Cinematic Soul

                Last night, my wife and I sat with our daughters to watch the Super Bowl together. We savored Amy’s chicken chili, laughed at Stephen Colbert’s pistachio commercials, and admired the Seahawks’ championship defense. But to be honest, Amy and I were thinking about something else on Sunday; we were mourning the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

            For more than 20 years, we’ve been astounded, time and time again, by Hoffman’s acting. Whenever you thought you’d seen the depths of human emotion plumbed as far as possible, another Hoffman film would surface, and you’d find him exploring the human soul even further. His obituaries do a fine job of listing the films, but picking your favorite Hoffman movie moment is about as difficult as choosing your favorite novel or dessert. Even my 12-year-old daughter, who recently saw Hoffman in Catching Fire, had become a fan.

            In my 12^th-grade English classes, we recently watched Hoffman in his Oscar-winning portrayal of Truman Capote, after we’d finished reading In Cold Blood. We used the film Capote to close out a unit on how true nonfiction really is, and whatever students thought of the movie or Capote’s book, they had nothing but praise for this actor who had managed to re-create the mannerisms and moods of a man who had died more than 20 years before the film’s release.

            The thing I found most fascinating about Hoffman as an actor was his ability to bring dignity and accuracy to his roles, whatever they were: a music critic, a political hack, a spiritual leader, a boarding-school student, even a shy, gay boom operator. I’m no film critic, so I’ll be careful not to try and act like one here. But when I think of all the Hoffman movies I’ve seen, perhaps no role impressed me as much as his portrayal of a home-care nurse in Magnolia. In that film, Hoffman’s character, Phil, does little more than listen to the stories of a dying man, his trophy wife and estranged son. But as these characters share their pain with Phil, he feels their struggles deeply, even to the point of weeping. Hoffman’s character shows us that being present and compassionate is in many ways the essence of life.

            My brother, who is a film critic, saw Hoffman at the Sundance Film Festival last month. He, like many others who live in New York City, had also seen Hoffman many times in Greenwich Village with his family, just living an ordinary life. Of course, addiction often does not announce itself on the ski slopes of Utah or the streets of Manhattan. It’s often a solitary and dismal experience, one to which Hoffman succumbed yesterday. There’s no way to gauge the loss to this 46-year-old man’s family and friends, let alone to movie fans like Amy and me – it’s just deeply sad in every way.

            As a parent, Hoffman brought his family down to Cape May Point, just a few miles from my parents’ home. When I’d go out for jogs in that area, I’d keep an eye out for a blond-haired, bespectacled man, likely wearing a wrinkled T-shirt and shorts. If I had seen Hoffman taking out the garbage or helping his kids ride their bikes, I know I would have just nodded the same way I did for anyone else I passed on the roads there. That, I figured, was the ultimate respect I could have given to an actor who had achieved much fame and fortune, but who had never tried to present himself as anything more than the rest of us.

            I never saw Hoffman in Cape May. I’ll be back down there in a few months, and I’ll go out for more jogs. This time, I won’t be looking for my favorite actor. But when I’m passing through Cape May Point, I’ll think of Phil the nurse, or Scotty the boom operator, or Capote. The greatest gift an artist or craftsman gives us is a body of work that lives longer than he does. Hoffman has done this with astounding success, and his films serve to remind us of all that he offered in his brief time here, while also connecting us with the complex emotions we feel, hide, express and share.