A Tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman

[Dan O'Halloran]

A Tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman

Paying tribute to the career of an actor who hadn?t yet peaked is a task that no one looks forward to, but what Phillip Seymour Hoffman brought to the screen demands consideration.

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[Tanis]

Too bad he killed himself.

I'll never understand people who OD.

 

[MatsVS]

THIS was his best performance, bar none!

Absolutely! I saw that film in the cinema when it first came out, and found myself in a state of existential angst for days afterwards. Sooooo moving.

This scene still has me tearing up:

 

[faefrost]

Too bad he killed himself.

I'll never understand people who OD.

This! All of the overwelming tributes, but somehow an astonishing degree of trying to dance around his lifestyle and manner of his death. We mourn his loss. We weep for what he might have become or might have given us. But we should never overlook, or downplay the fact that he died needlessly and stupidly with a needle in his arm. These days we tend to "normalize" way to many things and behaviors that really should never be normalized. This particular one tops the list.

 

[Icehearted]

I saw The Master recently and thought he was terrific despite disliking the movie. He was very talented, and I am sorry we will never get to see more from him.

Too bad he killed himself.

I'll never understand people who OD.

This! All of the overwelming tributes, but somehow an astonishing degree of trying to dance around his lifestyle and manner of his death. We mourn his loss. We weep for what he might have become or might have given us. But we should never overlook, or downplay the fact that he died needlessly and stupidly with a needle in his arm. These days we tend to "normalize" way to many things and behaviors that really should never be normalized. This particular one tops the list.

Thousands of addicts dying every day nobody panics, because it?s all "part of the plan". One celebrity addict dies and everyone loses their minds!

The fact that I'm paraphrasing The Joker doesn't mean I'm not being serious. It's a big deal when it happens to someone "important" but for everyone else it's just another dead junkie, a common attitude to the "common" man. It's a shame we lost such a talented guy, but off camera and 50 bags of heroine later I find myself wondering if we aren't over-doing our lamenting here.

We can't put a person on such a pedestal that when they make a human mistake we all ask why. He wasn't superman, he was Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a talented but terribly flawed human being that made a personal choice that cost him his life. I stopped grieving this sort of thing when it happened to River Phoenix, another gifted actor from my generation that died much the same way. Since then the only time it's truly stricken me was Lindsay Lohan, but that was more "faces of meth" shocking than tragic. It's terrible, but more terrible is that it's terribly common.

 

[Ipsen]

Too bad he killed himself.

I'll never understand people who OD.

This! All of the overwelming tributes, but somehow an astonishing degree of trying to dance around his lifestyle and manner of his death. We mourn his loss. We weep for what he might have become or might have given us. But we should never overlook, or downplay the fact that he died needlessly and stupidly with a needle in his arm. These days we tend to "normalize" way to many things and behaviors that really should never be normalized. This particular one tops the list.

-sigh- From one of the earlier topics on Hoffman's death. Somewhat addresses what you're talking about.

This is a commom strategy when dehumanizing a certain group of people. I don't mean this as an offense, it's just that, when you tell someone 'look at the real victims', you're also saying 'stop feeling sorry for the bad guy', as if he was less of a person for having died. For having a disease, and having made a mistake of starting to use in the first place. Drug Addiction does not have a definitive cure. What we can do is control it, and try to keep it at bay, but people fall off the wagon constantly, because that's just the way it works. Guy was clean for 23 years. 23 years. And truth is, addicts can be good people and bad people, but the fact that they have a condition does not in any way diminish them, despite society's intention to do so. His family is suffering, they are victims, but the central point here is that they are ALSO victims.

You can try to find the bad guy here: the dealer, the suppliers, the misinformation spread by the war on drugs, but truly, this is just a fucking tragedy. We're all grown-ups, let's stop looking for villains and heroes in our daily lives and face the gray area.

Sorry, you have every right to express your opinion on the matter, but until the loss of human life, even for ones we only superficially value, isn't considered an immesurable deficit, I'll find your opinion very wrongheaded.

Now, I'll excuse myself to enjoy Synecdoche, NY once more.

 

[faefrost]

Too bad he killed himself.

I'll never understand people who OD.

This! All of the overwelming tributes, but somehow an astonishing degree of trying to dance around his lifestyle and manner of his death. We mourn his loss. We weep for what he might have become or might have given us. But we should never overlook, or downplay the fact that he died needlessly and stupidly with a needle in his arm. These days we tend to "normalize" way to many things and behaviors that really should never be normalized. This particular one tops the list.

What gives us the right to judge people based on what they decide to put in their bodies? Hoffman had a drug habit that got the better of him, end of story. I'm one of the people who doesn't drink, most of my family smokes pot, I have a couple friends who casually do cocaine, and my parents are friends with a guy who uses a safe-injection site. That's what they decide to do, and that's their right.

I know it's trite, but keep in mind that the most dangerous substance in the world, based on mortality rates, is tobacco, and that's legal.

Ummm? Civilization? Society? It is one of the core elements of it. Setting boundaries of personal and public behavior to the betterment of all. Yes there is a great deal of flux between individual Liberty and Societal Restrictions. And we always are and always should be debating that boundary. But that debate does need to go both ways. We can both mourn the loss, appreciate the pain suffered by the family and friends, and still maybe remind all of us that certain kinds of clearly dangerous behaviors really are not and should not be a matter of "lifestyle choice".

You say that Tobacco kills more. That's kind of a disingenuous way of looking at it. Tobacco long term will cause health problems. But it doesn't carry with it the degree of instant lethality that pretty much any Narcotics carry. A lifetime of smoking will kill you. But each individual cigarette is not in and of itself a potentially lethal dose. Tobacco is a poor life choice. Heroin is Russian Roulette with 3 bullets. They kind of fall in different areas of that Liberty vs Society spectrum.

 

[Ipsen]

I saw The Master recently and thought he was terrific despite disliking the movie. He was very talented, and I am sorry we will never get to see more from him.

Too bad he killed himself.

I'll never understand people who OD.

This! All of the overwelming tributes, but somehow an astonishing degree of trying to dance around his lifestyle and manner of his death. We mourn his loss. We weep for what he might have become or might have given us. But we should never overlook, or downplay the fact that he died needlessly and stupidly with a needle in his arm. These days we tend to "normalize" way to many things and behaviors that really should never be normalized. This particular one tops the list.

Thousands of addicts dying every day nobody panics, because it?s all "part of the plan". One celebrity addict dies and everyone loses their minds!

The fact that I'm paraphrasing The Joker doesn't mean I'm not being serious. It's a big deal when it happens to someone "important" but for everyone else it's just another dead junkie, a common attitude to the "common" man. It's a shame we lost such a talented guy, but off camera and 50 bags of heroine later I find myself wondering if we aren't over-doing our lamenting here.

We can't put a person on such a pedestal that when they make a human mistake we all ask why. He wasn't superman, he was Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a talented but terribly flawed human being that made a personal choice that cost him his life. I stopped grieving this sort of thing when it happened to River Phoenix, another gifted actor from my generation that died much the same way. Since then the only time it's truly stricken me was Lindsay Lohan, but that was more "faces of meth" shocking than tragic.

Probably a big deal because human culture doesn't continue by simply adding up human lives. Or deaths. Call it unfair (it is, in all terms), but yes, we inherently do value more, and thus raise them higher the people who have a percieved positive effect on our own lives. Hoffman wasn't superman, but he was an actor that portrayed humanity in a way many people could understand and relate to deeply.

Really, NONE of us have to do a damn thing on this rock with our time in consciousness; we all have that choice, but those who make it interesting for themselves and each other shouldn't deserve to have the value of their lives devalued because he or she 'died stupidly'. Which, in a sense, we all do anyway.

It's terrible, but more terrible is that it's terribly common.

And at what point are you giving more weight to the 'common' circumstance, simply for more numbers?

 

[MatsVS]

How fucking sad is it that, even in this thread where we should be sharing clips and love for this titan of the age, people feel the need to chirp uselessly about morals? Why not just picket his fucking funeral?

On topic: Apparently Anthony Hopkins said that, on Red Dragon, he would come in just to watch Philip Seymour Hoffman work. The two didn't even have scenes together.

 

[Icehearted]

Spoiler: Zip zop zoobity bop!

I saw The Master recently and thought he was terrific despite disliking the movie. He was very talented, and I am sorry we will never get to see more from him.

Too bad he killed himself.

I'll never understand people who OD.

This! All of the overwelming tributes, but somehow an astonishing degree of trying to dance around his lifestyle and manner of his death. We mourn his loss. We weep for what he might have become or might have given us. But we should never overlook, or downplay the fact that he died needlessly and stupidly with a needle in his arm. These days we tend to "normalize" way to many things and behaviors that really should never be normalized. This particular one tops the list.

Thousands of addicts dying every day nobody panics, because it?s all "part of the plan". One celebrity addict dies and everyone loses their minds!

The fact that I'm paraphrasing The Joker doesn't mean I'm not being serious. It's a big deal when it happens to someone "important" but for everyone else it's just another dead junkie, a common attitude to the "common" man. It's a shame we lost such a talented guy, but off camera and 50 bags of heroine later I find myself wondering if we aren't over-doing our lamenting here.

We can't put a person on such a pedestal that when they make a human mistake we all ask why. He wasn't superman, he was Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a talented but terribly flawed human being that made a personal choice that cost him his life. I stopped grieving this sort of thing when it happened to River Phoenix, another gifted actor from my generation that died much the same way. Since then the only time it's truly stricken me was Lindsay Lohan, but that was more "faces of meth" shocking than tragic.

Probably a big deal because human culture doesn't continue by simply adding up human lives. Or deaths. Call it unfair (it is, in all terms), but yes, we inherently do value more, and thus raise them higher the people who have a percieved positive effect on our own lives. Hoffman wasn't superman, but he was an actor that portrayed humanity in a way many people could understand and relate to deeply.

Really, NONE of us have to do a damn thing on this rock with our time in consciousness; we all have that choice, but those who make it interesting for themselves and each other shouldn't deserve to have the value of their lives devalued because he or she 'died stupidly'. Which, in a sense, we all do anyway.

It's terrible, but more terrible is that it's terribly common.

And at what point are you giving more weight to the 'common' circumstance, simply for more numbers?

Hell, if we're going into grand schemes, legacy, and deeper meanings I'm rooted in the camp that says we're all impermanent little bubbles that emerge and pass in space and time and we're all ultimately trivial; trivial beings on a trivial planet in a trivial galaxy, one of countless many, all of which are consequently infinitesimal.

Don't get me wrong, I find your nihilistic sentiment agreeable, if I understand you correctly.

As to my common statement, I was merely reflecting that as a way of life this is a shitty way of life. We mark moments like these as if they're rare or especially tragic, when the reality is so many ordinary people die this way daily, and celebrities do not exist outside this realm, on the contrary it's entirely too common for a celebrity of just about any type to have a drug habit that could and often does eventually kill them.

I liken it to when children die and we're meant to feel worse for them than if they were adults because they're children; uniquely tragic as long as we're told it is, but otherwise a fairly common occurrence which deserves no more of our collective grief than any other type of untimely death.

This reminds me of something I read once in a story called Debt of Bones. In it a wizard weighing lives against one another in a war received an impassioned, and as he saw it, manipulative plea to save children by a mother desperate to save her own child. I just googled it, in case you care, and this is not the whole conversation but it demonstrates my point. In this case we can exchange age for fame or celebrity:

Where does the line lie?
You imply a higher value to a life because of a young age. The line, my dear child, across which the value of life becomes petty. Where is the line?
Do not think to play on my emotions by plying me with the value of the life of a child, as if a higher value can be placed on life because of age. When is life worth less? Where is the line? At what age? Who decides?
All life is of value. Dead is dead, no matter the age.

 

[JonB]

Hi folks. This isn't a thread about morals or drugs. Please keep it out.

 

[Razorback0z]

Well..... while I didn't really think that much of his work so far, I certainly acknowledge his potential, I expected he would do something truly classic one day. Shame he died 2 years younger than I currently am, pretty sobering stuff. Life is short.

 

[gorfias]

Well..... while I didn't really think that much of his work so far, I certainly acknowledge his potential, I expected he would do something truly classic one day. Shame he died 2 years younger than I currently am, pretty sobering stuff. Life is short.

As many have noted, the guy basically, casually, stole every scene he was in. Sometimes, it was just really good writing and directing. I didn't like MI 3. At all. But he was great in it.

He had a great, small role in Magnolia that really made me notice him for one of the first times, even though I'd seen him before.

All this love and admiration for Hoffman, and I've yet to see a single source mention THIS:
THIS was his best performance, bar none!

I actually have seen this mentioned in many other tributes and it is great, but y'know what one I don't know of hearing about?

This one: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0011604/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_27

He is sooo channeling Jack Black in this. I'm thinking the producers wanted Black for the role but couldn't get him. So Hoffman came in and did it and did it well.

Hi folks. This isn't a thread about morals or drugs. Please keep it out.

It's a thread about him and his legacy. How we die says something about us and him and how we think about him. I think it is important.

His death was easily preventable. He arguably even did this on purpose and we have a duty to remember his life but also be angry and saddened at this needless loss. I hope it helps us resolve to speak out against this kind of abuse and loss and avoid it ourselves.

I will miss him and his gifts.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I know that one mod has told us...

Hi folks. This isn't a thread about morals or drugs. Please keep it out.

...but it is important to note that, though Mr. Hoffman's death was somewhat sudden due to his drug use, he was one of few people whom had great gifts and that some of us felt honored to have born witness to those gifts. To those who wish to focus solely on his lifestyle, especially where it concerns drugs, let one of the all-time greatest social critics and comics, George Carlin, give you an insight to this kind of lifestyle and its effects on the people that choose to live it.


All that being said, it a shame that Mr. Hoffman has passed in this manner and those of us who care shall remember him for the gifts and creativity that he shared with us.

 

[JonB]

It's a thread about him and his legacy. How we die says something about us and him and how we think about him. I think it is important.

His death was easily preventable. He arguably even did this on purpose and we have a duty to remember his life but also be angry and saddened at this needless loss. I hope it helps us resolve to speak out against this kind of abuse and loss and avoid it ourselves.

I will miss him and his gifts.

...but it is important to note that, though Mr. Hoffman's death was somewhat sudden due to his drug use, he was one of few people whom had great gifts and that some of us felt honored to have born witness to those gifts.

Sorry, I was unclear. You're welcome to discuss the nature of his death. It's merely disrespectful and off-topic to generally moralize about the rightness or wrongness about his death. If someone wants to continue that discussion, take it to off-topic.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

All this love and admiration for Hoffman, and I've yet to see a single source mention THIS:
THIS was his best performance, bar none!

Holy crap. I have honestly never heard of this movie, but after you put that trailer up, I really want to see it. Thank you for that.

Yeah, it is extremely tragic what happened to him, and its a tremendous shame. I think I have been pretty much riveted by every performance I have seen him do, and at the very least, there are a bunch that I havent seen yet that I intend on watching. But just like Heath Ledger, everything I see with Phil Hoffman in it, will just drive home what a great actor we lost way too early. I hope he has finally escaped whatever demons troubled him in his life.

*edit* I also wanted to add that I find it strange that out of all the roles he performed so well, that I did get to see and enjoy, for some reason everytime I hear of, or think of, Philip Hoffman, I think of his character from Twister. I loved that character, lol...

 

[gorfias]

Some nice early photos: When he was just Phil: http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_25053695/philip-seymour-hoffman-was-westford-camp-counselor