BEFORE: Yeah, there's a bit of a theme here, but not all of the people featured in this week's tribute docs are deceased, just most of them. I'm going to work in the documentaries on Jane Fonda and Gilbert Gottfried, too. Docs on Joan Rivers and Richard Pryor are going to round out the week, and by the time I'm done, I'll only have a few films left before Documentary Month is over - it's going by so fast!
Several people carry over from "Life Itself", the original plan was to use Martin Scorsese, who spoke at length about Roger Ebert in yesterday's film, but I think he's only in today's film for a second or two - so I'll list everyone below, but here I'll note that David Letterman carries over, he was in archive footage yesterday, but is interviewed here about his friendship with Robin Williams.
THE PLOT: An intimate look into the life and work of the revered master comedian and actor, Robin Williams.
AFTER: It's a formidable challenge to sum up a man's life in a two-hour documentary, that's for sure. Especially someone who was 70 years old, like Roger Ebert, or 63 like Robin Williams, and both men went through different phases in their lives, so how do you work it all in? Most of the time that means glossing over big chunks of their careers, or trying to hit just the highlights, or finding some other method to truncate all of the important information.
With Ebert it was divided neatly into his time before working as a movie critic, then working at the Sun-Times, working on TV, then working on his blog. Obviously there was much more to his life than that, but for a rough framework, that did the job. With Robin Williams there's a similar breakdown - time growing up and going to college, time working in comedy clubs, working on TV and then working in movies. And if you think it's hard for a filmmaker to work his personal life into all of that, just think about how hard that was for Robin Williams, too. Successful people are busy people, and busy people tend to have a tough time achieving balance between their professional lives and personal ones.
So, I wasn't shocked to hear Robin's kids talk about only seeing him for about half of the year, or sometimes even less often than that. That's the gig, either being off on a movie set in some other city country, or doing a press tour for the last movie, or just getting out and doing some comedy club gigs around the country to try out new material, that all means time away from the family, because kids need a stable place to live and go to school and they can't come everywhere with their comedian dad. So it's also not shocking to learn that two marriages eventually buckled under similar pressures, but at least we do find out that the press got it wrong, Robin didn't leave his first wife and run off with his son's nanny, it turns out that the marriage was already dissolved by both parties, at least in spirit, it's just that his wife didn't enjoy talking to the press, so she never set the record straight, until now (Unless she changed her story after the fact to save face, I suppose that's possible.)
What's fascinating here is that several other comics who hit the scene around the same time that Robin did say the same thing, that they were just telling jokes, but Robin was doing something completely different in front of club audiences, some new type of free-form comedy, very energetic, nearly manic, which he might have been mostly making up on the spot. So where did all these ideas, this frantic energy come from? Well, cocaine in the early years, for sure, but after Belushi's death he supposedly got himself clean. Yet he still maintained that early 80's coked-up energy for a while, that was still on display in films like "Good Morning Vietnam" and even "Aladdin", where his mind was allowed to run free, at least to some extent. Even in the later years, like when making "One Hour Photo", that film's director mentioned giving Williams a lot of leeway, to let him get the jokes out, even if it ruined a take, because the comedy HAD to come out, and then the next take would be a lot better, he'd be more at peace and have a certain aura about him after the release.
Transitions in life are never easy, whether you're a single man trying to become a married man, or a married man forced to adjust to life as a single man. By the same token, it's a struggle if you're a drinker or a drug-user and you need to transition to being a sober person, because you see yourself a certain way, and to get where you need to be, you sort of need to become someone else. On top of all that, it used to be if you were a TV actor then you couldn't also be a movie actor, and the reverse was also true - if you were a movie actor, why on earth would you want to be on a TV show? In the end I think maybe Robin Williams went through too many transitions, his situation changed every few years, and a great sense of humor is very important to help one through the transitions, but it can only go so far. Everyone was looking for answers when he committed suicide, and the best theory is that he no longer felt like himself, maybe he looked back and didn't understand his own journey any more, having gone through so many changes that he didn't recognize himself any more. The only other person I can think of who went through so many phases was David Bowie, but as I saw in the documentary about his last days last year, he tended to embrace all the changes and the phases, and toward the end he even headed back to the places he felt most comfortable when he was younger, and that brought him some sense of peace, a connection with his former self, or selves.
For Robin Williams that place was the San Francisco area, where his family moved when he was a teenager, and he first experienced a social freedom that he had not encountered in Chicago and Detroit. (His father worked for Ford Motors, which reminded me of Robert McNamara from "The Fog of War".) Robin later met and connected with his two half-brothers, one from his father's first marriage and another from his mother's first marriage. Though they all later enjoyed spending time together, it's worth noting that they all grew up as only children, and that led to Robin's habit of entertaining himself, so if he'd grown up with a brother or two, he might not have been the comedian that he was.
There are too-brief stories about the Comic Relief telethons, a bout with alcoholism years after getting off drugs, and clips and outtakes from many of his most notable movies, like "Awakenings", "Good Will Hunting", "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "The Fisher King". But he was so prolific, it's a wonder that this documentary wasn't twice the length. And yes, there's even a clip from "Popeye", his first movie that was such a disaster it almost prevented other comic-book movies from being made, basically the trend didn't start rolling until "Dick Tracy" in 1990, but "Popeye" wasn't just made 10 years too early, it probably shouldn't have been made at all. It nearly killed the genre before the trend even started.
Bottom line, I think this could have been a mini-series, or at least a two-parter like "Leaving Neverland" or that documentary about Elvis Presley last year. But then, people would probably start complaining about how it was too long, you never can tell. My other main complaint is the title, because it suggests that the documentary is going to detail the inner workings of his comedy brain, and then it never really gets there. But I suppose that's impossible, and that's the point - but then maybe use a different title? I've got to cut this review short myself, because I'm sneaking out after work to see "Spider-Man: Far From Home", which I'll review a few days after I finish the documentary chain. I've only got 9 docs left, then I'm back on fictional films for a long while.
Also starring Robin Williams (last seen in "A Merry Friggin' Christmas"), Lewis Black (last seen in "Inside Out"), Elayne Boosler (last seen in "The Nice Guys"), Billy Crystal (last seen in "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story"), Pam Dawber, Whoopi Goldberg (last seen in "Fahrenheit 11/9"), Bobcat Goldthwait (last seen in "Tapeheads"), Eric Idle (last seen in "Concert for George"), Scott Marshall, Steve Martin (last seen in "The Kids Are Alright"), Mark Rasmussen, Mark Romanek, Stu Smiley, Howard Storm, Bennett Tramer, Valerie Velardi, Zak Williams, Stanley Wilson, with archive footage of Steve Allen (last seen in "Eat That Question: Frank Zappa In His Own Words"), Robert Altman, Roseanne Barr (also last seen in "Fahrenheit 11/9"), Kathy Bates (last seen in "Rumor Has It..."), John Belushi (last seen in "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives"), Jeff Bridges (last seen in "Only the Brave"), Jerry Brown (last seen in "History of the Eagles"), Linda Ronstadt (ditto), Kate Capshaw (last seen in "How to Make an American Quilt"), Drew Carey, George Carlin (last heard in "Happily N'Ever After"), Jim Carrey (last seen in "Won't You Be My Neighbor"), Johnny Carson (also last seen in "Life Itself"), Robert De Niro (ditto), Jack Nicholson (ditto), Martin Scorsese (ditto), Dick Cavett (last seen in "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"), John Chancellor (ditto), Dave Chappelle (last seen in "A Star Is Born"), Matt Damon (last seen in "The Great Wall"), Tony Danza (last seen in "Don Jon"), Daniel Day-Lewis (last seen in "Gandhi"), Michael Douglas (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Shelley Duvall (last seen in "Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall"), Craig Ferguson (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon 2"), Sally Field (last seen in "Hello, My Name Is Doris"), Dexter Gordon, Woody Harrelson (last seen in "Venom"), Ethan Hawke (last seen in "Born to Be Blue"), Salma Hayek (last seen in "The Hitman's Bodyguard"), Philip Seymour Hoffman (last seen in "God's Pocket"), John Houseman (last seen in "Ghost Story"), Ron Howard, Holly Hunter (last seen in "The Big Sick"), Conrad Janis, Andy Kaufman, Julie Kavner (last heard in "Someone Like You..."), Elizabeth Kerr, Nicole Kidman (last seen in "The Paperboy"), Jay Leno (also last seen in "I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story"), Laura Linney (last seen in "The Dinner"), James Lipton (last seen in "Adam"), Ed McMahon (last seen in "The Most Hated Woman in America"), Garry Marshall (last seen in "Overboard"), Don Most, Edward Norton (last heard in "Isle of Dogs"), Jack Paar, Tom Poston, Richard Pryor (last seen in "Lost Highway"), Nancy Reagan (last seen in "Get Me Roger Stone"), Carl Reiner (last seen in "If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast"), Christopher Reeve (last seen in "Deathtrap"), John C. Reilly (last seen in "Kong: Skull Island"), Joan Rivers (last seen in "Iron Man 3"), Joe Rogan (last seen in "Bright"), Garry Shandling (last seen in "Town & Country"), Steven Spielberg (last seen in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold"), David Steinberg, Michael Vartan (last seen in "Never Been Kissed"), Lyle Waggoner, Andy Warhol (last seen in "Super Duper Alice Cooper"), Raquel Welch (last seen in "100 Rifles"), Forest Whitaker (last seen in "Black Panther"), Anson Williams, Marsha Garces Williams, Henry Winkler (last seen in "Holes"), Jonathan Winters (last seen in "Comic Book: The Movie"), Renee Zellweger (last seen in "One True Thing"), Catherine Zeta-Jones (last seen in "No Reservations") and the voice of Kevin Clash (last seen in "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey").
RATING: 6 out of 10 talk-show appearances
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