One rarely gets a chance to watch an actor that can emote with the subtlest of performances and wring audiences’ eyes dry. Heath Ledger got an Academy Award nomination for doing just that in Brokeback Mountain. As the end credits were rolling, I sat there in the blackness of the theater, unable to move. An overwhelming sadness sank into me. That sadness lasted for a long time. Ledger’s portrayal as Ennis Del Mar was the highest echelon of method acting and consumed my thoughts as an audience member.
When the news unfolded about Ledger’s death, the same feeling that I had when exiting the movie theater consumed me. Ledger had so much going for him and had already racked up quite the résumé, working with directors Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), Terry Gilliam (Brazil) and Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight). He died Jan. 22 at the young age of 28.
“[Ledger was] one of those actors who was very, very special because he played so many different kinds of roles,” said acclaimed actor/director Robert Redford to the British based The Telegraph. Ledger had shown this, and we rarely see this today, his performances were equal to that of James Dean, Marlon Brando (younger) and River Phoenix. Quite simply he was one of the best method actors of our day.
Ledger started getting big with FOX’s short-lived series Roar. The show sucked, but it catapulted him to his next big role, Patrick Verona in 10 Things I Hate About You, a simple, yet mildly good adaptation, of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. This set him up to be the next Leonardo DiCaprio-esque teen heartthrob. Then, Ledger appeared in The Patriot and The Knights Tale. These roles helped show that he was able to hold a great presence as the male lead. Monster’s Ball was his first arty film, where he played a suicidal son, and crept into a role that was darker and had a deeper character.
Comedians have talent in making people laugh and even doing the occasional pratfall or lowbrow humor. However, the other side has always interested me, the ability to make an audience weep. In Brokeback Mountain, a friend critiqued it saying that if you saw this movie and didn’t feel anything, you must not have a heartbeat. A truer word has never been said about a film, and Ledger is the integral part in this cathartic movie.
He plays the Joker in The Dark Knight, due to be released this summer. For Ledger the character consumed him. Ledger stated, in an interview with New York Times, about filming The Dark Knight, “I couldn’t stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.” He told reporters that he began to lose sleep and started to take sleeping pills.
This is not what is suspected to have led to his death; The Telegraph reports that it may have been due to a heart attack. There were various reports that he may have been suffering from pneumonia. We may never know the true cause, but his family insists that it was accidental.
“I feel OK with death now, I feel I’m alive in [Matilda], but I still want to live to see her,” Ledger once said in an interview, about his daughter, a couple months ago to Access Hollywood. Very haunting. Later in the interview he assured the reporter that this was only imagery of his love and pride for Matilda, not a suicidal forbearance.
Hollywood has lost someone that has earned his stripes as a shining asset to directors. We, the fans, have lost a brilliant actor in his prime. He will be missed on both ends of the spectrum. Rest in peace, Heath.