“…we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs.”

The aforementioned quote is from young adult novelist John Green’s third novel, Paper Towns. In the book, Quentin Jacobsen, a high school senior, spends an unforgettable night with his childhood best friend and lifelong crush, Margo, who successfully avoided Quentin throughout high school. The next day, Margo disappears, and it is not clear whether she has run away or committed suicide. Quentin begins a quest to find Margo. Towards the end of this journey, Quentin realizes that he has been in love with an “idea” of Margo, one he has created in his head.

When Quentin finally finds Margo, he sees the real Margo for the first time. He says:

Maybe it’s more like you said before, all of us being cracked open. Like, each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. And these things happen—these people leave us, or don’t love us, or don’t get us, or we don’t get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel starts to crack open in places. And I mean, yeah, once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable. Once it starts to rain inside the Osprey, it will never be remodeled. But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart. And it’s only in that time that we can see one another, because we see ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs. When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out. (302)

Quentin implies that we only see one another in moments of vulnerability, and in particular, moments of shared vulnerability.

Perhaps this quote can better help us understand and assess the performances of the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. 

The following is an excerpt from Tom Junod’s tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman. It appeared in Esquire on February 2^nd, 2014.

He often played creeps, but he rarely played them creepily. His metier was human loneliness — the terrible uncinematic kind that has very little to do with high-noon heroism and everything to do with everyday empathy — and the necessary curse of human self-knowledge. He held up a mirror to those who could barely stand to look at themselves and invited us not only to take a peek but to see someone we recognized. He played frauds who knew they were frauds, schemers who knew they were schemers, closeted men who could only groan with frustrated love, heavy breathers dignified by impeccable manners, and angels who could withstand the worst that life could hand out because they seemed to know the worst was just the beginning. And what united all his roles was the stoic calm he brought to them, the stately concentration that assured us that no matter whom Philip Seymour Hoffman played, Philip Seymour Hoffman himself was protected.

That’s what I thought, anyway — in reading the early reports of his death, I was surprised that he’d battled the demon of addiction, because I’d always confused Hoffman’s mastery with detachment, and assumed that he had lived by Flaubert’s charge to live an orderly life so that he could be violent and original in his work. But I shouldn’t have been surprised, and — here’s that contradictory and complementary response again — I wasn’t. I’d never met Philip Seymour Hoffman, never knew anyone who knew him, never even read a passably revealing magazine profile of him. All I really knew was that he was a character actor who came as close to being a movie star as character actors ever get, and that he played the lead in more Hollywood movies than any other portly, freckly, gingery man in human history. And that, in its way, is all I, or anyone else, needs to know.

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."--Gustave Flaubert

Now we know: Hoffman did not lead an orderly life. His troubled lifestyle likely shaped his ability to so effectively portray human loneliness.

***

Let's now relate this to a film we have watched. 

In Almost Famous, Hoffman portrays legendary rock critic, Lester Bangs. Towards the end of the film, William is in a state of panic: he has never actually interviewed Russell, and he has reached the conclusion that one of his musical heroes is shallow, self-absorbed, and delusional; also, his article is nowhere near complete. William calls Lester in a panic, and in the intimate phone conversation that follows, Lester says the following to William:

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool.”

This seems to echo the sentiments of Paper Towns. 

Quentin and Margo, Russell Hammond and William Miller, and Philip Seymour Hoffman: all of these characters and people are most honestly represented in states of vulnerability, the only time in which we truly and honestly represent one another.

Your Task:

Explain how this idea (“…we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs.”) relates to...

• 2 characters and their relationship in Almost Famous
• 1 performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman
• 1 personal anecdote or connection

Post your response as a comment on this blog. Responses are due by midnight on Thursday, February 13.

Adequate responses need to be thoughtful, proofread, and coherent. Late responses, or responses not posted to the blog, will not be accepted or counted towards any credit whatsoever.