Robin Williams dead

[Annika]

aww this was a sweet commentary...

[NoNoRehab]

MJF was very young when diagnosed. Parkinson's is never a picnic, but he's benefited comparatively by early intervention and a longterm medication regime. He's lived decades now and is still functional. Obviously he still has effects but he can work and live a largely normal life unlike end stage Parkinson's victims. With those types of neurological diseases it can sometimes benefit you if you're younger when diagnosed. Being 60+ when diagnosed, on top of other health problems like depression and addiction, is another story. You can decline extremely fast.

The Fisher King is such a gut-wrenching movie.

[Bellatheball]

It sounds like it's been a rough week for the GR family. I'm sorry for all of you who have been dealing with loss.

I love that people are FINALLY put off by the coverage and loss of privacy surrounding a celeb's death. What TMZ did when Heath Ledger died was horrifying but what was worse was that the public wasn't up in arms over their intrusion. It seems Robin Williams touched the average American in a meaningful way so maybe the public will take this more personally. HOpefully it changes things.

[whitetigeress]

Sorry to hear that, WhiteTigeress.

How kind of you Rollo *smiles

White tigress, I'm so sorry. I went through two losses this year - if you need someone to vent to, please pm me.

Poor Robin - my BFF's dad has Parkinson's and it's a brutal disease. I pray Robin is in a better place - he was a truly genuinely good person.

That's absolute darling of you. I will keep that in mind and... vice versa, if you should need an ear.. or should I say eyes lol.



I'm glimming past and ignoring anything written or said about how or why he died. I'm sorry but refuse!! ((covers ears and eyes )) la la la la la la

I only want to hear the good stuff about my idol. My good man. My captain! <3

[Kittylady]

Too bad Robin Williams didn't follow Michael J. Fox's example to face the disease head on!

Here we go again...

Nobody has the right to tell anyone else how they should or shouldn't face a disease that will, if left to run its course, rob them of their life and dignity. Nobody. At all. Ever.

My fiancé works in medical electronics and as such as had dealings with people with all kinds of neurological conditions and watched them progress through every stage up until the call comes to say that the equipment is no longer required because they have died. As a result he has declared openly and firmly to me that should he ever find himself facing the same end he will be taking his own life before it gets to a point where he'd have to put someone else at risk by asking them to do it for him. I've disagreed with him about it, debated long into the night on occasion, but ultimately I have had to accept that he knows better than me what would be in store for him and how far he is willing to go before he feels that his life wouldn't be worth continuing. I may not like it, I may heartily hope that it never happens or that if it should he'd change his mind and stay with me until the end, but ultimately that is his decision and I have to accept it.

[sputnik]

I thought some of you might like this. My favorite Williams role, hands down, is from "The Fisher King" (which is also one of my top ten favorite all-time movies, a masterpiece which is also prescient in its treatment of a mass public shooting and the torment of those who survive it.) This is a haunting remembrance from Terry Gilliam--a genius in his own right whose sensibilities meshed perfectly with Robin's. (The article and video are a bit spoilery, so if you haven't seen this movie, please just go watch it. I put one more video in a doublepost after this one...)

Read about Robin Williams’ extreme commitment to ‘The Fisher King’ | Entertain This!


Robin Williams remembrances, stories and moments of kindness continue to pour in as the days pass since his death. The latest comes from Terry Gilliam, who directed Williams in The Fisher King, a film that showcased the comic’s dramatic abilities playing a man so traumatized by his wife’s brutal murder, he lost everything and began to live in the streets.

Terry Gilliam Breaks Down a Particularly Hard Night With Robin Williams on The Fisher King

• By Bilge Ebiri

Terry Gilliam, whose new film The Zero Theorem arrives on VOD next Tuesday and opens in theaters on September 19, spoke with Vulture yesterday about the most difficult scenes and shots of his career, for a feature we’ll run soon. One of the movies he discussed with us is The Fisher King, in which Robin Williams played a homeless man whose life as an academic had been destroyed by the trauma of witnessing his wife’s brutal murder. The role may have been Williams’s greatest and most-challenging performance, and Gilliam singled out a scene from late in the 1991 drama as being particularly painful to remember in the wake of the actor’s passing.

In this excerpt from our long conversation about his work, the director talks about the challenges of filming that critical scene, which finds Williams’s character, seized by memories of that tragic final night with his wife, tormented by the Red Knight, a demonic (and very Gilliam-esque) vision that appears to him in moments of extreme anguish, a symbol of his madness and despair.

“This scene wasn’t a challenge to shoot as far as effects are concerned, but it was very hard from an acting point of view, because Robin was tearing his guts out emotionally. The interesting thing about Robin in all of those scenes was that he always wanted to do another take. He felt he had even more anguish and pain to spill out of the character. And I had to really stop him. I had to say, ‘Robin, you’ve reached a point here, way beyond what we expected. We’ve got what we needed. Now you’re just hurting yourself.’

“That happened a couple of times while we were shooting this scene. The most worrisome moment for me was after he’s been chased by the Red Knight, when he’s running through the streets, and then he comes to the river, where the teenage punks arrive and knife him. We had to do other things on that night shoot, too, and things were going very slowly. Suddenly, we realized that we had like an hour until the dawn [would arrive].

“The last shot we had to do was Robin running at the end of this scene, in this hysterical state. You can even see the light ever so slightly beginning to come on the river in the background. But Robin was so angry because it was such a crucial moment, and he felt he’d been cheated of his ability to really give this moment his all. And Robin was an incredibly strong guy: When he’d worked himself into this state of madness for the part, nobody could approach him. The first assistant, the stunt guy … nobody wanted to get near him. They were terrified.

“So, I had to go up there and tell him, ‘Robin, what we have here is very good. And if we look at the rushes and it isn’t, I promise you I will reshoot it.’ And I had to hug him basically, and hold him. I could feel these muscles that were so tense and so strong, they felt like they could easily rip my head off.

“But that’s what was so extraordinary about him — how he would commit everything and more to what he had to do. That’s also why I think his character in The Fisher King is in many ways the closest one to Robin, just that range — the madness, the damage, the pain, the sweetness, the outrageousness. That was the role I think that stretched him to the limits.”

The scene he's talking about:

thanks for posting this. the fisher king is one of my favourite movies and i think it's terry gilliam's masterpiece. it makes me wish they had made more than 2 movies together.

[Calico Kid]

[yanna]

I thought some of you might like this. My favorite Williams role, hands down, is from "The Fisher King" (which is also one of my top ten favorite all-time movies, a masterpiece which is also prescient in its treatment of a mass public shooting and the torment of those who survive it.) This is a haunting remembrance from Terry Gilliam--a genius in his own right whose sensibilities meshed perfectly with Robin's. (The article and video are a bit spoilery, so if you haven't seen this movie, please just go watch it. I put one more video in a doublepost after this one...)

Read about Robin Williams’ extreme commitment to ‘The Fisher King’ | Entertain This!




Robin Williams remembrances, stories and moments of kindness continue to pour in as the days pass since his death. The latest comes from Terry Gilliam, who directed Williams in The Fisher King, a film that showcased the comic’s dramatic abilities playing a man so traumatized by his wife’s brutal murder, he lost everything and began to live in the streets.

Terry Gilliam Breaks Down a Particularly Hard Night With Robin Williams on The Fisher King

• By Bilge Ebiri

Terry Gilliam, whose new film The Zero Theorem arrives on VOD next Tuesday and opens in theaters on September 19, spoke with Vulture yesterday about the most difficult scenes and shots of his career, for a feature we’ll run soon. One of the movies he discussed with us is The Fisher King, in which Robin Williams played a homeless man whose life as an academic had been destroyed by the trauma of witnessing his wife’s brutal murder. The role may have been Williams’s greatest and most-challenging performance, and Gilliam singled out a scene from late in the 1991 drama as being particularly painful to remember in the wake of the actor’s passing.

In this excerpt from our long conversation about his work, the director talks about the challenges of filming that critical scene, which finds Williams’s character, seized by memories of that tragic final night with his wife, tormented by the Red Knight, a demonic (and very Gilliam-esque) vision that appears to him in moments of extreme anguish, a symbol of his madness and despair.

“This scene wasn’t a challenge to shoot as far as effects are concerned, but it was very hard from an acting point of view, because Robin was tearing his guts out emotionally. The interesting thing about Robin in all of those scenes was that he always wanted to do another take. He felt he had even more anguish and pain to spill out of the character. And I had to really stop him. I had to say, ‘Robin, you’ve reached a point here, way beyond what we expected. We’ve got what we needed. Now you’re just hurting yourself.’

“That happened a couple of times while we were shooting this scene. The most worrisome moment for me was after he’s been chased by the Red Knight, when he’s running through the streets, and then he comes to the river, where the teenage punks arrive and knife him. We had to do other things on that night shoot, too, and things were going very slowly. Suddenly, we realized that we had like an hour until the dawn [would arrive].

“The last shot we had to do was Robin running at the end of this scene, in this hysterical state. You can even see the light ever so slightly beginning to come on the river in the background. But Robin was so angry because it was such a crucial moment, and he felt he’d been cheated of his ability to really give this moment his all. And Robin was an incredibly strong guy: When he’d worked himself into this state of madness for the part, nobody could approach him. The first assistant, the stunt guy … nobody wanted to get near him. They were terrified.

“So, I had to go up there and tell him, ‘Robin, what we have here is very good. And if we look at the rushes and it isn’t, I promise you I will reshoot it.’ And I had to hug him basically, and hold him. I could feel these muscles that were so tense and so strong, they felt like they could easily rip my head off.

“But that’s what was so extraordinary about him — how he would commit everything and more to what he had to do. That’s also why I think his character in The Fisher King is in many ways the closest one to Robin, just that range — the madness, the damage, the pain, the sweetness, the outrageousness. That was the role I think that stretched him to the limits.”

The scene he's talking about:

via Imgflip Meme Maker

[Bombshell]

It just dawned on me that there are some very strong similarities to a Parkinson's diagnosis, and the story of Awakening. The idea that Robin's fast and furious brain would eventually be trapped inside a body that didn't work or let that brain out would be a very very scary idea.

[Bluebonnet]

This made me start crying.

[whitetigeress]

I'm quite pissed the wife opened her mouth and spilled the beans on Parkinson's. It's hard to ignore since it's splashed everywhere!
Is it possible Robin didn't want the world to know? And now it's taken the blinding light off the issue of depression which covers his death. WTF?
Oh my dear Robin *hangs head*






Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
((looks for a pillow to violently hit)))

[Fly_On_TheWall]

Mt BIL had Parkinson's and it took the life out of him. His eyes we dulled and his face was a blank, voice only at a whisper.I can Robin not wanting to be that way.

[Calico Kid]

This made me start crying.

Me too. I wonder if it was hard for Robin to be "Robin Williams" - to never be just himself but all his characters and to always be "on". It reminds me of that old Night Gallery episode "Make Me Laugh", in which a comedian gets his wish to make people laugh and then wants nothing more than for people to stop laughing at him and to take him seriously. I wonder if that's why Stephen Colbert wants to stop being his character and do a show as himself.

[Kittylady]

I'm quite pissed the wife opened her mouth and spilled the beans on Parkinson's. It's hard to ignore since it's splashed everywhere!
Is it possible Robin didn't want the world to know? And now it's taken the blinding light off the issue of depression which covers his death. WTF?
Oh my dear Robin *hangs head*






Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
((looks for a pillow to violently hit)))

Perhaps it was (in spite of assertions to the contrary) to provide the key to what tipped him over the edge when people were possibly speculating he wasn't sober anymore. It also explains what probably started the wobble that made him feel the need to go back to rehab because he felt his sobriety was in danger.

[czb]

...
Ah....not surprised. I really did think there had to be something more to his death, because there were recent pics of him where he looked emaciated and physically ill. ...

i saw him on the street 1-2 months ago and he looked pretty normal. definitely not emaciated.