It’s true what they say. Dying is easy, but comedy is hard.
I have this principle: try not to feel too sad about the death of someone famous. First, there’s the fame that most of us can only dream about. Then there’s the money – again, the stuff of dreams. Third, and most important, they never really die. They just move to a different zip code, taking up permanent residence on your TV screen (or your iPod, in the case of a singer). Unless you knew them personally, or unless they were struck down in their prime, leaving behind a host of what-ifs and if-onlys, famous people, when they die, don’t need our sadness. They deserve our smiles, our gratitude, and, if you believe in that sort of thing, our wishes for a happy afterlife, being tailed by paparazzi as they go skinny dipping in Elysian pools with Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor.
But the death of Robin Williams is a sad business because it reminds us of how hard it is to be a comedian. One, it’s really hard – you know that saying about how dying is easy, comedy not so much. You’re either born with the talent to make people laugh or you aren’t. And then, you don’t get the kind of respect “serious” actors do, the kind of God-is-dead notices we got when Philip Seymour Hoffman passed away earlier this year. This can be depressing, knowing that you’re making the world laugh, and knowing that they’re loving you for it, and yet, when Oscar time arrives, they’re going to pick Gandhi over Tootsie, and if you want an Oscar – and everyone in Hollywood wants an Oscar – you have to grow a beard and hunker down on a park bench and tell a cocky genius that he may have read up on everything but he really knows nothing, not what it’s like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy or hold a best friend as he gasps his last breaths.
The sadness about the death of a comedian comes from the realisation that even a talent like Jim Carrey, who spent the early part of his career following his magnificently unfettered id, suddenly felt compelled to explore his “serious” side in films like Man on the Moon, The Majestic and The Truman Show. And still, he never got the kind of attention for these efforts as did “serious” actors who opted for a change of pace with comedic roles. It’s a no-win situation, really. You understand why someone like Woody Allen moved from Bananas and Love and Death (“Boris is trying to commit suicide. Last week he contemplated inhaling next to an Armenian.”) to tortured, Bergmanesque relationship dramas like Interiors and September.
Allen, perhaps, embodied this dichotomy best, this push-pull impulse between doing what comes naturally and what people love and doing what’s going to get you the respect and admiration of your peers. The film, of course, is Stardust Memories, which gets going when a filmmaker attends a retrospective of his films and runs into a fan who professes to love his movies, “especially [the] early, funny ones.” Maybe the news of Robin Williams’s death is a wake-up call for us (and the Oscar committee) to respect comedy and comedians more. It seems odd that we prefer to honour the actors who keep reminding us about how miserable life is instead of those who do their darnedest to make us forget, at least for a while, about the horrors that surround us.
At one point in Stardust Memories, the filmmaker runs into super-intelligent alien beings and asks them “meaning of life”-type questions. “But shouldn’t I stop making movies and do something that counts, like… like helping blind people or becoming a missionary or something?” An alien replies, “Let me tell you, you’re not the missionary type. You’d never last. And incidentally, you’re also not Superman; you’re a comedian. You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes.” For a while, Robin Williams did us that service. He told the funniest jokes.
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venkatesh
August 14, 2014
What a fantastic tribute for a great artiste. RIP Mr. Williams.
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asokan
August 14, 2014
yes , indeed ordinary people die and after a time frame they fade away from the memories of the left overs; but famous people even after death for ever remain in peoples’ minds.
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Mani AJ
August 14, 2014
One of Robin’s movie lines from Patch Adams – “All of life is a coming home. Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us. All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find a way home”
Guess he’s home now …
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ram murali
August 14, 2014
Feel horrible reading the news of Robin Williams’ tragic death…liked him a lot in his more serious roles…”awakenings” had Williams and De Niro in peak form…there was also this movie with him in a photo processing center…he made u actually feel for the deeply flawed character…portrayed his loneliness superbly…of course, “Goodwill hunting” and his monologue to Matt Damons in the park was so awesome…as also his, “prick stole my line” line which was such a nice finish to the movie…
RIP, Mr. Williams…too bad u left us too soon…
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MANK
August 14, 2014
you know that saying about how dying is easy, comedy not so much.
Brangan, this statement has never been more apt than in this case of Robin Williams- Preferring to take his life rather than go on making people laugh.It comes across as very poignant. As one looks back, it seems that much of the comedians – Peter sellers, John Belushi,…- had very unhappy lives and terrible deaths.For a Robin williams obit this has more of Woody Allen in it.But i suppose that you intended this to be More than an Obit .this piece is more of a clarion call for honoring comedy and comic actors?(when they are alive) , Right?
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Infrequent Ranter
August 14, 2014
He was a genius. He’s there in every childhood movie one can think of. I remember watching Jumanji close to a hundred times in a span of three months back when it came out.
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KayKay
August 14, 2014
Quite possibly one of the most brilliantly improvisational screen comedians in the history of Hollywood. Look no further than Aladdin and Good Morning Vietnam as case studies. For scenes that required him to speak, the scripts most likely had a notation “Robin does his stuff”.
RIP, O Captain My Captain
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ramitbajaj01
August 14, 2014
Can the start be a category in Oscars for Best Actor in Comic role?
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Padhma
August 14, 2014
Funnily BR, this is the first time I see all social media sites flooded with obit messages after a celeb death. It is everywhere! I do understand your point but, I guess Robin Williams was much more than a comedian for this to be happening….
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Pady Srini
August 15, 2014
I felt his standup was much more fun than his movies. A genius in comedy…RIP…
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KP
August 15, 2014
Awards may not come their way but their fan bases are larger 6-60 like comedians RIP.
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Madan
August 15, 2014
Beautiful tribute. One of my favourite actors. In addition to all the things you mentioned about comedy not getting critical acclaim vis-a-vis serious stuff, Robin Williams also performed another service: that of lighting up mediocre-to-average films with his brilliance. It’s not that either Mrs.Doubtfire or Patch Adams were that great as films. I’d imagine that such kind of films would not find takers at the box office today. But Robin Williams had the gift of lending weight and character to such films even as he was, apparently, doing comedy. There’s a tinge of pathos especially in Mrs. Doubtfire that I really missed in the slapstick Tamil adaptation Avai Shanmughi (though it was otherwise very enjoyable); the former was poignant even as it entertained you and brought out the longing of the eccentric husband to be with his family. That is, there was something for the viewer to take back, something that would haunt him after the film.
And because the audience knew he was capable of his, he brought them to the halls even for films that did not start out with a particularly engaging premise. Most importantly, a lot of this was down to the way he could use his voice, as he demonstrated with his voice-over for the Genie (again in a film that was not one of the better Disney adaptations). RIP.
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Vishal
August 15, 2014
Probably everyone have come across this “joke” which went viral after RW’s death, but I thought I’d share it here in case someone missed it. I found it deeply moving.
Man goes to doctor.
Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.
Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.”
Man bursts into tears.
Says, “But doctor…I am Pagliacci.”
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