Friday Top Five: Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP)

It's a funny thing, the reactions people have when celebrities die. We should feel nothing more than a passing sadness, really. We've never met these people, know next to nothing about their personal lives or what they are really like off screen. Some celebrity deaths have had more of an effect on me than others. For example, I remember feeling more than a passing sadness over the deaths of Heath Ledger, Elliot Smith and Brad Renfro. But for me, the closest word I can come up with to describe how I've felt about last Sunday's passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman is to say: devastation. It's not just that he was one of our greatest talents, it's more that every character he portrayed felt like a living, breathing person, not just a character. Identifying with his characters wasn't difficult; he always felt accessible. But, like many brilliant men, he was a tortured artist and the loss of his talents at the age of 46 is heartbreaking for anyone who was a fan of his work.
I remember going to see Almost Famous when I was a teenager and it sparked something inside of me. It's quite possible that this was the movie that turned me into the movie loving crazy person I am today. To loosely quote the movie, I never knew what it was to love something so much before Almost Famous. Hoffman was mesmerizing in that role and he quickly became one of my favorite actors (since I love ranking things, he would have been number 2 after Sean Penn). I literally have never seen a movie featuring Hoffman that I didn't enjoy in some way. While he doesn't look like an actor, like he'd be right for any role, he somehow managed to be perfect for every role he embodied. Ranking his movies was hard for me, and with the exception of numbers 1 and 2, I could trade out any other three movies for the ones I picked. He was that good. To paraphrase something I saw on Twitter last weekend, we don't have many truly great actors. And now we have one less.

05. As Truman Capote in Capote (2005)
The role for which Philip Seymour Hoffman rightfully won an Academy Award for Best Actor, he doesn't so much portray Capote as become him completely. The only reason this movie works is because Hoffman manages to humanize a man we know both so much and nothing at all about. The central relationship between Capote and a convicted killer is intense and complex. He was an amazing actor before this role, but Capote turned him into the legend, the acting giant he is remembered as today.

04. As Andy in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
One of the more underrated films Hoffman has done, in this film he plays a selfish, manipulative man who manages to give a desperate, wonderful portrayal of a man on the fringe. He's a scheming character, always trying to control everyone around him. His performance absolutely dominates, easily playing both sides of his character - charming businessman by day, slime ball when no one is watching.

03. As Jon Savage in The Savages (2007)
Here was the thing about Philip Seymour Hoffman - the crazy range he had was astounding. In the same year he played a scheming, manipulator in Before the Devil..., he managed to play a calm, relaxed, albeit disappointed, professor. His brother-sister chemistry with Laura Linney is astounding, and together they create a family that feels as lived in as any dysfunctional family you've encountered in real life.

02. As Lancaster Dodd in The Master (2012)
Here is where you pin two acting giants - the incomprable Hoffman and the terribly underrated Joaquin Phoenix - against each other in an epic showdown of acting prowess. These two men play off each other with such an intensity, with such complex charisma, that even though the movie is a tad pretentious, you can't take your eyes off either of them. These are the sorts of performances that create legacies, that dominate every single frame of every shot of every minute. These are the performances that go down in history.

01. As Lester Bangs in Almost Famous (2000)
How can it be anything else? This is my first real, true experience with loving something so much. This is the movie where Hoffman manages to steal every single scene of which he is a part. Sure, this is an ensemble (and a crazy good one, too), but it's Hoffman that doesn't leave your brain afterwards. He carves his place in your head and your heart and you can't help but realize you've just watched a man who will change the way you think about life and acting and art. This is the sort of movie I will watch for decades, helping me to remember what a great talent we lost on Sunday.