{"id":2016,"date":"2008-01-24T14:45:32","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T19:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2016"},"modified":"2008-03-17T10:51:12","modified_gmt":"2008-03-17T15:51:12","slug":"ledger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2016","title":{"rendered":"Ledger"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t get to all that many movies these days.\u00a0 It’s a rare treat, indeed – I haven’t been in a theater since the last entry in the “James Bond” franchise, and that had been a while since my previous venture.<\/p>\n

So I’m not so hip on who all the kids are watching these days.\u00a0 Except Scarlett Johnannson.\u00a0 And while she’s a fine actress (fantastic in Lost in Translation<\/em>, among a few others), well, let’s just say my critique isn’t all that clinical, if ya catch my drift.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where was I?<\/p>\n

Oh, yeah.\u00a0 Heath Ledger.\u00a0 I know I’ve seen a movie or two of his, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember which.\u00a0 I know that in the back of my mind I knew “he’s not a crappy actor” – quite the opposite. Very good.<\/p>\n

So I’ll just link to two people I know who do <\/em>know their movies; First Ringer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Unlike [James] Dean, Ledger may not find\u00a0posthumous\u00a0Oscar glory unless a weak supporting actor field\u00a0and a sympathetic Academy find\u00a0something as mainstream as a Batman sequel worthy of\u00a0a slice of acting immortality.\u00a0\u00a0Despite all the logic against doing so, here\u2019s hoping they do.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly even to me, I find Ledger\u2019s untimely death deeply disturbing on a personal level.\u00a0 At 28 years of age, and as a\u00a0struggling filmmaker who could only wish for 10% of Ledger\u2019s professional success, I find myself tragically drawn to Ledger\u2019s passing for reasons even I don\u2019t yet fully grasp.\u00a0 Having worked with plently of actors and other \u201ctalent\u201d who vastly overestimate their skill, I am reminded of the few I have known who possessed genuine acting ability – and how so many of them wasted it on drugs, drink or a simple lack of ambition.\u00a0 I\u2019m also reminded – and horrified from seeing it firsthand myself – of the rigors that method actors like Ledger could put themselves through merely to entertain.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and Red<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0I never ever had that thought [that he was “just acting”] with Ledger. And I remember, too, his couple of scenes in Monster’s Ball<\/em>, another deeply portrayed kind of awkward guy, not used to speaking much – and given the right circumstances that character would probably be an awesome husband, partner … But as it was, he was relegated to isolation, stoic silence. I hadn’t seen Knight’s Tale<\/em> when I saw Monster’s Ball<\/em>, so that was my first impression of Ledger, and it has pretty much stuck.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And now<\/em>, I’m impressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t get to all that many movies these days.\u00a0 It’s a rare treat, indeed – I haven’t been in a theater since the last entry in the “James Bond” franchise, and that had been a while since my previous venture. So I’m not so hip on who all the kids are watching these days.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-n-e","category-memoriam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}