“Hoffman was different. The pain behind our befallen actor’s art turned out to be real. What he had to share with the world was real.” — Dean Essner
Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous — a movie that, to my mind, is irreplaceable and perfect — ponders many questions about art and the bridge between its creators and consumers. On the surface, it’s a beautiful film about the way music transcends life, how a song or record or guitar riff can inspire us on an individual level while also bringing people together.
At the same time, Almost Famous examines how musicians behave when not making meaningful art, tasking us — and main character William Miller — with reconciling our image of musicians as heroes and geniuses with the people they actually are.
In the film, the teenaged Miller is hired by Rolling Stone to write a feature piece on fictional rock band Stillwater, which is on the cusp of mainstream success. To complete his story, Miller follows them from city to city, getting to know each member of the band — especially the tortured, introverted guitarist Russell Hammond — as they rise to prominence.
But the most interesting and memorable character in Crowe’s film is Lester Bangs, a rock critic for the now defunct Creem Magazine who mentors Miller and comforts him when both his story and his struggle to fit in with the band seem to be going nowhere.
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool,” he famously tells Miller, reminding him that while he might never be a rock star, he’ll always be genuine. He’ll never have to worry about that disconcerting gap between the idolized artist and the everyday man.
Bangs is brilliantly portrayed by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died Sunday from an apparent drug overdose. His death not only gives us a reason to revisit the film, but also reframes Almost Famous and Bangs’ iconic advice.
In his too-short acting career, Hoffman had a knack for playing convincing misfits, characters who were weird and wily in their own special ways and often flawed beyond emotional reproach. Some were more content with their lives than others, but it was a common thread among all of them that, no matter what the circumstances were, their time was limited. No Hoffman character was stable. And apparently, as we now know, neither was he.
This unfortunate truth only further vitalizes Bangs’ famous ode to staying uncool, or more importantly, staying true to who you are.
In Almost Famous, Hammond turns out to be both an amazing musician and a lousy, egocentric person. Bangs was different — Hoffman was different. The pain behind our befallen actor’s art turned out to be real. What he had to share with the world was real.
And as haunting as it may seem, that’s true currency.
