They were talking about Bicentennial Man on the radio when it hit me: Robin Williams had been in so many films that informed my experience as a young moviegoer that I couldn’t even name them all. There were Jack and Mrs Doubtfire, sure, but then I recalled the worn VHS copy of Flubber my cousin and I had on constant rotation at our grandparents’ house, the confounding experience of seeing What Dreams May Come in the cinema at the age of 10 and, oh, the heart sinking feeling that accompanied remembering his performance as the Genie in Aladdin. If you grew up in the 1990s, as I did, then choosing your favourite Disney movie says as much about you as picking your favourite Beatle did to your parents. Aladdin always stood out for me. Williams epitomised the phrase “young at heart” while also exuding a vulnerability that, though easy to overlook as child, was impossible not to notice as an adult.
At his best, Williams seemed to embody cinematic joy. Seeing him in his later, darker roles did little to diminish the impact of his earlier, more comedic parts. The tension between comedy and tragedy that was intrinsic to his performances only makes the brightness he found all the more wondrous. We’ve lost too many luminaries at too young an age in the last year or so—James Gandolfini and Philip Seymour Hoffman were enormous losses as well—but in none of them was the contrast between their onscreen persona and the nature of their passing so strikingly bleak.
The news that Williams had died, apparently by his own hand, reached me just a few minutes before a screening of a 149-minute-long movie. In a way I’m grateful, as I was given time to process the depressing reality of a world lacking his singular presence without actively thinking about it. But it was there, somewhere in the back of my mind, as I suspect it will be for some time to come. Not that Williams would want it that way—a man who so devoted himself to making others laugh, who fed off the audience’s positive energy, would likely be aghast at the thought of being recalled more for how he departed this world than how he lived in it. Keeping that in mind seems the least we can do for someone who gave so much of himself to us.
