Babylon: A Review - Damien Chazelle's Reach Exceeds His Grasp in Bloated Babylon

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. A messy misfire of a movie that is not worth seeing in the theater but if you’re interested check it out when it hits streaming.

“BABYLON WILL BE LIKE SODOM AND GOMORRAH WHEN GOD OVERTHREW THEM. IT WILL NEVER BE INHABITED OR LIVED IN FOR GENERATIONS.” ISAIAH 13:19

I readily admit that I am a fan of director Damien Chazelle.

Chazelle’s first feature, Whiplash, which I recently re-watched, was a powerful announcement of the director’s arrival. La La Land, Chazelle’s second film, was an Oscar-winning blockbuster but also a subtle yet masterful movie that was considerably deeper than many understood. Chazelle’s third feature, the over-looked and undervalued First Man, was a brilliant and profound piece of cinema.

Now the Oscar-winning writer/director Chazelle is back with his newest film, the highly anticipated Babylon, starring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.

With my Chazelle fandom as context, I’m sorry to have to report that Babylon, a three-hour and nine-minute, sprawling extravaganza, simply doesn’t work. It isn’t awful, but it isn’t good either.

Babylon chronicles a bevy of characters in the decadent and debauched old Hollywood of the late 1920’s as they navigate the industry’s transition from silent movies to talkies.

Even that description of the plot gives away the game as the film’s narrative is decidedly derivative. Other current filmmakers have made much better films on similar topics, be it P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights – which dramatized the porn industry’s drug-fueled move from film to digital, or even Quinten Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – which was about Hollywood’s transition from the studio system to the new Hollywood of the 1970’s.

Chazelle makes multiple references to both Boogie Nights and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, so much so that it seems to be an homage to those movies (it’s also an homage to Singing in the Rain and its coda seems to pay tribute to Kubrick’s 2001), but that doesn’t make his story any more original or compelling.

For example, just the casting of Pitt and Robbie – who both stared in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has an air of homage to it. But when Robbie’s character sits in a movie theater and unleashes a million-watt smile when she hears the audience respond to her performance on-screen – which is an almost identical scene from when she played Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it feels less like homage and more like imitation.

GRIME AND GRIT UNDER THE GLITZ AND GLAMOUR

The first thirty minutes of Babylon are an extended, pre-title card sequence that revolves around a massive party at a Hollywood producer’s home in very rural Bel Air.

This party is meant to highlight the debauchery of both the roaring twenties and Hollywood at its height, but Chazelle, unlike say P.T. Anderson, is incapable of adequately portraying the grime and grit under the glitz and glamour.

The party, which features a bevy of bodily fluids – including a woman pissing on a guy to satiate his perversion and a midget with a fake giant cock ejaculating on a crowd (not to mention the pre-party close-up of an elephant’s asshole which then shits profusely on some poor bastard), and a cavalcade of cocaine use, as well as an ample supply of nudity, feels incongruously sterile.

Chazelle’s use of bodily fluids in the film (later on there’s a tsunami of vomit too) are cheap substitutes for realism, most notably the blood and guts of emotional realism, in a story that is never able to fully form truly human, multi-dimensional characters.

The debauched party scene is so cold, controlled and antiseptic that it comes across as a virginal, pre-pubescent boy’s naïve beliefs about what sex and drugs are like. Chazelle is that virginal, pre-pubescent boy.

Once the party ends and the title card presents itself, the story finally begins. The main characters are Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), the biggest silent movie star of the moment, Nellie LaRoy, a Clara Bow-esque “it” girl who gets her big break and makes the most of it, and Manny Torres (Diego Calves), a Mexican film assistant who loves movies and works his way up the Hollywood ladder by dealing with incorrigibles like Conrad and LaRoy.

There are two other semi-lead characters, jazz trumpeter Sydney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) and cabaret singer/actress Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li). Neither Sydney nor Lady Fay are fleshed out to any satisfactory degree, and their presence in the film feels more like a rather ham-handed attempt to appease the diversity gods rather than to advance the story. It is no fault of the actors, but one can’t help but think that if these two characters were cut, and the runtime of the movie was subsequently trimmed by thirty minutes or so, we’d all be better off.

The first act of the film was my least favorite part, but to its credit it does get incrementally better from there, but unfortunately it never soars.

The third act is much more blatantly symbolic than the previous acts, such as when Manny descends into a near literal hell that becomes more and more disgusting and denigrating with every circle, and that approach resonated with me, which was a contrast to the first half of the film.

ALL LIGHT, NO HEAT

Pitt’s acting mirrors the film’s failings and successes. In the first two-thirds of the movie, Pitt gives a rather shallow, smirky and one-note Pitt-ian performance. He’s Brad Pitt, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, playing a character that is one of the biggest movie stars in the world…get it? But in the third act, Pitt eschews his empty movie star magnetism for a melancholy that actually becomes quite moving.

Margot Robbie is a luminously beautiful women, and she’s certainly ambitious – not unlike her character Nellie LaRoy, but there is something off about her in every performance she gives (I also just saw her in the most recent David O. Russell film Amsterdam and oh dear…but that is a discussion for another day). Whether it’s her over-reliance on a sort of old-timey New Yawk accent or what, I can’t quite figure just yet, but she always appears to be “acting” and everything she does feels mechanical and manufactured.

In Babylon Robbie works her ass off, of that there is no doubt, but it never coalesces into anything captivating. There’s lots of over-the-top yelling and gyrating and manic pixie dream girl mania and hysteria, but never anything that ever feels genuine or grounded.

Diego Calva is a pleasing screen presence, but his character Manny is under-written, as is his love story, and he never really gets his hands wrapped around this whole unwieldy thing to find its sweet spot.

As for the rest of the cast, it’s a mixed bag or worse. For instance, Jean Smart is overall pretty dreadful as a gossip columnist, but she does give a very effective monologue late in the movie that works quite well.

Eric Roberts plays Nellie’s dad and is utterly atrocious.

Lukas Haas plays Conrad’s producer and best friend and it’s an awkward and totally forgettable piece of work.

Tobey Maguire plays a crazy mob boss in a scene that is very, very similar to the “Sister Christian” scene from Boogie Nights, except this time there’s no firecrackers but instead a bodyguard who spits at random intervals. The scene could’ve been great I suppose, but just never comes together, and Maguire’s character is a freaky sideshow lacking gravitas.

The biggest issue with the acting is the same issue with the movie, it’s all light and no heat. There’s lots of yelling but nobody says anything.

It must be said that Linus Sandgren’s cinematography is at times glorious (even when seen through a sub-par projector which unfortunately is the case in most theaters nowadays), and the music and score by Justin Hurwitz (who won an Academy Award for the music in La La Land) are terrific.

It’s somewhat intriguing that Babylon is either a companion piece to La La Land or its outright prequel. Chazelle makes this fact pretty clear by repeatedly using an integral piece of Hurwitz’s music from La La Land as a cornerstone of Babylon.

The ethereal La La Land - the dream of Hollywood, contrasted with the nightmare of Babylon, is an intriguing formula, if only Babylon could hold up its end of the bargain.

A MOVIE ABOUT THE END OF AN ERA, MADE AT THE END OF AN ERA

I concede that making a movie about the impact of technology on the movie business and how Hollywood ruthlessly makes difficult transitions, is insightful in this era where streaming moves the earth beneath Hollywood’s feet and, much to my chagrin, auteur movies - like Babylon, face the real possibility of extinction. I also admit that as a fan of Damien Chazelle and also due to the evolution/devolution of the film business which seriously threatens to end the auteur era which I love so much, there’s a part of me that desperately wants to adore Babylon and declare that making a decidedly decadent movie about Hollywood decadence is in fact clever if not ingenious, but if I’m being honest, I have to say it’s actually pretty trite.

Ultimately, I wanted Babylon to be great and to my disappointment it wasn’t even good, instead it’s a messy misfire of a movie that’s an empty imitation of other more worthy films. I cannot recommend seeing Babylon in the theatre, but if you really want to see it wait until it hits a streaming service, that way the long run time and derivative drama will be more digestible, if not necessarily palatable.

©2023

Licorice Pizza: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT: A rather disappointing work from the usually brilliant PT Anderson that you can skip at the theatre and check out when it comes to a streaming service.

If Paul Thomas Anderson isn’t the greatest filmmaker working today, he is certainly in the discussion. From his earliest masterpiece Boogie Nights to his most recent, Phantom Thread, as well as with There Will Be Blood, The Master and Magnolia in between, Anderson has shown himself to be a true auteur and master craftsman.

After having suffered through this apocalyptically awful year of cinema, my hope was that PT Anderson would ride in and save the day with his newest film Licorice Pizza, which opened in L.A. and NY on November 26th and went nationwide on Christmas Day.

Unfortunately, Licorice Pizza cannot redeem 2021, as it is not a great film. Yes, it’s well shot and occasionally amusing, but also often meandering and repetitive. Ultimately, it’s little more than an endearing and pleasant but mostly forgettable movie. That said, cinema this year is the land of the lollipop kids and Licorice Pizza may very well be the tallest midget.

When glancing at PT Anderson’s filmography, it’s a staggering collection of brilliant works, and Licorice Pizza wouldn’t even come close to cracking his top 6, despite arguably being one of the best film’s of 2021, which is more an indictment of the cinema of 2021 than it is an endorsement of Licorice Pizza.

The film is a coming of age story that revolves around Gary, a 15 year old child actor, and Alana, a 25 (or so) year old ne’er do well, as they navigate their tumultuous friendship/relationship. Making their feature film debuts, Cooper Hoffman (Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son) plays Gary and Alana Haim (member of the pop-rock sister band Haim) plays Alana.

Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim are fine in the film, a bit one-note, but fine. They aren’t particularly charismatic or compelling, but they aren’t repulsive either. They don’t seem overwhelmed on-screen, but they also don’t quite have the tools to do the work necessary to make the rather thin story work.

Less a coherent narrative than a series of loosely related vignettes, the film deftly transports the viewer back in time to Los Angeles in the 1970’s. The 70’s were a great time for music and a lack of bras, both of which are duly highlighted in Licorice Pizza.

This loose cinematic structure results in an often meandering movie that lacks heft, both dramatically and psychologically, and creates an absence of character evolution and dramatic arc.

The film’s decided lack of character arc, development and depth, and its superior sense of setting, transform the film into a “hang out” movie, one of my least favorite genre of film (other famous hang out movies are American Graffiti, Dazed and Confused and Frances Ha). Gone is a driving narrative and in its place the audience just gets to hang out and experience rather than being taken for a ride.

The one thing I found somewhat intriguing about Licorice Pizza was that it often seemed like a savvy but subtle meditation on American capitalism, as the movie’s de facto lead character, Gary, is incessantly entrepreneurial. Also feeding that notion are the featured gas shortages of that era - and their accompanying rage, as well as upper class tyrants like Jon Peters (a savage Bradley Cooper) and “Jack” Holden (Sean Penn) preying upon those beneath them.

The film is, not surprisingly, beautifully shot, with PT Anderson and Michael Bauman sharing Director of Photography credit, and boasts a terrific and well utilized soundtrack that features The Doors, Paul McCartney and Wings, David Bowie, Gordon Lightfoot and Blood, Sweat and Tears.

But while the beautiful visuals and luscious soundtrack elevate the movie, they also highlight its lack of substance and dramatic vigor. Licorice Pizza isn’t a case of the emperor having no clothes, it’s more a case of a beautiful wardrobe having no emperor.

There just isn’t enough meat on these bones to satisfy the most basic hunger for drama and character, and thus Licorice Pizza ultimately feels fanciful but also fleeting and forgettable.

The bottom line is that Licorice Pizza is a disappointment, a beautiful disappointment, but a disappointment none the less. If you’re a fan of PT Anderson, lower your expectations and try to find a 35 mm screening, and then it might be worth it. For everyone else, just wait for it to come out on a streaming service and check it out then…when you can “hang out” with it in the comfort of your own home.

©2021

Thanks to the Courage of HBO Max, Racism is Now Gone With the Wind...and Frankly My Dear, I DO Give a Damn

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 29 seconds

 HBO Max has deemed Gone With the Wind racist and has pulled it from its service because viewers are apparently too fragile and too stupid to be allowed to watch it.

In recent weeks, as protestors carrying Black Lives Matter signs filled the streets, I have often heard it said that, “racism is a virus”. If that is true, then the new streaming service HBO Max just found the cure.

HBO Max’s simple and brutally effective treatment to eradicate racism from the world is to pull the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind from its service…for now…at least until it can bring the film back “with a discussion of its historical context”. Take that racism!!

Gone With the Wind, which is based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Mitchell, won 10 Academy Awards, including, ironically enough, the first ever for an African American – Hattie McDaniel for Best Supporting Actress. The movie is also the highest grossing film of all-time (adjusted for inflation) and is widely considered to be one of the greatest films of all-time.

The film’s unforgivable sin though is that it is set in the American South during the Civil War and Reconstruction and depicts black slaves as a happy, content and well-treated bunch that adored their benevolent white masters.

Thankfully, HBO Max’s swift action will put an end to that highly popular theory, that seems to be everywhere nowadays, which states that African-Americans were much better off during the happy-go-lucky slavery era than today.

My fervent hope is that the geniuses at HBO Max and across Hollywood will now set their sights on other famous films from the past that cross the line of wokeness and offend the delicate sensibilities of us all.

For instance, all of the Star Wars films need to be tossed onto the woke bonfire immediately for their disgusting homophobia, which manifests itself in the C3PO character, an offensive stereotype of all closeted gay robots.

And how do you think members of the Sasquatch community feel when they see Chewbacca denying his obvious Sasquatch heritage and calling himself a “Wookie”, all while speaking some guttural, primitive language and carrying a laser-shooting crossbow? Won’t someone think of the Sasquatch?

Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List has got to go too, as while it may be historically accurate that doesn’t matter because you just know that anti-Semites watch that thing like its Nazi porn, which is just gross, and I simply cannot abide anybody enjoying anything for the wrong reasons…or the right reasons for that matter.

While we are on the subject of Nazis, The Sound of Music feels really Nazi friendly to me too, especially since its filled with all those smiling singing white people…so into the delete bin it goes.

As a student of history I can tell you that Dr. Zhivago is about Russia…I think… and the mainstream media and Hollywood have made it clear to me that Russians and Nazis are the same thing…so torch that damn movie!

Speaking of my vast knowledge of history, the 1956 classic, The Ten Commandments, needs to be exorcised from American screens immediately. Have you seen how negatively it portrays Egyptians? That seems really Islamophobic to me!

Titanic needs to be erased, not just because it has only white people in it, but because it sheds a bad light on the cruise ship industry and come on guys, corporations are people too.

Same thing goes for the Terminator franchise, which really slanders the tech industry with its negative portrayal of SkyNet. How do you think the folks in Silicon Valley feel when tech is seen as a malevolent force?

Speaking of the tech industry…in order to spare the feelings of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, if he is even capable of feeling, The Social Network needs to be banned forever and ever.

Boogie Nights really offended me personally because of its negative depiction of people with extremely large appendages, so it has got to go too!

And what about Citizen Kane? Yes, it does highlight the unconventional love between a boy and his sled, but on the other hand it really belittles the media-owning billionaire class (of which HBO Max is a member) and I just can’t abide by that…onto the bonfire it goes!

In fact, I think every film that makes anyone, anywhere, even slightly uncomfortable for any reason at all, needs to be not only banned, but all copies destroyed and the ashes then scattered to the winds. That way all hatred and prejudice of any kind will be permanently eradicated from the universe forever and ever…amen.

As for HBO Max, I think we should all take a knee in honor of their brave decision to save us from our own fragility and stupidity, and from the burden of freedom of choice, by not allowing us to watch Gone With the Wind without “context”.

The bottom line is this: where Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela all failed, HBO Max has gloriously succeeded. Racism is now definitively and irreversibly Gone With the Wind!

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2020

La La Land : A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!****

Estimated Reading Time : 5 minutes and 44 seconds

My Rating : 4 out of 5 stars.

My Recommendation : SEE IT. Take the time and effort and go see it in the theatre as it is a very enjoyable film.

La La Land, written and directed by Damien Chazelle, is the story of Sebastian, a struggling jazz musician and Mia, an aspiring actress, who meet and fall in love in Los Angeles. The film stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone with supporting turns by John Legend and Rosemary DeWitt.

La La Land is one of those movies that critics and layman alike will all undoubtedly describe as "charming and delightful". A big reason why they will describe it as "charming and delightful' is because it really is "charming and delightful". As cynical as I am, and goodness knows I am very cynical when it comes to Hollywood, La La Land with its vibrantly contagious spirit, was able to break through any resistance I had to it and will most likely breakthrough with other, less jaded viewers as well.

A major factor in La La Land's charm and delightfulness are the two leads. Both Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are incredibly likable actors and they are at their most agreeable as Sebastian and Mia. For as handsome as Gosling is, and he is impossibly handsome, he is somehow able to play a somewhat abrasive, jazz-purist oddball with a remarkably grounded appeal and subtle charisma. Emma Stone gives an enchantingly strong performance as Mia, the under-employed actress and barista. Stone is able to exude an inner vivacious luminosity that gives her an undeniable magnetism and presence on screen. The fact is, both of these actors are so enjoyable together and have such electric chemistry, that you could watch them banter, flirt and perform with each other for days on end. 

The script and the direction are very well done by Damien Chazelle, who proved with his last film, the critically-acclaimed Whiplash, that he is a formidable filmmaking talent. Once again Chazelle has music in general, and jazz in particular, at the center of his story. Chazelle is really gifted at visually portraying music and musicians in a genuine and realist way, which many filmmakers fail to accomplish. Chazelle's camera becomes just another instrument in the band and another partner in the dance, making the entire film not just a musical, but a piece of musical art, a piece of dance art and piece of cinematic art all at once. Cinematographer Linus Sandgren  paints the Los Angeles of La La Land with a lush and gorgeous palette, creating a vivid and intoxicating dreamscape.

The dance numbers in La La Land are pretty remarkable in that they are almost all done in one take, which is no small feat with such complicated blocking. The thing to realize as you watch La La Land's musical numbers is that Chazelle doesn't use a static camera, like they did in say the Oscar winning musical Chicago, so not only must the choreography of the dancers and performers be perfect, but the choreography of the camera must be integrated as well.

La La Land is a staggering technical accomplishment when you take the intricacies of the musical numbers and the filmmaking process into account. It is also a truly unique and original piece of work that manages to pay homage to the classic Hollywood musicals of yesteryear yet also reinvents that genre with a new, sort of everyman, millennial day-dreamer musical. 

La La Land works on many levels. It is a tribute to Hollywood's distant and not-so distant past (there is a hidden homage to Boogie Nights in it that only the most eagle-eyed will catch) and is also an examination of the life of an artist in a world of commercialism. In addition, the film is a testament to keeping the faith and staying the path in terms of one's artistic purity. Both Sebastian and Mia have to suffer the slings and arrows of the commercial life in order to gather the courage to return to their artistic roots to find fulfillment and happiness which in turn morphs into commercial success, in other words, the Hollywood circle of life. But, as any struggling actor or musician will testify, the battle for artistic purity is never as cut and dried as the artist wishes it were. For example, Sebastian is a jazz purist, but is a demand for jazz purity the reason jazz is dying? Chazelle asks this same type of question of his audience regarding cinema while paying homage to the old Astaire musicals that purists adore, but he presents that tribute in a new, less purist and more populist, package, which is pretty brilliant. 

La La Land is a layered film that can be enjoyed on many levels. You can watch and enjoy it as a pure rom-com, or a love story, or a musical, or an homage to Hollywood or a mediation on the artists struggle, or a combination of all of these. It is tough to watch La La Land and not be overcome by its unrelentingly joyous energy. I recommend you spend your hard earned money and sparse free time by going to see La La Land in the theaters, I think you will find it worth the time and effort.

La La Land will no doubt win a boatload of awards at this years Oscars because Hollywood loves nothing more than movies about itself. I know, I know, you are shocked to hear that Hollywood is so rapaciously narcissistic, it is like hearing that Wall Street is greedy or D.C. corrupt, it can be jarring to realize...but I promise you that it really is true. Besides Hollywood rewarding movies that are about Hollywood, it also loves musicals, even the dreadful ones like Chicago, which means a good one like La La Land is going to be sitting pretty come Oscar Sunday. I assume that Gosling, Stone, Chazelle and a cinematographer Linus Sandgren along with a plethora of behind-the-scenes artists will be nominated and most likely win Oscars as well as the film getting Best Picture. While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, my award voting preferences trend toward more existential and substantial material, so I wouldn't necessarily vote the same way as the Academy. That said, I also won't complain when Hollywood rewards La La Land. There is no sense in complaining here in Hollywood, for as Jake Gittes' partner Lawrence Walsh so eloquently taught me in the film Chinatown, "Forget it, Jake. Its Chinatown." So on Oscar night, as Martin Scorsese and Silence, and Terence Malick and Knight of Cups get overlooked, I'll just keep reminding myself..."Forget it, Mick. It's La La Land."

©2017

Philip Seymour Hoffman

ONE YEAR AGO I PUBLISHED THIS ARTICLE ON PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN DAYS AFTER HIS UNTIMELY DEATH ON FEBRUARY 2, 2014. I REPUBLISH IT NOW AS A TRIBUTE TO HIS ARTISTRY AND AS A SOMBER REMINDER OF HIS STRUGGLE.

There have been countless articles and commentaries about Philip Seymour Hoffman since his death this past Sunday. I doubt I can add much to the cavalcade of remembrances, but here are a few thoughts.

As a teacher, I occasionally will show film clips of actors that put a visual to a technique I am teaching. It is not something I do too often, but as I said, I occasionally do it. In talking with some clients after Hoffman's death, I realized that every time I showed a clip to students, it was of Philip Seymour Hoffman. That is how good he was, that I used his work to teach points to people and I never even realized it because I never even thought about it. Hoffman was so good that we never even had to think about it. His talent was off the charts, but the reason I used him as a teaching tool was because his skill, craft and technique were impeccable.

An example of his craftsmanship is his masterful use of his hands. Here is a clip from The Master that I use to show students about the effective use of an actor's hands in telling a story, specificity and detail in movement, defining character, and working with the camera. 

The clip above is also a great lesson in the use of physicality and focus. Hoffman doesn't give his opponent his focus, or square himself off to him completely until he fully commits to verbal combat, and the results are explosive, which he quickly realizes and tries to regain his composure for his audience members. Also, notice how when the shot goes wide, Hoffman uses his hands down at his waist level as opposed to at his shoulder level in the close up. He uses his hands to fill the shot he is occupying. He also doesn't randomly gesticulate, each movement is specific and detailed and punctuates his dialogue and voice.

The next scene is from Boogie Nights, and it is Hoffman's character Scotty J's introduction to the audience. It is an absolute masterpiece of an entrance. Hoffman uses the setting, his costume, his physicality and his breath to tell the audience immediately who this guy is and we instantly know him.

A few things to notice in this entrance. Hoffman doesn't just walk in and hit his mark. He enters at his own pace, still effected by the sick girl being carried out behind him. He hesitates, and awkwardly walks to his mark. Then at his mark, he surveys the pool party before him and takes a big breath before entering. This breath is fantastic in humanizing Scotty for the audience. We feel for him, he is a shlubby mess, but we feel for him after that breath. We understand that he is insecure, self conscious and fragile. That breath makes us allies of Scotty J. It is awesome. 

Then also notice when Scotty J meets Dirk Diggler that he uses his hands. He plays with his sunglasses, he tugs on his shirt in order to cover his belly, he indicates with his hands whom he is talking to or about. Even in the coverage of Dirk and Reed Rothchild where we only see Scotty's back, Hoffman still uses his hands, which gives even more of a visual life into what could have been a flat and basic scene in the hands of a lesser actor and director.

Finally, take a look at Hoffman's monologue from the film Happiness. See his use of breath to give inner life and fullness to his stillness. Then watch as the camera pulls back and his hands are revealed, he then rubs them against the chair. He becomes tactile when it serves the shot in order to show more of his character. When the shot was tight and he couldn't do that, he used his breath to reveal his character's inner life and wants, but when the camera is pulled back he can use his hands to reveal more and he does. (My apologies….sadly, the Happiness clip has been pulled from the internet, but I strongly encourage you to go watch Happiness directed by Todd Solendz, and in particular watch the scene where Philip Seymour Hoffman's character is at his therapists. You will know it when you see it. That is the scene I am describing here. As a replacement scene, check out Hoffman's work from Charlie Wilson's War. Notice his physicality, his posture and stance, his voice and breath, and finally how he uses his hands. Notice also how he adapts his physicality in order for his performance to be appropriate to the camera frame. This is master craftsmanship combined with sheer talent and passionate commitment. )

These are just three very brief examples of the craft and detail that Philip Seymour Hoffman brought to all of his work. I highly recommend viewing his entire body of work in order to see many more examples of mastery. The highlights of his work for me, can be seen in Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Happiness,  Punch Drunk Love, Doubt, Capote, Synecdoche, NY and The Master. Watch his hands, watch his physicality, watch his focus and watch his breath. He uses everything in the actor's tool bag to bring life and humanity to all of his characters. I think that is the thing that strikes me most about Philip Seymour Hoffman. As a character actor, he wasn't given a whole lot of screen time to create memorable characters and bring them to life, but he used his talent and skill to bring the smallest of characters into clear focus, and his films were so much better for it.

I think that is why he is so beloved in the acting community. He was an average looking guy, with a doughy body and that usually means you don't get too far in this business, but he overcame all that through hard work, skill, commitment to craft and talent. He went from a character actor to a leading man for no other reason than he was great at acting. He didn't give a shit about celebrity or the Hollywood game or any of that nonsense. He loved acting and film and theatre, and that's why we loved him. Most people who get into acting don't do it to be a celebrity, they do it to be an artist, and Hoffman epitomized the actor as artist. In a business where casting decisions are made based on the size of one's Twitter following as opposed to one's skill, or where a "leaked porn video" is worth more cache than time spent working in the theatre, Philip Seymour Hoffman was a beacon of artistry that showed the way for artists to make the most of the opportunities Hollywood can present without buying into the nonsense of all that comes with it.

I was lucky enough to see Hoffman on Broadway a few times. Twice in "True West" with John C. Reilly and once in "Long Days Journey into Night". He was a magnetic stage actor, who filled theaters with his physical presence and drew the audience in with his delicate humanity. I regret not being able to see his Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman", just like I will regret not being able to see him in any other plays or films. His death is a profound loss for actors and film and theatre lovers everywhere.

One final comment, in the past few days many people have written about Philip Seymour Hoffman and either their interactions with him, or how his death has effected them in some personal way. This is a natural tendency when someone famous dies. We all personalize these things because we feel as if we know the person because we've spent so much time watching them work that we feel we know them. We don't, of course, but that isn't going to stop me from doing the same thing.

To me, Philip Seymour Hoffman had the perfect life. He was a highly respected, award winning actor who worked in great art house type films (P.T. Anderson type-films) and also made some great money in more blockbuster type films. He did fantastic plays on Broadway and also directed other smaller plays. He had a fine family, three young kids, and enough financial security that he should never have had a care in the world. Perfect. Except it wasn't. This is something I have in common with Philip Seymour Hoffman. He had been sober 23 years leading up to his heroin overdose. I have been sober 22 years. We are both of the same generation, both from New York and we both have the same disease. He died of his disease, and I am still living with mine.

I was absolutely speechless when I heard he had died. After more than twenty years of sobriety you sort of assume that you have slain the dragon and you don't have to think about it ever again. The truth is, you haven't slain the dragon, you have just driven it from the kingdom, and if you don't build up large castle walls, the dragon can come back and obliterate you. It has happened to me, where the thought occurs to you that maybe, just maybe, you could have a beer, like a normal person, and your life could go on uninterrupted. You can convince yourself of nearly everything, and convincing yourself that you are normal is the insidious voice of the disease whispering in your ear. 

There are some things you can do to counter the dragon whispering in your ear about your normalcy. You can not listen, but that only works for so long. That is not a defense, it is a white knuckling attempt to ignore reality. The better option is to build big castle walls in the form of surrounding yourself with people who don't use. This almost always means eliminating your friends from you life. It can also mean eliminating a spouse or family member from your life. This is hard to do, but it is what is needed. You can fool yourself into thinking you can get by without it, but you won't. You will fail, and you will die. I know, I know…"I'm loyal", "I'd never turn my back on my friends/wife/family etc etc". Yeah, I get it. You're the exception to the rule. The rules don't apply to you.  Your recovery will be different. 

Bullshit. No it won't. You will fail, and you will die. This is reality. Reality is that you should not go to bars, or parties or family gatherings if there will be drinking there. You can't go. If people don't get it…fuck them. You must be as relentless against the disease as the disease will be against you. The disease doesn't care how, why or with whom you use…it only cares that you use. You must be as vigilant as the dragon, and this son of a bitch dragon, he don't sleep.

If you don't have the disease but someone you love does, these rules apply to you as well. You must be as ruthless as the disease. You can cut no slack, you can offer no sympathy, you can only offer a way out, and that is contingent upon the user stopping their use. You cannot argue, or debate or bargain. The deal is, you stop using, and I'll be your best friend and ally. If you use, I will not tolerate your presence. You have to hold yourself to that. It also wouldn't hurt to be an example and not use yourself, even if it isn't "your problem". The truth is, you need to change your life almost as much as the addict does, so be an example of courage through the changes you make.

I've heard and read a lot of people saying Hoffman was "selfish" or an "asshole" for loving the needle more than he loved his kids. I find this line of thought really repulsive and misguided. Hoffman had a disease that killed him. It is a truly cunning disease that doesn't change how much you love people, but it does change how you love people. So hearing people diminish Hoffman's struggles by saying he simply chose this way of life is infuriating to me. That is not to say that those things have no place being said to an addict, they do. If saying those sorts of things makes someone stop using, then go crazy with it. One of my favorite things to say to a male addict is to tell him to "be a man", meaning, clean up and take care of your family and kids and life…"be a man!" (by the way, this is only an option to use if the person saying it has been through recovery and is sober themselves…please keep that in mind).  Here is a brief clip of the approach:

 It might work, it might not, but when the disease has a hold of someone, you do whatever it takes to wrest control away from it, and if that means getting rough, then you get rough. The way I see it is this, when someone in your life is in the throes of addiction it can be a nuisance, an annoyance, a nightmare and a pain in the ass, and you can say all sorts of insensitive and outlandish things like "you're selfish" or "you love the needle more than you love your kids". But when someone dies from addiction, you should say none of those things, all you can say is, it is a tragedy, and seeing it any other way simply reveals you to be an emotionally immature, empathetically obtuse, narcissistic nit-wit and jackass. 

In conclusion, the world lost a truly remarkable artist this past week to a disease that is as unscrupulous as any. I hope we take both Philip Seymour Hoffman's fantastic work and tragic death and use them as lessons for our art and life moving forward. I know I will use it as a joyous reminder of the artistry of acting, and a terrible and tragic reminder that the dragon never sleeps.