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| Mork calling Orson. Come in, Orson. |
It’s getting to be that I dread the next supermoon,
which will hang over us on Sept. 9, and wonder what its tides will wash to the
heavens.
Among his many dramatic roles, Williams portrayed
Chris, the lead character in a 1998 movie based on Matheson’s brilliant 1978 novel,
“What Dreams May Come.” In the film, as in the book, Chris finds himself in
heaven after a car crash, then descends into his wife’s self-imposed hell to
rescue her soul after she commits suicide.
“It’s not about understanding,” Chris says in one
scene, “it’s about not giving up!”
By Tuesday, social media was filled with lists of
Williams’ roles that touched people — beginning with his antics as Mork from
Ork and continuing through his recent TV series, “The Crazy Ones.” Many of them
quoted from “Dead Poets Society” or “The World According to Garp” or even “Mrs.
Doubtfire.” Many commented on “What Dreams May Come” and wondered how a man who
starred in a film with such a transcendent message could fall victim to his own
darkness.
It’s a valid question with a gaping hole in it that
defies an easy explanation because it’s a darkness that defies logic. It’s
almost more incredible that Williams was with us for so long, considering the
depression with which he struggled throughout his life. He was the
quintessential clown, laughing in public, crying in private. Victim of a
disease that so many fail to understand, he tried to cope by turning his pain
into other people’s laughter.
After a friend’s post on Facebook quoted a line of
dialogue, I was reminded of a scene in Steven Spielberg’s “Hook,” in which
Williams played an adult Peter Pan who returns to Nev erland in search of his kidnapped
children. He’s a sad man with a broken spirit, on his knees in the sanctuary of
the Lost Boys. One of the children removes Peter’s glasses and touches his
face, finally turning up the corners of his mouth. The child sees the ghost of
a smile on the man’s face and says, “Oh, there you are, Peter!”
Or the scene in “Bicentennial Man,” an often
overlooked gem of a movie in which Williams played a robot that longed to
become human. “To be acknowledged for who and what I am, no more, no less. Not
for acclaim, not for approval, but the simple truth of that recognition. This
has been the elemental drive of my existence, and it must be achieved, if I am
to live or die with dignity.”
In his too-short life, Williams earned the acclaim,
the recognition, even the approval. So many times, the wonder of his talent,
his lightning wit, his giving spirit were acknowledged. But the mystery and
terror of his condition didn’t allow him to internalize the love, left him
perhaps feeling like a sham, not even a whole human being.
He said in interviews that addiction robbed him of
his dignity, and the manner of his death has robbed him of it once again. Just
as it has robbed all of us who were children getting laughs in the classroom by
repeating Mork’s jokes from the night before, or who laughed until we cried
while listening to his album, “Reality: What a Concept,” or who were moved by
his performance in “The Fisher King.”
If this loss is to mean anything, and though we may
never understand, we must never give up.
Na-nu, Na-nu.
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