When news of Philip Seymour Hoffman's death first hit the news outlets, it was met with delayed reaction. Not because Hoffman was some obscure actor behind the curtains. Never. It was disbelief that warranted a few seconds of deliberation, a few moments to remember what your beliefs are.
Philip Seymour Hoffman was just 47 years old.
The ineffable accuracy and diligence behind Philip Seymour Hoffman as an actor is what astounded movie goers and stage enthusiasts alike. He was able to touch your soul without even being in the room.
Maybe the first time you saw him was in Along Came Polly abreast Ben Stiller, or perhaps it was his role in the Oscar-winning The Master.
Or, maybe, it was his role in The Big Lebowski, Scent of a Woman, Moneyball, The Ideas of March, Synecdoche New York, The Savages, Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, Patch Adams, Magnolia, Capote or Jack Goes Boating that really boasted Hoffman as a most important and undeniable actor; his cinematic pedigree was far-reaching.
He was a man that made "unhappiness such a joy to watch," he was an inspiration and perhaps the greatest assimilator for roles such as Capote.
In 2012, on stage, he channeled the greatest business martyr of them all, Willy Loman, in the revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
His ability to go further than skin, to touch deeply on the immaterial substance of your soul, was so immense and forthcoming that his presence was inescapable--never to be tamed.
I can hardly imagine how a screen or stage can support such a sound actor of such weight and intelligence.
The detestable, the downtrodden, the twisted and the vicious all found refuge in Hoffman's tragic portrayal of the damned and destroyed, the scum of society. It is now that an entire arena loses face and light with his departure.
So, while the acting world prepares to take stock of its most important figures, the rest of the world reflects on an image of a true, but tortured artist.
It is because of this, perhaps, that we understand Hoffman more than ever.
It's not that he wanted us to find the beauty in the recesses of humanity. No. It was instead his pursuit that we believed them.
His penchant for illuminating the sheer ugliness of human beings is perhaps, in my opinion, his most beautiful quality.
To wit, on such a small degree, here is Hoffman in A Late Quartet.
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