An excellent tribute from the San Francisco Chronicle
Heath Ledger - short career, lasting imageshttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/23/MNG6UJRN4.DTL&hw=heath+ledger&sn=009&sc=440Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
On a seemingly routine Tuesday afternoon, word came that 28-year-old actor Heath Ledger, best known for his Oscar-nominated role as a gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain," was found dead in a downtown New York apartment. Apparently, a masseuse showed up for an appointment and was led in by a housekeeper, who discovered Ledger's body about 3:30 p.m. The police found pills near his naked body.
The news spread fast, and crowds gathered outside the building and watched as the body was taken away on a gurney. According to the Associated Press, people in the crowd snapped pictures with camera phones and rolled videos and said, "He's coming out!"
There was no obvious indication of suicide, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said. An autopsy is planned for Wednesday.
In a little while, perhaps, the rest of the details will become known. Was it an accident? Was it suicide? Was there an unknown history of drug abuse? The answers to these questions will become part of the legend, and Ledger will be enlisted into that ghoulish gallery of movie stars who, for one reason or another, died a good half-century ahead of schedule.
But before that happens - before the false hand-wringing begins on the nightly entertainment shows, before the interviews with ex-girlfriends reveal unknown truths that are probably false, and before the media show up with their microphones and cameras - it might be worthwhile to take a moment to remember why the death of this particular 28-year-old rates all the press attention today.
Like few who ever lived, much less lived to be 28, Ledger left behind moments and images that were guaranteed even Tuesday - even a week ago, when he was presumably healthy and had the world before him - to outlive his mortal life. When I got the news, I immediately flashed on one of them.
In "Brokeback Mountain," having said goodbye to Jake Gyllenhaal's character after their summer together - which is the only thing they'll ever have in their lives, and they seem to know it - he walks stoically away, then enters the frame as he passes an alley. In the background is the sky. Limitless. He stops, enters the alley and becomes a silhouette. He puts his head against the wall and sobs, struggling to hide his face with his hat. He curses. He punches the wall. He yells angrily at someone who passes by and stops to look. And two seconds later, we see him in close-up, looking boyish and yet somehow like the world has just closed up, standing at the altar getting married.
The portrayal of the secret male relationship made Ledger an instant icon in the gay community, according to Neil G. Giuliano, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
"His powerful portrayal changed hearts and minds in immeasurable ways," Giuliano said in a statement.
"Brokeback Mountain" also was where he met actress Michelle Williams, with whom he lived until the two split up last year. The couple had a daughter, Matilda. Ledger also had relationships with actresses Heather Graham and Naomi Watts.
Ledger was born in Perth, Australia, in 1979 to a mining engineer and a French teacher, according to the Associated Press. At 16, he began appearing in independent films in Sydney. When he was 19, he came to Los Angeles and landed a part in "10 Things I Hate About You," a modern-day version of "The Taming of the Shrew."
His roles in "The Patriot" (2000) and "A Knight's Tale" (2001) earned him heartthrob stature. But his career path steered him back to the independent movies, including "Monster's Ball" in 2001, and "The Lords of Dogtown" and "Brokeback Mountain" in 2005.
In 2007, Ledger was seen in "I'm Not There," where he played one of the Bob Dylans, and had finished filming "The Dark Knight," a sequel to "Batman Begins" in which he plays the Joker. He was in production for the movie "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus."
"I had such great hope for him," Mel Gibson, who played Ledger's vengeful father in "The Patriot," said in a statement, the Associated Press reported. "He was just taking off, and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss."
In an interview published in November in the New York Times, Ledger said he was "stressed out a little too much" while making "I'm Not There" and had trouble sleeping during the filming of "The Dark Knight."
"Last week, I probably slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger told the Times. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." He said he took two Ambien pills, which worked for only an hour.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Ledger had an old-fashioned manliness - the kind that seems to have fled America and gone south in recent years, as far south as Australia. But unlike most of the old-fashioned manly stars of America's macho period, Ledger was at his best playing men in turmoil, men in trouble, men suffering from deep wounds to the spirit. At 28, he had 25 prime casting years ahead of him. Just to be selfish for a minute, think of how that talent may have grown.
The Hollywood of today doesn't nurture acting talent. That is, it doesn't look for roles that explore the actor's soul. But even accepting that, just by chance and the law of averages, just with a little dumb luck, Ledger should have had two or three or five or six more films in his life that challenged him the way "Brokeback Mountain" challenged him. I think that would have been Ledger's career, from here on out: a combination of OK movies in which he played men who were as magnificent as he looked. And better movies, in which he played men whose imposing physical presence and locked-down stoicism were a facade for an emotional life of desperation and helplessness.
Instead of looking forward, we're forced to look back - to the fragile young man he played in "Monster's Ball," who shoots himself in a fit of anguish. Or to "Casanova" and those scenes when the great seducer discovers his capacity to love one woman. Or to movies like "Ned Kelly," those ones with nothing much to recommend them besides what I once called Ledger's "big-slab-of-a-guy magnetism."
There's no way to make sense of this. No way to end an appreciation like this on an up note when the news is so sad. If there's something positive to be said, it's that the best work Ledger left behind will last forever, and the rest is already forgotten.
Filmography
Some of the films in which Heath Ledger starred:
-- "I'm Not There" (2007)
-- "Brokeback Mountain" (2005)
-- "Casanova" (2005)
-- "The Brothers Grimm" (2005)
-- "Lords of Dogtown" (2005)
-- "Ned Kelly" (2003)
-- "The Four Feathers" (2002)
-- "Monster's Ball" (2001)
-- "A Knight's Tale" (2001)
-- "The Patriot" (2000)
-- "10 Things I Hate About You" (1999)
Scheduled for release this year or in 2009:
-- "The Dark Knight"
-- "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus"
