rutger hauer

i loved this actor.  rutger hauer possessed a huge charisma that was menacing, dangerous, beguiling &, for me at least, irresistible.  he played the lead replicant, roy batty, in the great flick blade runner [1982] to savage perfection.  hauer's half smile & beautiful eyes held me fixed to his images onscreen & batty was the warrior/philosopher par excellence.  the actor claimed that his most famous final words -- poetry, indeed -- were ad-libbed.  whether that be true or no matters little for in this speech hauer spoke with the gravitas & wisdom of a philosopher.

but it was a later film, the hitcher [1986], that i fell in love with rutger hauer.  holy shit!  hauer assays the dark, deadly & mysterious john ryder with such intensity.  i was -- still am -- obsessed with this flick.  why does ryder do what he does?  i've been puzzling that for over thirty years.  i remember my then-girlfriend & i would parse each scene, every action, even the tune ryder hums to get closer to his dark heart.  i can't think of an actor better for this role than rutger hauer.

in this century i bought the dvd, hobo with a shotgun [2011], blind because i knew it starred rutger hauer as the eponymous hobo -- with a shotgun!!! -- & it was a purposeful throwback to 1980s straight-to-video exploitation flicks.  hauer & the movie don't disappoint.

rutger hauer died at the relatively late age of 75.  a generation or two 75 would be called old.  today?  well, age is a fact of living.  we are all aging.  perhaps i am biased because i am closer to my own 60s than i am to my 20s.  c'est la vie.  still, hauer lived a fairly long life.  he made some wonderful movies with that life.  hauer gave this particular movie buff a great amount of pleasure & happiness.  he was a powerful actor.  i call that a life well-lived.