Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs (Almost Famous)

Philip Seymour Hoffman is a great character actor, and everybody can remember him in half a dozen of great roles, where he plays everything, from an introverted nurse, into a world class vilain, but his portrayal of Lester Bangs in "Almost Famous", is still one of his finest, and for various reasons.

The first reason is because Lester Bangs was one of the greatest Rock Critics of all times which means that it will inevitably lead to a direct comparing, and how do you compare to somebody with such a charisma or even give him justice on screen, and the second is that "Almost famous" is semi-autobiographical, it's about the life of the writer-director Cameron Crowe, when he was a teen journalist for Rolling Stone Magazine, and touring the untied states with bands like The Who, or Led Zepplin, in the same fashion depicted in the film, which means that the film is also personal, and everybody knows what personal often means in cinema.

Lester Bangs was famous for his irreverance towards the "Rock Stars" which he saw as "people who were not that special", he is still very influencial as a rock critic years after his death at ayoung age, but the most important fact is that in the movie he acts as the mentor for Henry Miller (Cameron Crowe's alter ego), and that means that the task was not easy, considering the small screen time offred to SHH, who had to make the mentor-student believable to the student himself years later.

The movie is about the journey of Teenage William Miller and the audience into the glamourous world of seventies Rock music and touring, and it's fast paced life, pretences, and the whole "industry of cool" when it was just starting, and Lester is the Equivalent of a Yoda to a Luke SkyWalker, being more of a spiritual guide then a teacher, William calling him everytime he has a problem or an issue with the scary Rolling Stone editors, especially when he is writing the assignment of his life, for Rolling Stone magazine (of which Cameron Crowe is still the record holder as the youngest contributor)

Portraying vivid characters is difficult especially those who did actually exist, portraying Lester Bangs, is almost impossible, but PSH was right for the job, he makes you love the guy and care for him, and want to be tutoured by him about music and life, he has roughly four or five scenes in the movie, but these are probably some of the most memorables ones, he is the one who "been there, done that", so he helps the movie to advance, and of course makes you nostalgic to these days where journalist could write the way he did, or the way Hunter Thompson did, the days there was a margin of freedom in artistic press, way before MTV.

Philip Seymour Hoffman did not win an oscar for that performance, but he did win for his portrayal of another larger then life figure "Truman Capote", but I am sure that the Academy voters had his portryal of Bangs in mind when they casted their votes, i sure would have voted for him !!

and one last quote for the road...

LESTER BANGS
The only true currency in this bankrupt world if what we share with someone else when we're uncool.

I don't know if he ACTUALLY said that, but man it's so true !