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Philip Seymour Hoffman
I’m too upset to think of anything much to say about this.
Found dead with needle in arm–the headline says.
He was without question among the best of his time. I never was moved so deeply, so consistently by an actor’s performances. He had that deep energy. A bit of mischief and empathy in his eyes, and rough round edges that made him seem so disarmingly real on screen.
Never felt like he was faking it. (Here’s a link to a highlight reel of his work.)
In the end, it’s a story like so many others.
There were signs of trouble. A recent stint in rehab after a long stretch of sobriety.
46 years old. Left three kids behind.
I don’t know what to say except I’m angry and deeply sad that he’s gone.
I snapped this photo two years ago outside the Ethel Barrymore Theater on 47th street on my way in to see the show.
It was his last run on Broadway.
Why’d you have to do this, Phil?
Published in General
cont from #39.
Probably, but it’s illegal already, there is law enforcement now, and it didn’t help. You have to weigh all the massive negative effects and realize government intervention is causing far more harm to people than the occasional person it saves. Libertarianism doesn’t mean we stop trying to save people from destructive decisions, it just means we acknowledge that a one-size-fits-all solution practically never works out in the aggregate.
The loss of Hoffman is devastating. Perhaps if he wasn’t relegated to the heightened secrecy of illegality, he might also have been saved.
So many of the best actors seem to suffer from less than good mental health. They self medicate in a variety of ways. From the reports this seems to be the case with PSH. He will definitely be missed as it seems that every one of his performances were “don’t miss” caliber.
This must be a generational thing. When I saw the news posted on another site, my brain asked “Who?” Didn’t recognize him from a photo, either.
Looked through the list of movies he was in, and I haven’t seen a single one of them.
I tend not to react much when celebrities pass on anyway. I figure I didn’t really know the person. I am only saddened to learn that he left behind young children.
But it’s really Jasper’s passing that’s affecting me. I’ve been reading the adventures of Jasper since he was a pup.
I have a friend that claims he’s met junkies through AA that have truly kicked the habit and never gone back. Sadly, I’ve never known one: it killed a measurable percentage of my childhood friends, and always in the same way. They’d kick it for a while (six months seems like an average), shoot up once at the level they were used to prior to getting clean, and die of an overdose. Maybe the same thing happened here. ·9 hours ago
I know one – I asked him how once, and he told me that when he held his dying friend in his arms the desire for more left him.
It’s a real shame. I feel bad for the wife and kids most of all. Fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
His irresponsibility is the most tragic thing, three children losing their father to a selfish act of weakness . Addiction is not the monstrous culprit here, as Theodore Dalrymple has written, heroin withdrawal is not the anguished stuff of the movies. It is a selfish habit that is hard to regulate due to it’s illicit nature .
The business he was in is responsible as well. Actors with drug problems need to be well-insured before they are paid to do movies, this assumes the producers know their actor/employees foibles. Until they stop paying the people they know to have drug problems, these people will continue to be in the spotlight, even being cultural heroes. This is wrong. It is also the same way of thinking that allows Woody Allen to make movies ( if what is alleged is true) .
Shame on the people who profit as they insure a shooting schedule that won’t be interrupted by their stars shooting up as their children played three blocks away.
They kill their golden geese all too often.
Now a tune from Judy Garland…accompanied by Charlie Parker, with backup singersWhitney Houston , Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday. Elvis has left the building
Heroin is devastating. It is an addiction that is– absent God’s mercy– one of the hardest habits to kick. The adaptation of the brain as a result of heroin use is what makes it so challenging to stop. In very short order, one’s ability to choose not to take the drug becomes a herculean effort. Even after long periods of sobriety.
Very sad indeed. R.I.P. Mr. Hoffman.
For the life of me I do not understand how locking up drug users and making them criminals. Forcing them and their family to spend their assets to defend themselves and their loved ones from our impersonal judicial system. Making it so that they are unable to get and hold jobs (ever). Helps the situation in anyway. Talk about kicking people when they are down. Do I have a solution? NO. But I do know what is not working and is not helping.
Over the course of my police career I’ve arrested many heroin users, some for possession of the stuff and others for the crimes they committed in order to get it. I used to ask them if they thought it should be legalized. I found it striking that of the dozens I put the question to, only one thought it should be. I’ll never forget one man who, when I asked him the question, said, “No way.”
“And why not?” I asked.
“Because if it’s legal, pretty soon everyone will be like me.”
I understand the libertarian position on drug laws, but it raises a conundrum: Is a man truly free if he is enslaved to a drug habit? For all his wealth and success, was Philip Seymour Hoffman free? And would he and those who love him have been better off if he had been arrested as he purchased what turned out to be the final, fatal dose?
Jack,
My thoughts on this are more selfish. I don’t want my tax dollars being used to investigate/prosecute/incarcerate some idiot that wants to fry his brain.
Those resources would be better spent stopping violence and theft. And, there might be less violence/theft related to the illegal drug trade.
Wouldn’t it be more rewarding going after people doing things to other people, rather than to themselves?
I understand the libertarian position on drug laws, but it raises a conundrum: Is a man truly free if he is enslaved to a drug habit?
I don’t support legalizing heroin. I think that’s a horrible idea. That said, I don’t think anyone is free if they’re a slave to a drug. But I also can’t choose freedom for someone else, either.
I am curious though, given your experience what would be your solution to end drug use?
I have a friend that claims he’s met junkies through AA that have truly kicked the habit and never gone back. Sadly, I’ve never known one: it killed a measurable percentage of my childhood friends, and always in the same way. They’d kick it for a while (six months seems like an average), shoot up once at the level they were used to prior to getting clean, and die of an overdose. Maybe the same thing happened here.
My thoughts on this are more selfish. I don’t want my tax dollars being used to investigate/prosecute/incarcerate some idiot that wants to fry his brain.
Those resources would be better spent stopping violence and theft. And, there might be less violence/theft related to the illegal drug trade. ·22 minutes ago
Edited 22 minutes ago
I’m not sure I would define my similar position “selfish,” as I would be willing to see public resources go to discourage heroine use through education. (Dying of an overdose when you’ve got three kids? That’s selfish.) However, if you want to have a minimal (re: libertarian) government, then you have to prioritize. Stopping things like murder, theft, rape, and human trafficking strike me as extremely high priorities for law enforcement’s resources in such a situation. And based on my own life experiences, I’m not convinced you *can* stop a junkie from getting what they need outside of some sort of incarceration – and it only lasts for as long as the incarceration. So better to focus limited funds and limited personnel in a hypothetical limited, libertarian state on stopping and prosecuting more serious crime.
The bulk of people in prison have substance abuse histories. I bring it up because stating that you don’t know why substances abusers are locked up, denied access to their families, etc., lets them off the hook for the responsibility they should be taking for their own actions.
In other words, it’s encouraging a substance abuser to hide. Which is what anyone who is addicted is doing, from themselves and their lives.
Good luck with that approach.
So by your estimation PSH should have been locked up for drug use? Even though as far as we know he committed no crime but the drug use? And as far as we know he was a very productive member of society despite his drug use up to his death?
I think it depends on what the person has done that’s landed them in the judicial system in the first place that merits discussion regarding locking them up or not. If you’re breaking into homes to feed your addiction, you are a threat to public safety – so tough tacos. If your decisions – your freely-chosen path – puts you in a position where you can’t control yourself, then it’s a short walk to the place where I feel like any help you might receive is anecdotal to the more urgent need to keep you from breaking into homes and (maybe) killing to feed a habit.
That is a different discussion and one I am not sure why anybody brings up. If a drug user or anybody breaks into homes then get them for that offense or any other crime they commit. I doubt you would find anybody that has an issue with that. But drug use does not equal breaking into houses or killing people or mugging people. We do not have a national “war on burglary” or a “war on assault”, but we do have one on drugs. Why? I suspect because there is money in it somewhere.
Give me a second here and I’ll tie heroin use in with movies; maybe even an evil movie.
Years ago my mother’s best friend’s son committed suicide. He shot his brains out, but did it where his mother would not find him (hats off to him for that last gesture).
In his 40’s he had struggled with heroin his entire life. When he killed himself he had a job and $$ in the bank, so I’ve always thought he had not relapsed.
My mother went to help clean out his apt. There was a Blockbuster video in the machine. It was the last movie he had watched – he hadn’t rewound. My mother called me to ask if I had seen the movie because her friend wanted to watch it.
Trainspotting.
I told my mother to grab the movie out of her friend’s hands and return it and under no circumstances was anyone to watch it.
Can you imagine knowing the last thing your addict son watched was a movie so filled with despair and hopelessness?
Let’s be objective; taking drugs, especially injecting heroin, does not a “very productive member of society” make; anyway not for long.
This particular argument will never be a strong suit, if your desire is to persuade us that drugs should be de-criminalized.
In this sad case, the actor was able to keep the details of his problem private (except, of course, from his family and close friends), but for the majority of drug addicts, their lives fall apart and before they die or end up in jail, society has to deal with their misbehavior.
Hence, the public’s reluctance to decriminalize drugs.
I agree that Philip Seymour Hoffman was one of the finest actors of his generation and I feel a loss at the performances there will never be. But let’s face it. He made a conscious decision to throw his life away. He chose suicide on the installment plan. While we can’t help but feel sorry for his partner and children, I find it hard to feel sorry for Hoffman.
I reserve my sorrow for people like John Cazale. He was every bit the actor that Hoffman was and died even younger of a cancer he fought as long as he could. He made only five movies – and each was nominated by the Academy for best picture. He, unlike Hoffman, went down fighting and I hold him in higher esteem for it.
Years ago my mother’s best friend’s son committed suicide. He shot his brains out, but did it where his mother would not find him (hats off to him for that last gesture).
In his 40’s he had struggled with heroin his entire life. When he killed himself he had a job and $$ in the bank, so I’ve always thought he had not relapsed.
My mother went to help clean out his apt. There was a Blockbuster video in the machine. It was the last movie he had watched – he hadn’t rewound. My mother called me to ask if I had seen the movie because her friend wanted to watch it.
Trainspotting.
I told my mother to grab the movie out of her friend’s hands and return it and under no circumstances was anyone to watch it.
Can you imagine knowing the last thing your addict son watched was a movie so filled with despair and hopelessness? ·7 hours ago
Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting) is a talented actor but has been in several ‘dark’movies.
To enjoy him as an excellent actor, in a fine role, see him in ‘Emma’ (2009) with Romola Garrai.
It worked for Robert Downey, Jr. PSH was not locked up and now he’s dead. Besides, most of the people who are in prison for drug possession have pleaded down from more serious crimes. Condoning or excusing the behavior creates more of it. We, as a society, want less drug use, not more.