The cinema has a way of collapsing time
that can be rather nice, seeing actors we really enjoy looking 20, 30 or 40
years younger - or even Maggie Smith as Desdemona 50 years ago. But
sometimes it can produce a kind of retroactive irony that becomes tragic. I recently watched Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams with Philip Seymour Hoffman in
a supporting role. Both of them now
dead, both by their own hands, one
deliberately, one by accident. And on
Thursday night I watched Sydney Lumet’s film ‘Before
the Devil Knows You're Dead’ and there was Hoffman playing (brilliantly of
course) a heroin user. Irony
bleeds into tragedy.
