Our Broken Hearts: My Tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman

On a blustery Friday evening in Dupont Circle, I had some time before meeting friends for drinks so I popped into Kramer Books, meandered around for a bit and grabbed what I considered a sure way to escape for an hour: Selected Writings of Truman Capote. I headed to the narrow cove of a bar for a quick dress rehearsal drink. Overlapping voices echoed in a symphonic cacophony.

That was how all of Washington sounded in those winter months. The election of Barack Obama had lifted something off the city's shoulders. I eased into the embrace of the fine prose of Capote, who would have described that crisp, renewal of our spirit in those months, - - the relief and community that we shared too - - for a moment in time, we could be who we really are.

In the essay "Bobby," Capote described Bobby Kennedy's sweetness and charm. The parties at Marilyn's house. The long nights of laughter in Hollywood. The essay may have been titled "Bobby," but it may as well have been called "Truman". Special note was made at the conclusion of the essay -- when Bobby was assassinated, Capote cried. That's how powerful this little runt of an Irish Catholic on Marilyn's couch was. -- powerful enough to make Himself cry. Motioning for a second glass of wine, balanced on my lonely perch at the bar, I thought of what an anti-social, alcoholic, son-of-a-bitch Capote truly was. Eye-roll. Glance at cell phone.

In remembering reading about Capote remembering Bobby, my mind scanned images -- not of a murdered family in Kansas or of Audrey Hepburn in black and white -- but to Philip Seymour Hoffman's surrender on screen when he truly became Truman Capote. That's the type of work Philip Seymour Hoffman created in film. He surrendered to the role of the tormented, in Capote, the otherwise forgotten, as the hospice nurse in Magnolia, and in the role as the critical liaison between Mr. Lebowski and Mr. Lebowski, - - a voice for those who just want a rug back because it ties the room together. I think it is safe to say that Philip Seymour Hoffman gave us a chance to find our own redemption in the experiences of his characters. But most of us will never kiss Marky Mark.

I read on a blog yesterday that we won't find George Clooney or Matt Damon dead in an apartment with a syringe piercing their arms. We don't have to worry about losing most of today's mainstream actors to the fatal disease of addiction, it said. Even Matt Damon's stellar performance in Team America can't earn him a place in the same category as Hoffman. Those guys just aren't made of the stuff Philip Seymour Hoffman was made of.

 He was made of something different.

And after a rush of euphoric sensation, Philip Seymour Hoffman peacefully went to sleep for good. He will never again draw out of us our own need for self-forgiveness. He needed a remedy on Sunday, and we needed the redemption we received from him through the years. I guess we've all gotten that for which our essence begs. Thank you for that, Philip Seymour Hoffman. May you now rest in peace, forever separated from your broken heart.