I have no delusion that Phillip Seymour Hoffman owed me anything. He didn't know me, nor I him. We weren't friends. Still...
Art is a contract, isn't it? We both (creator and consumer) invest something in the exchange and expect something in return. That seems only fair. Without my emotional investment, the roles Hoffman played would be meaningless to me. And without a similar investment by thousands of others, he wouldn't have been able to do what he did at all, because there wouldn't have been an audience for it.
Don't get me wrong, I think the guy had every right to be a junkie if he wanted. He had the right to take his own life, too, if the overdose was intentional (though I choose to think it was not). But still there is an anger in me that he left so soon, that what I gave, though a minuscule part of the whole, was so lightly regarded that he could die before his time. That perspective feels a bit bizarre even to me, but I think it's a valid one.
Not taking care to stay here for us is a breach of faith, it seems to me. Now, retiring from the scene (as in Grace Kelly, for instance, or J.D. Salinger) is a different matter—they and others like them decide for whatever reason that they are through with serving up what we want. But to exit inadvertently or with malice, either one, is to rip apart that bond between us, no matter how tenuous it might be.
Do you hear that, Marilyn? John Belushi, are you listening? David Foster Wallace, you prick, did you hear what I said? Does this ring a bell, Heath? C'mon, Kurt, did you really have to put that gun in your mouth? James Gandolfini, Andy Kaufman, Whitney Houston, James Dean, Jim Morrison, Judy Garland, Jimi, Janice, oh the list goes on and on. It is so sad. I feel so deprived.
And I feel a bit of a cheat, too. What business do I have to still be alive when The Big Bopper died so young?
Yet, we carry on. The world goes round. We celebrate who they were and listen, watch, and read what they did. We hold them in our hearts. We hope they are at peace. We wish them well on the journey. We go on.
Art is a contract, isn't it? We both (creator and consumer) invest something in the exchange and expect something in return. That seems only fair. Without my emotional investment, the roles Hoffman played would be meaningless to me. And without a similar investment by thousands of others, he wouldn't have been able to do what he did at all, because there wouldn't have been an audience for it.
Don't get me wrong, I think the guy had every right to be a junkie if he wanted. He had the right to take his own life, too, if the overdose was intentional (though I choose to think it was not). But still there is an anger in me that he left so soon, that what I gave, though a minuscule part of the whole, was so lightly regarded that he could die before his time. That perspective feels a bit bizarre even to me, but I think it's a valid one.
Not taking care to stay here for us is a breach of faith, it seems to me. Now, retiring from the scene (as in Grace Kelly, for instance, or J.D. Salinger) is a different matter—they and others like them decide for whatever reason that they are through with serving up what we want. But to exit inadvertently or with malice, either one, is to rip apart that bond between us, no matter how tenuous it might be.
 |
| David Foster Wallace |
Do you hear that, Marilyn? John Belushi, are you listening? David Foster Wallace, you prick, did you hear what I said? Does this ring a bell, Heath? C'mon, Kurt, did you really have to put that gun in your mouth? James Gandolfini, Andy Kaufman, Whitney Houston, James Dean, Jim Morrison, Judy Garland, Jimi, Janice, oh the list goes on and on. It is so sad. I feel so deprived.
And I feel a bit of a cheat, too. What business do I have to still be alive when The Big Bopper died so young?
Yet, we carry on. The world goes round. We celebrate who they were and listen, watch, and read what they did. We hold them in our hearts. We hope they are at peace. We wish them well on the journey. We go on.
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