Munchausen, the fictionalized nobleman and teller of tall tales, which the good Baron is quite insistent are true.  With the Turkish army at the gates of the unnamed European city in the 18th Century, the Baron and a stowaway ragamuffin set out to reunite the Baron's extraordinary comrades, who've all gone their separate ways, in order to save the city.  Williams appears as The King of the Moon, a conflicted deity whose head detaches from the body in order to engage in higher pursuits while his vulgar body is only interested in sex, farts and other bodily functions.  The production went disastrously over schedule and doubled in budget before failing spectacularly at the box office, essentially destroying Gilliam's promising career due to his famous lack of discipline, and while it's a mishmash of a film, it's an undoubtedly interesting, and for the most part entertaining, mishmash.
3 out of 4 stars

As King of the Moon (left), with Valentina Cortese in THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN.

THE BIRDCAGE  (COMEDY, 1996)
Directed by Mike Nichols 
Also Starring: Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria, Christine Baranski
Rated R for language.
A remake of a French-Italian film called La Cage aux Folles, Mike Nichols' THE BIRDCAGE stars Williams as Armand Goldman, the gay owner of a South Beach drag club where his partner Albert (Nathan Lane) stars nightly.  When Armand's son (the result of an experimental one-night stand) announces his plans to marry the daughter of a far-right conservative politician (Gene Hackman) up for reelection and co-founder of the "Coalition for Moral Order", Armand and Albert try to play it straight to meet their future daughter-in-law's parents.  The movie is very funny, but it's hard to sympathize with the young couple who ask Armand and Albert to pretend to be straight, when Williams and Lane are so likable and sympathetic, and more than mere stereotypes, they are surprisingly layered characters.  The film received endorsement from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and was a huge success in 1996.
3 out of 4 stars

As Armand Goldman (right), with Nathan Lane in THE BIRDCAGE.

THE FISHER KING  (COMEDY-DRAMA, 1991) 
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Also Starring: Jeff Bridges, Mercedes Ruehl, Amanda Plummer, Michael Jeter, David Hyde Pierce
Rated R for language and violence.
One of Williams' early acclaimed roles that brought him back together with Terry Gilliam, THE FISHER KING is a strange and certainly Gilliam-esque film, which opens when Jeff Bridges, playing shock jock Jack Lucas, tells a depressed caller off on the radio, later learning that the caller committed a mass shooting following the phone call.  Three years later, Jack is disgraced and guilt-ridden, so he attempts to commit suicide but is rescued by Parry (Williams), a homeless man with an unsteady grip on reality, retreating from real life to delusions inspired by Arthurian legends.  When Jack discovers that Parry's life was ruined when he witnessed his wife murdered in the depressed caller incident, Jack tries to find redemption by helping Parry.  It's not all as grim as it sounds, although Williams does bare all, so you know, fair warning.  As visually inventive and imaginative as you'd expect from Gilliam, THE FISHER KING got Williams his third and final Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (he would win for Best Supporting Actor in GOOD WILL HUNTING six years later).
3 out of 4 stars

As Parry (left), with Jeff Bridges in THE FISHER KING.

HOOK  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE, 1991) 
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Also Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Bob Hoskins, Julia Roberts, Charlie Korsmo, Amber Scott, Maggie Smith, Caroline Goodall
Rated PG for unspecified reasons (contains adventure action, language, thematic elements, and some rude humor and scary moments).
Oh boy, HOOK.  I have a complicated relationship with Spielberg's much-maligned twist on Peter Pan, having grown up with it as far back as I can remember.  Some of my earliest movie-related memories are of watching HOOK on VHS cassette, and while it's certainly not what I'd consider one of my favorite movies today, I definitely have a big fat soft spot for it.  In my defense, I'd say it's similar to 1989's BATMAN, which a lot of contemporary film critics still adore from childhood, but outside of nostalgia and an impressive technical production, is clearly not so great a film as was once thought.  Then again, at least critics liked BATMAN when it came out.
The odds were stacked against HOOK in the arena of expectation- Spielberg always had had a Peter Pan picture in him- it was a passion project and a seemingly perfect match of filmmaker and source material for the film mogul who built his career on boyhood adventures and rollicking fantasy entertainment.  As the film developed though, it morphed into something that was neither expected nor altogether wanted, the story of the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up- deciding to grow up.  Then there were a lot of iffy decisions made along the way, such as layering the many of the scenes with less-than-family-friendly themes and language (Peter calls an orphan boy a "near-sighted gynecologist").  By the time all was said and done, it became clear that Spielberg had outgrown his purer intentions.  Acknowledging its copious flaws though, the only thing about it that I consider genuinely bad about it is the climactic "war" that relies heavily on cheap, stupid "Little Rascals"-style gags culminating in a disappointingly lackluster swordfight.  The rest of it, even the parts that I know aren't exactly good, is always entertaining to me.  The production is gorgeous and Spielberg's staging is superb, the script is flat-out batshit crazy, I love the ironically anti-Peter Pan moral of growing up and coming into a role as a parent, and to top it all off, it's anchored by a pair of excellent performances.  We all know how great Dustin Hoffman is as the titular Captain Hook, even the film's many detractors acknowledge his work here as great, but Williams' performance as Peter Banning/Peter Pan is criminally underrated.  In fact, I argue that it is the best performance he ever gave onscreen; I literally forget that I'm watching Robin Williams much of the time.  The role allows him to show incredible range, from moments of startling rage to ineffectual nebbishness, and repentant father to sword-wielding action hero.  There's only one scene where the better-known manic Williams comes out, and it is a really bizarre and unnecessary scene in which he reverts to a childish Pan in a moment with Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell.  Outside of that one scene though, his performance transcends all that we thought we knew about Robin Williams as an actor.
2.5 out of 4 stars

As Peter Banning/Peter Pan (right), opposite Dante Basco in HOOK.

JUMANJI  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE, 1995) 
Directed by Joe Johnston
Also Starring: Bonnie Hunt, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley Pierce, David Alan Grier, Jonathan Hyde, Adam Hann-Byrd, Laura Bell Bundy
Rated PG for menacing fantasy action and some mild language.
I guess Joe Johnston's 1995 feature film adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's picture book of the same title has a lot of nostalgic value for grown up "90s kids," but I can't get on board with it.  Unlike the later Van Allsburg film adaptation THE POLAR EXPRESS, JUMANJI does suitably flesh out a story to justify a feature length by taking the simple story a kid's board game turning real and making a multi-generational game of it.  Williams stars as the adult Alan Parrish who, as a boy in 1969, became trapped in the board game Jumanji with the roll of a die and left his friend Sarah (Bonnie Hunt) traumatized, and is finally released 26 years later when young Judy and Peter (Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce, respectively) unwittingly join the already started game and roll the dice.  After 26 years living as a wild man in the jungle of the board game, Alan has to help finish the game which has unleashed a menacing menagerie into Judy and Peter's house and out into the small town.  I love the premise and have no complaints or particular praise about Williams in this film, but it's too mean-spirited, a "family film" that treats its characters too cruelly and everyone acts bitter.  The visual effects, which included an assortment of computer-animated beasts like rampaging elephants, monkeys and lions created by Industrial Light & Magic, were a big deal at the time, but no longer hold up.  It's just an unpleasant film filled with conceptual promise.
1.5 out of 4 stars

As Alan Parrish (right), with (from right) Bonnie Hunt, Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce.

POPEYE  (MUSICAL-COMEDY, 1980) 
Directed by Robert Altman
Also Starring: Shelley Duvall, Ray Walston, Paul Dooley, Paul L. Smith
Rated PG for unspecified reasons (contains mild language and comic action).
It's been a few years since I last watched Robert Altman's POPEYE, Williams' big screen debut, but I remember being a little interesting and mostly underwhelming.  Altman, a directed best known for widely-scoped artistic pictures, directed the film from a script by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer, adapted from the the classic cartoon character "Popeye the Sailor Man" who first appeared in the comic strip Thimble Theatre in 1929 and became even more famous in the Fleischer Studios animated shorts of the 1930.  Starring Williams in the title role with blonde hair, one open eye and one functioning side of his mouth, with a pair of over-sized, tattooed forearms.
It's a musical, styled in the spirit of Gilbert & Sullivan, and very old-fashioned in its sensibilities.  The whole experience is a weird and intermittently amusing, but only mildly so, and Williams doesn't appear as comfortable as he did in later roles.
2 out of 4 stars

WORLD'S GREATEST DAD  (COMEDY, 2009) 
Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait
Also Starring: Alexie Gilmore, Daryl Sabara, Evan Martin, Geoff Pierson, Henry Simmons, Mitzi McCall, Jermaine Williams, Lorraine Nicholson, Morgan Murphy, Toby Huss
Rated R for language, crude and sexual content, some drug use and disturbing images.

As Lance Clayton in WORLD'S GREATEST DAD.

The last really good film starring Williams didn't play in many theaters, but instead was released straight to video on demand services.  An acerbic, severe black comedy, WORLD'S GREATEST DAD is not for everyone, but it's also surprisingly brilliant and uncomfortably hilarious.  Williams stars as a failed writer who teaches an unpopular poetry course at his son's high school.  His son, played by Daryl Sabara of the SPY KIDS films, is an insufferable creep who berates and manipulates everyone he interacts with and is obsessed with pornography and deviant sexuality.  When Williams discovers his son has accidentally strangled himself to death while performing autoerotic asphyxiation and masturbating, Williams decides to spare the embarrassment by staging it as a suicide and writes up a suicide note.  But the suicide note is more profound than anyone would have expected and soon the whole school is seeing Williams' late son in a whole new light, identifying with his plight in the letter, and Williams finds appreciation as a writer, so he also "discovers" a journal that turns into a best-seller.  WORLD'S GREATEST DAD poses a lot of questions that most of us would rather not ask about the unfortunate phenomenon of posthumous celebrity and adult angst, but does so through humor and without softening the pointing query.  It might be tempting in the light of Williams' passing to suggest a new meaning to the film, but it doesn't fit, so don't worry about it.  With moments of veiled poignancy and droves of sharp social criticism, it's one of the best comic performances of Williams' late career.
3.5 out of 4 stars