ROBIN WILLIAMS: COME INSIDE MY MIND

US, 2018, 116 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Marina Zenovich.

The mind in the title of this documentary is that of comic performer, often manic, Robin Williams. It was made in the immediate years after Williams' suicide. It is a memoir. It is a tribute.

As with any documentary like this, the impact depends on audience interest in, knowledge of the subject's life and career. Williams was very well known from television, Mork and Mindi, as well as a range of films like Good Morning, Vietnam with its comic intensity or Awakenings with his portrait of Dr Oliver Sacks.

As with any good portrait, the film is able to fill in a great deal of Robin Williams' background, what he was like as a boy, his comic talent, his relationship with his parents. But, as with someone so intense in life as Williams, even with his pace of talking, the flood of ideas, there is the expected lack of self-confidence, and reliance on alcohol and drugs, success and failure in relationships with wives and children. The film charts the course of the intensity of his life leading to his death.

Of great interest is the range of talking heads, different perspectives on the experience of Williams as a person and as a performer.

Then, there is a range of clips from television and from the many films he made.

Williams gave a great deal of pleasure to audiences with his performances, his comic insights, his wit, often the unexpected. During his life and his career, many might have wondered about the verve and atmosphere of his mind. Here is an opportunity to come into his mind.

1. A documentary portrait of Robin Williams? The title and the focus on the mind?

2. The perspective of his death, the pathos, the interpretation of his life and career in that light?

3. A film requesting understanding, empathy, creating the puzzle of the mind of Robin Williams?

4. His life portrait, the details, his career, the driving forces?

5. His background, his relationship with his parents, his mother, the absent father, the half-brother and the interviews? At school, his talents? The comedy emerging?

6. The range of talking heads, the selection of clips, as illustrating not only his career but his personality? The range of interviewees, his son, his wives, close friends, the professional world, Billy Crystal?

7. The momentum of his life and career, his mind, words, working fast, images, the manic touch, word associations, images, humour, his skill and entertaining?

8. The world of stand-up, his being clever, quick-witted, themes, engaging his audience, energised by the audience, no limits? Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal and the social humour? The sexual humour?

9. Mork and Mindy, the introduction to television, his zany approach, Pam Dawber and the interviews? After some decades?

10. His going into the movies, the range of films, the scenes showing Dead Poets Society, Good Morning, Vietnam? By 1980? The episodes from Awakenings and his being with Oliver Sacks?

11. Drugtaking, alcohol? The effect on his relationships, with his wives, with his son? Alcohol and the AA meetings? His analyses of his condition? The effect, getting clean, divorces?

12. The time of his peak, his later years and past his peak, his continuing skills and their effect? Being dry? The third marriage? Depression? The
signals for his suicide?

13. A talented and gifted comic and the repercussions on his life?