Phillip Seymour Hoffman was one of the modern acting greats. You can always identify and isolate him in an ensemble cast. Give him just two-three lines in a 150-180 minutes long feature film and still he would enthrall the audience with his magic and aura and come out on top. People and critics alike bestowed countless superlatives upon him in a career spanning over more than two decades but whether any one of those adjectives ever managed to justify his cinematic craft, I seriously doubted. He was unprecedented and unsurpassed in the practice of cinematic artistry and thus emerged as America’s greatest character actor ever, period. Paul Giamatti is his worthy successor and hopefully he would calm and soothe our nerves with his finest performances in times to come in Phillip’s absence. Phillip ultimately was a show-stealer, a rabble-rouser, an aloof but a sympathizing marvelous human being who marveled in Hollywood though always residing at its sidelines.
I first saw him playing a young cocky, spoilt brat in ‘Scent of a Woman’ (the film for which Al Pacino won an Oscars, finally). There were other notable leads in that movie but the person benefitted most from this was Phillip. More films followed. ‘The Big Lebowski’, ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’, ‘The Mission Impossible -3’, ‘Magnolia’, ‘The Charlie Wilson’s War’, ‘The Boogie Nights’, ‘Almost Famous’ and by the times he got the chance to play the role of greatly celebrated author, ‘Truman Capote’, a role tailor-made for him, his greatness was already sealed and established in Hollywood folklore. This young man had eschewed every inch of cinematic screen in almost all of his outings on celluloid and every so-called leading man feared him for his stellar performances always managed to steal the show from them. He won the coveted Oscars and possibly every other significant acting award in English speaking world for his performance in ‘Capote’ and the last rites of his crowning as one of the finest American actors (an Oscars is an important criteria to judge greatness, though it often overlooks the likes of Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes, Peter O’Toole among many) were complete.
He didn’t just stop there now more famous than ever. ‘The Savages’, ‘The Cold Mountain’, ‘The Village’, ‘Moneyball’, ‘Before the devil knows you are dead’ were his brilliant performances. ‘The Master’ was his last great performance though. He made his last acting appearance in second installment of ‘The Hunger Games’ franchise…..’The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ but he would have himself admitted, if living, that it was just a typical ‘Hollywood’ performance….one that grabs both eyeballs and money but not the souls. Perhaps he was drained for delivering all those fantastic performances one after another. A person has only so many fights left in him, after all.
A lot has already been written by many scholars about his chameleon-like qualities in all those aforementioned movies, so I won’t repeat them here. Watch out all of them and then you will realize that how such a person in flesh and blood has graced a cinema-screen, ever.
He fought alcohol and drugs throughout his life and ultimately succumbed to them. Let’s not dwell, however, in misery for the sake of his fond memories. Celebrate his life for it was much more to cherish and enjoy than his sorrowful outing.
Behold the Master and relive the enigma that was Phillip Seymour Hoffman !!!!!
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