“An Evening at the Met” (1986)/“Live on Broadway” (2002)/”Weapons of Self Destruction” (2009)
Williams began his career as a stand-up comedian and continued performing sporadically while his TV and film career took off. But though you can find short clips of his stand-up work online, as far as full-length specials go, they come no better than ‘An Evening at the Met’ and ‘Live on Broadway.’ The first, Williams’ historic appearance at the Met, showcases his talent for singlehandedly building complex stories with multiple characters (if there are two standout set-pieces in ’80s stand-up comedy, they’re probably Eddie Murphy’s family cookout in “Delirious” and Robin Williams’ description of an especially vivid drug trip in ‘An Evening at the Met’). Then in 2002, Williams decided to go on tour again having realized the world could use some humor after 9/11. And as though inspired to even greater heights by the despair and insecurity of the time, with “Live on Broadway” William’s turned in his best stand-up performance without doubt . Proving he was still at the top of his game, Williams doesn’t skip a beat during the entirety of his manic performance, creating some of the funniest bits in stand-up history —the finale involving Williams performing cunnilingus on his own famously hairy arm for a full five minutes is by itself a wonder to behold. His now-final special, 2009’s “Weapons of Self Destruction,” recycled some of his jokes from “Live on Broadway” and didn’t display the same energy, but it too contains plenty of memorable moments, mainly revolving around his then-recent heart surgery.
———-
Had we more time, and if we all weren’t so damn miserable, there are many other roles of Williams’ we could feature–even when the films weren’t stellar, he almost always brought something special to them. For example we only narrowly excluded notorious flop “Death to Smoochy” because no one could really go to bat for such a poor film, but Williams’ performance therein is his most off-the-leash, and worth checking out on that basis alone. More obviously, a rewatch of “The World According to Garp” suggested it wasn’t actually among the top tier of his work, while Mark Romanek’s “One Hour Photo” is a film we never managed to warm to, and Williams’ arguably reached the apotheosis of this type of portrayal with the superior “Insomnia.”
Because it’s Altman and because it’s been the recipient of a revisionist campaign recently, “Popeye” still feels lesser in terms of Williams’ involvement to the above, while Paul Mazursky’s 1984 fish-out-of-water comedy “Moscow on the Hudson” also just missed the cut as one of the lesser seen but most appealing of Williams’ early roles. And whatever nostalgic fondness we might have had for “Hook” wasn’t quite enough for it to make it onto our main list either.
As always happens with a life so abruptly curtailed, Williams was involved in a host of projects at the time of his death whose status is now unclear. But most recently we caught up with his starring role in Dito Montiel’s “Boulevard” at the Tribeca Film Festival and found him giving one of the most nuanced, soulful and complex characterizations of his career–our review is here, and a release date will no doubt be forthcoming.
Our thoughts today are with Williams’ friends and family and with anyone who suffers from depression. But as we contemplate how sorely Williams will be missed, and how very sorry we are that the sadness won, we have to be thankful for such an amazing, and amazingly generous, often hilarious, corpus of work he leaves for us and future generations to enjoy.
In the meantime, do share your own favorite Williams performances and memories in the comments–we’re pretty sure you all have some. –Oli Lyttelton, Jessica Kiang, Otkay Ege Kozak, Kevin Jagernauth, Rodrigo Perez
