Robin Williams, one of the funniest men to ever live and one of the best actors of a generation, died of a suicide today. He was 63. He is survived by his wife, three children, and some of the best films of the last four decades.
One of them is Good Will Hunting, a formative movie for anyone who ever wanted to make a slow-moving world work for them, could not, and tried anyway.
There is so much foreboding and dread and advice about his own greatness written into that film it would be disrespectful to write it all out. Just know that the only reason that movie is that movie is because he could feel it, he could bellow those It's not your faults, he could talk someone out of the depths because he had access to those depths within himself.
He had access to the most complex version of every emotion we had. And when he used that access to make us laugh, there was no one better in the world at it.
He was a frustratingly funny person. Quick, biting, resplendently bright, his comedy special is exhausting. It is a workout, a perfect pain in your gut, a masterpiece, and a revelation.
And that revelation is this: This—these unceasing thoughts and jokes and quips and references and tightly-wound, expertly crafted punchlines-within-punchlines—is what it's like at all times for him. His wit was relentless, incessant.
Can you believe the generosity? He gave all of it to us.
He was beyond our culture's definition of special. He was entirely singular. On paper, he was the best comedian we had for a generation or two or maybe three or more. He was just as good, if not better, of an actor.
Now this feels fatherly, personal. It feels like news you should only hear in person, maybe on the phone in a quiet room, or on the side of the road. He felt like the funniest or the saddest or the most admired part of ourselves, and our fathers, and our brothers, and our wives, and our mothers.
There's a line from a movie called World's Greatest Dad. It was a big part in a small movie, and Robin Williams did not have to take this part, but he did. There's a line in it and we'll hear it too much in the coming days, but here it is anyway:
He did not write that line, but he did speak it, and goddamn everyone if he was ever forced to feel that way. Goddamn everyone else if his greatness and complexity ever made him feel less fit for this place.
Let's celebrate this man. Let's consecrate every nuance and eccentricity and peculiarity and weird feature and hurt and pain and falter and misstep and recovery and ascent and punchline and award and victory and love he had. Let's love this man loud enough so he can hear it. Let's do it so every nuance and eccentricity and weird feature and hurt and pain and misstep is made perfect, the world over. Let's do what we can to never let the extraordinary feel alone.
