5/30/2010

Dear Dennis,

I am sorry not to have physically been with you the moment you left, but you know I was there otherwise. You went quietly and with a smile, I was told. That is not surprising. You always seemed to know the value of the saying “Si vis vitam, para mortem” (”If you want to endure life, prepare for death”). You travelled eagerly, hopefully, acknowledging all that you found good, bad, and indifferent in yourself and in others you encountered along the way. I enclose a few pictures from our walk around Amsterdam a few years ago, where you showed us so many things and made us laugh as usual, as well as some words that always remind me of you – that 1971 quote from your fellow Kansan, the poet William Stafford. Here it is again, in case it comes in handy wherever you are today:

“I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don’t have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.”

See you later, brother.

Love,
Viggo.

俳優, 監督, アーティストとして活躍した
Denis Hopper が亡くなりました。

わたしにとっては、かのスバル座でリバイバル上映を観た
Easy Rider でのマルチな才能(監督, 脚本, 助演のBilly 役)、
そして、写真家としての印象がとても強かったかた。

Easy Rider で時代のアイコンとなったのは
Captain America/Wyatt 役のPeter Fonda だったかもしれませんが
個人的にはむしろDenis Hopper のほうが
“永遠の反逆児”というイメージがあるんです。

彼の死に際し、親しかったViggo Mortensen が、上記のレターを発表しました。
Viggo も俳優だけでなく、写真家, 画家, 文筆家としても活躍しているだけに
共有するものがいろいろあったのかもしれません。
Viggo はThe Indian Runnerのころから知っている大好きな俳優。
当時は、”俳優もやってるアーティスト”なんだと勝手に思ってました。あ、でもいまもそうなのかも

May his soul rest in peace…

» Dennis Hopper dies at 74; actor directed counterculture classic ‘Easy Rider’
» Remembering Dennis Hopper, photographer