I just finished watching the first of these two video tributes to the career of Philip Seymour Hoffman and my reaction is two-fold, 1.) what a performer and 2.) these videos only present a small fraction of what he brought to the screen.
I’ve seen a lot of write-ups praising Hoffman’s work on the stage, which I never had a chance to see, and in looking over his filmography there are even films of his I’ve yet to see including Along Came Polly, Patch Adams and Happiness. Of course, I have to dig pretty deep into his filmography to find many others I haven’t seen, though one other is Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Hard Eight, which I plan on watching later this evening (it’s available on NetFlix Instant.
For now, check out the tributes below and just let them wash over you as they certainly remind us what a terrific performer he was.
Finally, Cameron Crowe recently wrote the following on his website concerning Hoffman’s performance in Almost Famous, particularly his scene on the phone and the birth of “uncool”:
My original take on this scene was a loud, late night pronouncement from Lester Bangs. A call to arms. In Phil’s hands it became something different. A scene about quiet truths shared between two guys, both at the crossroads, both hurting, and both up too late. It became the soul of the movie. In between takes, Hoffman spoke to no one. He listened only to his headset, only to the words of Lester himself. (His Walkman was filled with rare Lester interviews.) When the scene was over, I realized that Hoffman had pulled off a magic trick. He’d leapt over the words and the script, and gone hunting for the soul and compassion of the private Lester, the one only a few of us had ever met. Suddenly the portrait was complete. The crew and I will always be grateful for that front row seat to his genius.
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