A Fitting Tribute

The other night I found myself watching the beginning of a film being shown by Channel Four as a 'tribute' to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.  I say 'tribute', but I have a sneaking suspicion that Before The Devil Knows You're Dead was scheduled long before the actor's untimely demise.  As I watched the film's opening scenes I couldn't help but wonder if this really was a fitting tribute to Hoffman.  Don't misunderstand me - I'm not impugning the quality of the film itself.  After all, it was directed by the great Sidney Lumet (his last film), of whom I'm a great fan, so it goes without saying that it was an intelligent and well made film.  It's just that as I watched Hoffman's character huffing and puffing as he sweatily made love to his screen wife, Marisa Tomei, doggy-style, I couldn't help but ask myself whether this was the way anyone would want to be remembered in a 'tribute'.   Not that it was bad acting, I can testify from personal experience that this kind of activity can leave middle-aged men of a certain girth wheezing wrecks, fearing they are about to suffer a coronary.  It's just that I'm not sure it was an appropriate tribute to the man. 

Anyway, as I watched this scene, my mind couldn't help but wander, (the further from his desperate humping the better).  What if his character was to suffer a fatal heart attack, mid-stroke, I thought.  Taking her from behind, as he was, his prone body would inevitably collapse forward, over his wife, leaving her trapped under his, not inconsiderable, bulk.  How would she get out of that, I wondered.  After all, it would be unlikely, lying flat on her front, the breath knocked out of her, the poor woman would be able to move his dead weight.  If a bedside phone or mobile wasn't within reach, there would be no way of calling for help.  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that there was a small-scale art house movie in this situation.  The sort of thing which wins prizes at Cannes: ninety minutes of a woman struggling to escape from beneath the bulk of her dead lover.  We could follow her attempts to physically move, then to get help by shouting, tapping messages in morse code on the wall.  Maybe there could be a few flashbacks exploring her relationship with the deceased to open things out a bit, maybe also some interior monologues for her.  Whichever way you look at it: a winner,  Now, if only Hoffman had made that film, then it would have been a more fitting tribute to him!