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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2013 22:56:59 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2014 15:31:12 GMT
Goodbye, Maximilian Schell...
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 1, 2014 17:38:56 GMT
Maybe the most dignified face in film ever.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2014 19:32:26 GMT
Goodbye, Philip Seymour Hoffman, age 46. Quite a few outstanding roles. No cause of death has been determined yet.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2014 19:42:36 GMT
I believe it was a heroin overdose.
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Post by htmb on Feb 2, 2014 19:45:31 GMT
Wow! Yes, he did have many outstanding roles.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2014 20:12:49 GMT
The Academy must be so grateful of this sort of stuff happening sufficiently in advance to prepare the video homage. Yes, I am being both cynical and realistic.
I always found him creepy, so I will readily subscribe to the heroin idea without even having read any additional information yet. Yet his creepiness made him perfect for a number of roles, so he was well used by the cinema.
There is still one major actor that I have never been able to stand in spite of his apparent talent, and when he finally leaves there is absolutely nothing that I will regret about the event.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2014 20:16:39 GMT
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Post by mich64 on Feb 2, 2014 20:21:02 GMT
My heart is sad for his 3 young children. I understand this happens to families everyday, but we are being included in their despair by watching or reading news reports of the situation on this day, so it make me sad to know they will have to learn to live their lives without their dear father.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2014 20:40:19 GMT
I think that for some reason all of us will always be perplexed at how people with oodles of money (or at least who should have oodles of money unless they stupidly pissed it all away) can have such unhappy or unsatisfactory lives. Yes, we all know that money can't buy happiness, but it sure can help a lot.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2014 20:50:39 GMT
I was positively STUNNED to read of this recent passing. I was a huge fan of Mr. Hoffman, his range, talent, versatility always had my admiration. I just viewed a film, A Late Quartet, in which he starred alongside Christopher Walken and two other actors whose names I cannot immediately recall. This is very sad and devastating news to me.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 2, 2014 20:52:47 GMT
That's a shocker. Although at times I could see why he was so lauded as an actor, I confess I found him somewhat overrated. And you hit the nail on the head about the creepiness factor, Kerouac.
You are kind, Mich. Those kids are left with the legacy of another crummy celebrity death.
I don't know that heroin or other hard drug use is always a function of unhappiness. I suspect there might be an element of hubris involved, which leads to fatal carelessness.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2014 21:14:07 GMT
As someone who has struggled with depression for a life time, I can completely understand the demons that drive people toward pain relief.
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Post by htmb on Feb 2, 2014 21:28:29 GMT
Life is certainly very complicated. None of us can really know why certain individuals do what they do, particularly when those persons may not even understand. Creepy factor or not, it's always sad to see a talented life, or ANY life, end at such a young age.
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Post by tod2 on Feb 3, 2014 16:49:43 GMT
I immediately thought of you Kerouac when I heard the news this morning. Why? Well because you seem to know everyone in the movie business. I have never heard of him. Suicide is such a debatable subject - all I know is that if you take heroin - even just once - you are a gonner. It is the most enslaving of all hard drugs and that you can not escape ever!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2014 18:04:40 GMT
Well, we don't know that he intentionally meant to kill himself, therefore,calling it suicide would be wrong. Yes, self destructive, wreckless, and clearly possessed by the demons that cause addiction in any form is a disease. Psychic pain takes on many forms. And, even with having been sober for 23 years, there is no guarantee that one is "home free" from whatever haunted him and others. I never got the impression that Mr. Hoffman was of the school of celebrity party animals a la Hendrix, Joplin and so many others. He was still very productive and seemingly dedicated to his craft and children. Who knows what his current state of mind was when he died, by choice, or not.
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Post by fumobici on Feb 3, 2014 18:43:37 GMT
- all I know is that if you take heroin - even just once - you are a gonner. It is the most enslaving of all hard drugs and that you can not escape ever! That isn't actually true, heroin is of course highly addictive--about the same addictive strength in terms of peoples' ability to voluntarily discontinue using as cigarettes. I took heroin a few times as an inhaled powder in my dissolute youth and never felt the need to continue. One apparently needs to use for over a week on a fairly continuous basis for the physical addiction to fully manifest. And some people have fallen into addiction and managed to extricate themselves just as some cigarette smokers can successfully quit. That being said, if one gets into the habit of injecting street drugs, the odds of it ending badly are pretty overwhelming. Many in the medical field are addicted to prescription opiates and manage to live outwardly normal and productive lives, with even their immediate families being unaware. The subject of illegal recreational drugs is really frequently a minefield of pseudoscience, scare stories with little or no basis in actual fact and deliberate misinformation. I understand this is often done with the best of intentions, but at the same time one should, because of the prevalence of misinformation, approach all claims with a healthy skepticism.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2014 18:55:18 GMT
Thumbs up, fumobici.
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Post by htmb on Feb 3, 2014 19:00:50 GMT
Fumobici, can we also assume there are addictive personalities that can become drug-dependent just as there are alcoholics who are completely unable to tolerate alcohol?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2014 19:12:45 GMT
htmb, aren't dependency and non-tolerance at the opposite ends of the scale?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2014 19:18:47 GMT
Actually, I did the same as fumobici on and off for maybe about six months, and I was already at least 30 years old. It was part of my programme of "don't trash it if you've never tried it." This was sort of spawned by so much bullshit that I had heard over the years about things being bad for you that really were not.
In any case, I don't think I can even describe the attraction of the effect, but you can be assured that it is powerful. And a craving for that nasty stuff does set in very rapidly. Being a contrary personality, I recognized the physical discomfort of stopping any use as being an appropriate punishment for having touched it in the first place and I happily wallowed in self loathing for a few days. I never had any desire to try it again.
For those wondering what the withdrawal symptoms feel like, I would say that it feels like your bones are itching but you just can't scratch the right place because of all of that annoying flesh covering your body.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2014 19:49:41 GMT
Someone wote this in the Guardian regarding Hoffman:
Concise and complete.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2014 20:11:51 GMT
Both Depression and Addiction are genetic. Often times are dual diagnosed. Whether you are addicted to drugs, alcohol, choose your poison. The major problem being is that abusing drugs including alcohol only exacerbates the depression despite the temporary relief it may serve. They are diseases that are inherited. Some go by unscathed so to speak, but,it is so commonplace and widespread.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2014 20:12:17 GMT
In terms of that particular drug, its principal appeal is that it makes you feel as though any problem that you have ever had at any time in your life is of absolutely no importance. Frankly, that's pretty appealing for a lot of people.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2014 20:15:13 GMT
Perhaps that's one of the reasons I never experimented with it....
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2014 21:12:30 GMT
That's pretty much the same for lots of drugs. Most of the people I know who have never touched any sort of drug never said that it was because of moral outrage but because "I'm afraid that I would like it too much."
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2014 22:07:17 GMT
The subject of illegal recreational drugs is really frequently a minefield of pseudoscience, scare stories with little or no basis in actual fact and deliberate misinformation. I understand this is often done with the best of intentions, but at the same time one should, because of the prevalence of misinformation, approach all claims with a healthy skepticism. I've heard it said that the baseless scare stories can actually backfire. As soon as many people in my age group figured out that "one marijuana cigarette" would not in fact lead to certain death in the gutter with a heroin needle in the arm, they felt it was safe to try other recreational drugs.
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Post by mich64 on Feb 3, 2014 22:38:31 GMT
We have been involved with a nephew addicted to drugs for over 10 years now. It has finally come to the point where we have had to distance ourselves from him as we have finally come to understanding that there is absolutely nothing more we can do for him. It was devastating to learn that a couple of months ago he had to have parts of his fingers surgically removed due to dead tissue caused by his drug addiction. He also has fathered another child, he has limited and monitored access to this child. He has lost all rights to his first child. Very sad situation.
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Post by lola on Feb 4, 2014 1:52:46 GMT
My two favorite Hoffman roles were in Minghella-directed films: Cold Mountain and Talented Mr. Ripley.
I wonder whether he had resumed using heroin at doses he'd used previously when using it a lot and used to it. People can really build up a tolerance.
I never could quite see shooting anything into my veins, so never had a heroin phase. I did try a few puffs of opium, but it didn't do anything for me so was a waste.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2014 3:54:58 GMT
Days on from the fact, if anyone is interested, here is a series of quotes by Philip Seymour Hoffman about the business of acting and his place in it. It's illuminating because you can really see the amount of thought, energy and spirit it took for him to be creative. As an actor myself I can recognise a lot of the issues he talks about. Ultimately, I think the the pain of being a hyper-sensitive being, the quality that made him a great actor, was also what led him to take his own life. www.imdb.com/name/nm0000450/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotesI've really appreciated this discussion, by the way.
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