A look back at the talented actor and his movies
天才演員及其作品回顧
Robin Williams seized the day in every role
by Betsy Sharkey / © 2014, Los Angeles Times. Distributed by MCT Information Services.
Shock came first on hearing the news that the master comic mind we knew as Robin Williams was dead at 63 [last August], apparently overwhelmed by the kind of despair that he lightened for so many of the rest of us.
With a mind forever moving at warp speed, conjuring up humor unlike anything we had seen before and will likely ever see again, Williams was a friend, the kind who made our world better. At his height, he electrified whatever entertainment he touched.
Though TV brought his breakthrough—I still remember his remarkable alien invasion in Mork & Mindy—film quickly became [his] main forum for talent.
Eyes twinkling with mischief made it clear that whatever else was going on, he had your back. He could be anything you wanted.
Williams’ first big-screen mark came in 1980, in the live-action Popeye, with Williams transforming himself with a pipe and outsize forearms.
Williams’ dramatic side
But it was in flexing his cerebral side in 1982’s The World According to Garp that Williams found his footing in film. This was no comic role. He surprised us. He could do drama; he could do more than tap that distinctive funny bone.
In the years after, Williams continued to surprise, making a habit of leavening his comedies with drama. His Russian defector’s last stand at Bloomingdale’s, in Paul Mazursky’s Moscow on the Hudson, is among his most endearing. His homeless dreamer in The Fisher King [is] among his sweetest and saddest.
Williams’ wisecracking wake-up call for soldiers in Good Morning, Vietnam brought his first Oscar nomination in 1988. A decade and two more nominations later—for The Fisher King and Dead Poets Society—he won after two unknown writers, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, gave Williams the role of a lifetime.
Discussion Questions
-Do you have a favorite Robin Williams movie? If so, what is it and why?
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