Given the news that broke yesterday of Robin Williams' passing, it seems only appropriate to discuss the movie that I almost, but not quite, discussed last week: Good Will Hunting (1997).
You see, Good Will Hunting is like The Devil Wears Prada in that both deal with a young fish out of water, a secret prodigy who gets taken underwing. They are also similar in that both are comforting movies, where deep themes are discussed in clever ways and all's well that ends well.
There's nothing comforting about Robin Williams' death. He didn't die of a heart attack in his 80's or after a long debilitating illness. He killed himself.
A part of my last job was to listen to old audio interviews to be made into CD compilations. It was a great job [internship, technically]. One of these CDs was going to be about comedians--the Greatest Hits, so to speak. And so I listened to many hours of comedians being interviewed and doing their funniest bits, comedians from every era.
I was looking for clips that were about 7 minutes long, max 15. In the process I came across an interview given by Robin Williams in the mid 80's. It was after his oldest son had been born and he had split with his first wife and given up cocaine, and it was an hour long.
I knew from the start that we couldn't use this interview. It was too crowded, too personal. But Williams spoke so passionately, so beautifully, about subjects so dear to my heart, that I listened to the whole thing. And then I listened to it again.
It was, I have no doubt, the best interview I've ever heard a comedian give.
I can't give you that clip, and I can't do anything else, really, but what I can do is give you a scene from Good Will Hunting. A picture of what it was like, once upon a time.
To Robin.
No comments:
Post a Comment