“Goodbye Mr. Chips” starring Robert Donat as the Latin teacher , who in his retirement has a cold at 83…in his recovery, he relives his career in Robin Williams “Dead Poet’s Society”.
II
Whatever the bullies in that boarding school, the demons in hi acting roles outside the dominance he played in his silver screenelectrifying genius, his persona was larger than most comedians. His brush escaped any monotony or boredom….he transcendedhis critical range , a deterrent to the absurdity surrounding our Earthiness and common sense..
That person took aim at the establishment: a swashbuckling idiom, the Peter Pan hop skip and jumping rope, mercilessly into joy and laughter, his swift repartee and monologue outweighing any of his brilliant predecessors.
Charlie Chaplin, Ed Wynn, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd who got stuck on London’s Big Ben. He seemed to be complete as his wit and satire evoked joy and laughter in a century where 9/11 evoked tragedy and sadness in our way of life.
But he persisted, tackling “Good morning Vietnam”, he being the planet’s voice…impeccable timing, his palette dissenting the commonplace and the ordinary, his diatribe going to pettiness and phoniness.
. III
He ransacked Fred Allen’s alley. Senator Glaghorn, Portia Hoffman, the tourist guide into celebrity homes and pretenses.
When he couldn’t elaborate their vices, howling with mocked laughter, his persona identifying with the speciousness, the disenfranchised taking what was acceptable in society.Particularly uptight and hypocritical.
IV
How his persona could “disc lofty halos of once sanctimonious fictions used to mask money grubbing. Chaplin’s “MonsieurVerdoux” comes to mind.
Robert Donat’s “Goodbye Mr. Chips” looms credible because the schoolmaster must come to grips with his bullying tauntingassailants, sitting in that stuffy staid Latin classroom, in stuffy class conscious England.
A scenario akin to Oxford University’s Philosopher , Professor Iris Murdoch’s
“Why Plato banished the artists?”
V
‘The spiritual ambiguity of art is its connection with the limitless unconscious. Its use of irony. Its interest in evil worried Plato. But the very ambiguity and ubiquitous of art is its characteristic freedom.’
Art especially literature is its great hall of reflection where we can all meet and where everything under the sun can be examined and considered.’
VI
Will we soon forget Robin Williams? He was above mediocrity and found his voice in our post 9/11 time. His empathy seemedway beyond his stand up tv comedy. May his tumbling laughterendure wherever there’s a need for open heart surgery, a knife of laughter, joy and restore our earliest glimpses of a galaxy beyond our stuffiness of Reality gone bonkers.
Robin Williams will bring us back to Earth. M ay his “DeadPoet’s Society” be recognized as the continuum of “Goodbye Mr. Chips”.
May his persona endure forever….
August 14, 2014. The city that never sleeps.
