Philip Seymour Hoffman
So last weekend, while I was at Foolscap, word came that Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the greatest actors of his generation, had died of a heroin overdose. I've been a fan of Hoffman's for years. He brought warmth and depth and humanity to every role he ever played; I don't think he was capable of giving a bad performance. And now he's gone, the last image left: a dead man with a needle in his arm. It just makes me weep.
I've been upset about the deaths of other famous people before, actors and celebrities that I grew up following or who influenced me in some fashion. But for some reason, nearly a week later, I'm still upset about Hoffman's death. It's not like I knew him or anything. I think it's the senselessness in his death, the idea that a man so gifted was so unhappy, so challenged by life that a dangerous, augmented reality was preferable to the purity of an unaltered experience. He's not unusual in this, I know. I just . . . mourn the performances we'll never see. His family and friends have my sympathy.
I first noticed him in "Twister," in what for some actors would have been a throw-away role in a middling disaster/adventure flick (that I admit I'm still rather fond of). But he managed to make Dusty, a stormchasing hippy, memorable, loveable, entertaining. After that I watched for him in other movies. The next thing I saw him in was "Patch Adams" in a role that couldn't have been more different. Then "Magnolia" and "State and Main" and "Capote" and the list goes on from there. I still have a number of his movies to see, and rented two of them last night--"The Master" (which I watched last night: challenging, brilliant) and "Almost Famous"--to watch in the coming week. His filmography is larger than I realized, so I have more movies in which to discover and enjoy his work. I'm just terribly sorry that there won't be even more.
I've been upset about the deaths of other famous people before, actors and celebrities that I grew up following or who influenced me in some fashion. But for some reason, nearly a week later, I'm still upset about Hoffman's death. It's not like I knew him or anything. I think it's the senselessness in his death, the idea that a man so gifted was so unhappy, so challenged by life that a dangerous, augmented reality was preferable to the purity of an unaltered experience. He's not unusual in this, I know. I just . . . mourn the performances we'll never see. His family and friends have my sympathy.
I first noticed him in "Twister," in what for some actors would have been a throw-away role in a middling disaster/adventure flick (that I admit I'm still rather fond of). But he managed to make Dusty, a stormchasing hippy, memorable, loveable, entertaining. After that I watched for him in other movies. The next thing I saw him in was "Patch Adams" in a role that couldn't have been more different. Then "Magnolia" and "State and Main" and "Capote" and the list goes on from there. I still have a number of his movies to see, and rented two of them last night--"The Master" (which I watched last night: challenging, brilliant) and "Almost Famous"--to watch in the coming week. His filmography is larger than I realized, so I have more movies in which to discover and enjoy his work. I'm just terribly sorry that there won't be even more.