Heath Ledger: Art, Loss and Celebrity

"Heath Ledger dead?" The text message washed and rattled through my mind today, January 22, 2008, my first day as a second-semester sophomore. I couldn't believe it. I was shocked. I was saddened. I was in a state of negative equilibrium that, in writing this, I realize has yet to pass.

Him of all people, I wondered. Ledger had been ever-present in my thoughts as of late; after I'd seen the trailer for The Dark Knight and become obsessed with his uncannily perfect portrayal of the Joker, I had been Googling everything on the man and the upcoming movie I could find. I reminisced about his powerful performance in Brokeback Mountain a couple of years ago. I even phoned my personal friend and famed comic book writer Jeph Loeb to ask him about Ledger after seeing Jeph's name mentioned in a Dark Knight-related Wikipedia posting. Over the last five days, Heath Ledger had become my favorite actor.

So to hear of his death was particularly impacting on me. Born in 1979, that made him scarcely nine years older than I am, and already a father. Still relatively new to the Hollywood scene, he'd only been making American movies since 1999. According to one online source, he prepared for his role in Christopher Nolan's new film by isolating himself for a month and filling a journal with his own Joker-inspired thoughts. I'd never heard of such dedication before, and I loved him for it. To me, Ledger was still fresh, still new and appealing, still without a devastating scandal, a young, extremely talented artist with a doubtless-amazing future.

Upon hearing the devastating news, I wished that I could give back that moment to the universe, the moment Heath Ledger died under still-unknown circumstances, or at least the point at which I heard about it. He'd been an inspiration to me for his commitment to his craft, his seeming avoidance of the many pitfalls of celebrity, and to hear of him dying too far before his time shook me with a draining sadness I cannot fully describe.

I've been writing and shooting my own films since I was a little kid. When I was younger, celebrity was something of a secret aspiration, a guilty fantasy, and in some ways an expectation. What set me apart from the other wannabes, however, was that I admired the legitimatization of artistry that comes with celebrity, and not its wealth, prestige or "Sexiest Bachelor Under 30" status. I confess that I wanted to be taken seriously and appreciated for my creative achievements. In any case, becoming a star was a present thought in my early meditations on living a creative life.

As I aged, however, and learned more about the "darker" side of fame and Hollywood that has become something of a mainstay in today's headlines, I began to doubt that to which I had aspired as a pre-teen; Simpson, Blake and Spector were likely murderers, Hilton and Lohan alcoholic party animals, and scores of other famous faces struggling drug users. I began to wonder whether celebrity had something to do with it all. Perhaps it was a newfound ease at obtaining drugs or public sympathy, an arrogant feeling of entitlement, or simply an overwhelming exhaustion from years of fleeing the paparazzi. Maybe these are merely commonplace tragedies that happen to have occurred in the public eye. I cannot say for sure.

These things frightened me away from pursuing celebrity, but cemented my faith in artists that work for creativity's sake, for the sake of the craft. The incomparable Daniel Day-Lewis falls under this category, for example, and I believe that Heath Ledger does, as well. It is important to note that I do not intend to sully Ledger's reputation, nor to imply that he had become something of a degenerate. One cannot explain his tragic passing at the age of 28, in my opinion. Nor should it become a topic of public scrutiny; but Heath Ledger wore a public face. He surely felt some of the difficult strains of standing in the limelight, and he will be talked about.

This event has spurred another topic in my mind, the odd truth that though we come to know these people by name and appearance, they are not our neighbors, nor our friends. Surely we can admire, support and mourn for those we never meet, but many of us do not know the inner personalities or insecurities of the celebrities we enjoy. Their publicity makes them ours to discuss, criticize and love, but the masses are not necessarily welcome in the hearts of Heath Ledger and his peers. Our love is not requited. So it strikes me as a little weird to feel a sense of loss for a person I've only come to know through the cinema. And yet, I still mourn him, and I still appreciate him.

For us, life continues, but knowledge of its fragility is ever more present with each passing. One's art may never leave one's bedroom, but its meaning transcends public opinion; we do not have to know about it to feel its effect, and we do not have to be famous to have something relevant to say.

These are things I thought about today.

Comments

[HedgeApple]

As the author/poet John Donne said so beautifully hundreds of years ago- before there was much of such a thing as celebrity, in 'For Whom The Bell Tolls,' "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

[turtle6979]

Thank you Mr. Zucker, I was touched by what you had to say and those are my sentaments exactly. There is no telling how far Heath Ledger would have got in his career and I am sad we will never get to know. My heart goes out to his little girl (who really looks like her daddy) and his family and friends and admirers.

[mbjesq]

In remembering Edmund Hillary, I wrote, "I loved Edmund Hillary as much as a person could possibly love someone they"d never met." (http://memestreamblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/edmund-hillary/) Certainly, as the quote you've pulled says, that love was not directly requited. And yet, the love existed precisely because of the mutuality of the relationship. Hillary loved the world of which I am a part, and contributed to it in a way that made it a better place for all of us. His generosity touched me, even if obliquely. He earned my love.

I can't say about Heath Ledger. I know nothing about his life and am not sure I've ever seen anything in which he acted. But perhaps Mr. Zucker's feelings stem from the same sense that Mr. Ledger contributed to make the world a better place, and therefore earned his grieving. Perhaps the comment was born of the sentiments best expressed by John Donne, "Every man's death diminishes me." But in all likelihood, it came from the sense of voyeuristic fixation which our media culture cultivates. The last alternative is a bit sad.

[frozenskeeter]

Normally when a celebrity dies, I think nothing of it, merely a small sadness at someone"s passing. In this case, it really, deeply bothered me. He was my age. I grew up and became an adult watching his movies. He was one of my favorite actors; I watched how his smile would light up a screen. I looked forward to him playing the Joker; I knew that he would truly fill that role like no other actor could. Every film he was in, he became that person. I think its horrible and sad that the media spread this information so quickly that his family had to learn of his passing by watching a TV. Where are people"s privacy rights? Names should not be released ever, until the family is first notified, not even celebrities should have their privacy invaded during this time. The speculation is also really ticking me off. Supposed news anchors and interviewers speculate about how he dressed was a sign of his mental status. He always dressed funky, he wore what he wanted his entire career; he was a product of the 90"s and the grunge era. His disheveled state was a constant, it was not a new thing, and it was part of who he was. Heath Ledger was probably the best actor that was ever, and will be, produced from my generation.

[IntrepidReader]

I'm sorry that the poem didn't appear in the post with proper format as it had in the preview!

[IntrepidReader]

It would seem that Heath Ledger was like the stars of old Hollywood, who kept their private lives more private than celebrities do today. I'm sorry that I discovered he had serious drug and alcohol problems, but still I admire him for not making a sorry public spectacle of himself, choosing to keep his excesses quiet.

I don't think it matters how he died, the sadness is that a beautiful and talented young man did not find happiness in his worldly success.

It brings to mind this poem by Edward Arlington Robinson:

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from head to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But he still fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich--yes, richer than a king--
and admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

[THISTLE]

It strikes me that many of the people who leave
flowers, at make-shift shrines to people they
have never met, are really lonely people trying
to be part of something or connect to something
or someone they have never met.
There is both a sadness in that and a very
human emotion in that. What gets out of whack
is when people begin crying at these "shrines"
and begin talking about these people as if
they knew them. Then there are the ones who
just want to tell other people - they went to
the building where the person died, and that
is disturbing and sad.

[ChaucerDaisy]

Danny, your tribute to Heath Ledger offers reverence for his artistry and his life. Your words honor your favorite actor whose movies you may choose to watch again and again. My sympathies to you, to his admirers, to Michelle Williams, his brilliant co-star and former fiance, and, especially, to his beloved Matilda. I, too, admire Heath Ledger's talents and value your perspective of him. Thank you, Danny, for expressing your shock and sadness in such an eloquent way.

[ljsfolly]

He didn't commit suicide. I have no doubt he had been sick as other media has said and in an endeavor to sleep he might have taken an extra pill to aid him. I cannot think of him yet dead as he has been so great in the roles he had chosen to play. Like other who die too young for reasons we cannot fathom he has simply left us with the light on to figure out why. There will be many sad as I am at the loss of someone who had done many things but still seemed too young to have done them all yet. He said in November he had a child and the person lives on in a child so he was ready to die. He somehow knew something but didn't realize his fate was at hand and we would be left to watch his child grow without him. I often wonder why we are sad or cry for those who are gone who we knew only on stage or film but it always comes to me the loss is ours for we only had the chance to know that piece of them that they chose to share and never the person or maybe it is they are just gone too soon and we will never see another film with them alive and they walking the red carpet for a trophy.