The Doubt

François Truffaut

In these last days, I have been thinking a lot about a question that Truffaut loved to ask: 
“What’s more important for you: cinema or life?”
A real dilemma, as far as I’m concerned.
The only thing I know is that - very, very often - cinema looks much better than life.
For sure, that’s what I thought last Sunday when, in the space of few hours, I read first about the letter that Woody Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, wrote to the NYT blog of Nicholas Kristof and then about Philip Seymour Hoffman's death (due to a heroin overdose) in his Manhattan apartment. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Shit! That’s what I thought. 
How is it possible that one of my favourite film-makers, the man who wrote and directed perfect gems like The Purple Rose of Cairo and Hanna and her sisters could be accused of being a child abuser?
How is it possible that one of my favourite actors, the amazing, breath-taking, incredible Philip Seymour Hoffman could have died so young and in such awful way?
I am afraid neither of my questions is easily (or maybe even possibly) answered.
Why? Because life is complicated, and because every human being is a mystery and a world of his/her own which will remain unpredictable and unknown until the end.
If last Sunday was a movie, though, I swear I would have opted for the Happy Ending.
So that there were no child molested, no film-maker being accused of molesting his daughter, no magnificent actor to be found dead. 
There are days when the desire of disappearing behind a silver screen is really, really strong, days when the dark side of existence makes you feel so vulnerable that you just want to run away. And the answer to that famous question seems pretty obvious.
By the way, today is François Truffaut's birthday, and every time I see that picture of him among all those movies, mon coeur fait boum!
He didn't have any doubt in answering that question. Lucky him.
Zazie         

ps Of all the movies made by Philip Seymour Hoffman, I decided to show you the one where, strangely enough, he doesn’t even appear: the Australian animated film Mary and Max (2009) by Adam Elliot, where Toni Collette gives her voice to Mary, an eight year old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Seymour Hoffman gives his voice to Max, a forty-four year old obese man with Asperger's Syndrome living in New York. The story of an incredible friendship. And the undisputed evidence that, even without his body on screen, Hoffman was able to create unforgettable characters. 
That's what great actors do.
I'm gonna miss you, pal!