[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
LEFT WING LOONS Title: that delightful - funny man ... Robin Williams --- has hurt us all. The Robin Williams speech on suicide that was missing from Dead Poets Society August 13, 2014 Michael Pascoe BusinessDay contributing editor I hold a grudge against Peter Weir for what he didn’t have Robin Williams say in Dead Poets Society – the missing speech that flawed an otherwise inspirational film, Academy Award nominations and all. Williams’ character should have had one final declamation - empathetic, moving, brilliant, sad, quietly but forcefully impassioned as Williams could be. It should have been a speech decrying Neil’s suicide as a betrayal of “carpe diem”, of all the Dead Poets Society stood for, of surrendering rather than seizing the day. Instead Neil’s death was allowed to lie there as an unanswered dramatic statement, the convenient theatrical denouement It annoyed me at the time and annoys me still as it left a film with enormous youth appeal and much joy apparently accepting suicide as a big statement, as a comprehensible way out of difficulty. In Neil’s case, it could be construed as something like revenge on controlling parents, parents who still didn’t subsequently understand their son. An opportunity was missed to rail against the appalling plague that youth suicide has become. For all our sorrow for the afflicted individual and, hopefully, our care for the depressed, the dreadful ending of a precious, loved, young life cannot be treated as anything less than the most misguided and total mistake, as horrific waste, as utterly unnecessary and ignoble. Dead Poets Society didn’t do that. The fear of copycat deaths that stalks parents and schools after a suicide may have been assuaged just a little by the Williams speech that wasn’t there. It angered me. And now Williams has angered me again, as well as saddened me; one more irrelevant fan along with everyone else who valued his gifts, whose life was made richer, happier at times thanks to his great talent, his art. The phenomenon of modern fame creates the illusion that we knew Williams better than we possibly could have, while we’re left with sympathy for people we don’t know at all, those who did know him closely and loved him. But Williams has let this fan down even while being posthumously showered with praise. Yes, maybe he has raised awareness of the pervasiveness and devastation of depression and no one can really know how tortured he was by his illness, but, if someone is on the edge, what does it mean that a man as wonderful as Robin Williams, who seemed to have so much, kills himself? What does all the outpoured sympathy for a suicide do? Williams’ manner of death is the antithesis of that Dead Poets Society speech I wish he had made. There are times when nothing can be said, when suffering is palpable and when any words of comfort would be known to be lies because there is no comfort for the death of a child. Never. I have not felt such mute mutual sorrow, such silence, as when standing among several hundred people outside a full college chapel, while a young man’s parents were led out after prayers on the Monday after the Saturday he had died, still days before his funeral. The funeral would celebrate his precious life but the aching fresh devastation of his loss was beyond expression, striking us dumb, as every parent bled for his bleeding parents. The awful silence that has stayed with me, the absence of sound in such a crowd on a summer’s evening under crimson bougainvillea tumbling over the colonnades. In an age when it seems everyone knows someone or ones stricken by suicide, that delightful, funny man, Robin Williams, has hurt us all. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-robin-williams-speech-on-suicide-that-was-missing-from-dead-poets-society-20140813-103o5l.html#ixzz3AIiBFKp2 15 reading now Comments 14
Poster Comment: The comments are very non judgmental - judgmental vs judgmental !
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: All obomba cs, bushwhack maniacs, haha (#0)
His liberalism extends into criticisms of Republicans and conservatives with the full weight of his comedic and critical genius going to former U.S. president George W. Bush. For example, when Obama was elected he said: It’s the end of the reign of George the 2nd. The reign of error is over. America is officially out of rehab…He’s a gift to comedy, though, he’s a ... comedy piñata --- I’m going to miss him. Aren’t we all. http://hollowverse.com/robin-williams/ Who's missing who !
If you ... don't use exclamation points --- you should't be typeing ! Commas - semicolons - question marks are for girlie boys !
|
|
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|