The Talented Mr. Hoffman. The Master Of Our Generation.

When you see an interview with Philllip Seymour Hoffman, you immediately understand the artist.  His craft was most important, anything else was secondary.  Not by any means the Hollywood type but a very much, very proud, bona fide theater rat, West Village resident, New Yorker.  A talent that even working actors (“A listers”) only dream of.  Any project that he was involved, he went all in or not in at all, and the evidence lies on his immaculate resume.  How did he choose his roles? So many decent actors find one or maybe two that are their gems, Mr. Hoffman seemed to have the eye for choosing great roles or, was it his talent that made the movies and characters become what they became? Some actors can only do one, I think he did both.  The excitement that I got when I saw that Philip Seymour Hoffman was part of the movie, when I saw his picture on the cover, when going to the movie rentals walking in the isles, slowly, looking for those good indie films, will never be paralleled by any other actor.  You knew that, that movie was going to be good. it is very rare for that to be the case, maybe , maybe there is a hand full of actors, and that is saying a lot in one of the biggest industries in entertainment.  Art to me is, when you witness it, it demands an emotion out of you, and PSH had that gift to play a character and make you laugh, dream, cry, make you uneasy like the feeling I got when I saw Synecdoche, New York or envy when that rich boy, free, charismatic way he stole the scene as he got off the red convertible and walked tours Dickie and Tom Ripley on the Talented Mr Ripley Or his unbelievable re-incarnation of Truman Capote in Capote where PSH disappeared.  Not one movement was accidental, not a hand gesture, effortlessly he demanded your attention,  he was engaged all the time.  And the list of characters is endless. Right before our very eyes he became the best of our generation.  I never had the privileged to see him in a live play but I can only imagine.  The theater and film industry will never be the same. The Art world will never be the same. He was one of a kind, a new Yorker with a “Warholian” aura.  I am truly sad that he died, selfishly that I will never get chance to see what his future work would be. But he left a stock pile of work that I will dearly treasure and pass along to my children and those too young to discover the Talented Mr Phillip Seymour Hoffman. 

Amner. 

If you would like to see the top 15 Philip Seymour Hoffman go here. 

"O, great creator of beign, grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives. We live, we die and death not ends it". 

 Jim Morrison