They're already calling him the next James Dean. They said the same about River Phoenix, when he collapsed from a drug overdose in 1993, even though Dean died in a car race.
The cumulative glamour of beauty and self-destruction was overpowering and transformative. It turned them into tragic heroes.
Almost as soon as the first reports of Heath Ledger's untimely death emerged on Tuesday night, that process was under way, a collective outpouring of grief for another golden boy, talented, handsome - and gone.
The lure of cliche is intense, partly because we develop formulas and rituals precisely so that they can do our thinking for us in moments of shock or grief.
Moreover, there is a comfort in collectivity: we are social beings, and it is reassuring to know our feelings are shared. The triteness of an expression does not preclude it from expressing a truth.
Most of us didn't know Ledger, Dean or Phoenix. Or Rudolph Valentino, Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin, Evita Perón or Princess Diana.
And yet thousands seem to have loved them - if impassioned, even hysterical, mourning is a measure of love.
Most of them didn't live heroic, or even exemplary, lives. But they pass the acid test: they were easy to identify with. Beautiful but all-too vulnerable, they express fragility and power at the same time, and we displace all kinds of emotion on to them. It was their job to make us do so.
It's no accident that these icons of glamour and loss were all performers (yes, that categorically includes Evita and Diana).
Actors tell our stories for us and help us feel: sometimes they feel on our behalf, at other times they catalyse our own emotions.
Aristotle understood this when he developed his idea of catharsis, that we might collectively undergo purging feelings of grief and loss by watching a tragic hero come to an untimely end because of a fatal error.
Today we watch it in hypermediated real life, and experience the same feelings. Many will accuse those mourning Ledger of self-indulgence and ersatz emotionalism.
But there is a more generous side to our shock - and, naturally, there is a familiar line ready to express it: any man's death diminishes us, because we are part of mankind.
Outside the building where Ledger's body was found, a memorial to Ledger was growing. Flowers were left on the sidewalk and a cowboy hat, emblematic of his breakthrough role, was placed on the ground, according to televised images.
From all initial reports, Ledger’s pharmaceutical finale may have been accidental, spur of the moment, or just plain inconsequential.
Here’s what we do know - Heath Ledger, a rising A-list member of the Tinsel Town elite, accidental gay cowboy extraordinaire and Australian son, was found dead in a New York apartment sometime on Tuesday afternoon.
He left behind a daughter (with ex-partner - and co-star of Brokeback Mountain - Michelle Williams) and a devastated core of family and friends. He had just begun work on the Terry Gilliam fantasy The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, leaving the state of that project (and its seemingly cursed director) in temporary limbo.
More importantly, he had beaten out several big name actors to be Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of the Joker in said filmmaker’s continued re-imagining of the Batman character.
The Dark Knight, as the summer spectacle is called, was already one of 2008’s most anticipated films. Now, its name is nuclear.
And it’s just starting. The concern over the need for Ledger’s participation in post-production on said film drove Harry Knowles and the gang over at Ain’t It Cool News to go a little pre grave digging and contact the studio.
Nerd nation was assured that the actor had completed his commitment to the project. The clown face was 100%. It was part of the deal to do the Gilliam movie.
So the Caped Crusader saga remains intact. It will also probably be the last time Ledger is seen on the big screen.
His turn as the early ‘70s Bob Dylan archetype in Todd Haynes I’m Not There and as a drug casualty in Candy now stand as his last stints as a serious dramatic type.
While his super hero villainy promises to be terrifying (the trailer hints at delightfully twisted horrors), it’s the more streamlined leading man form that audiences will remember.
While his closest relatives regale the media, and anyone else willing to sacrifice etiquette and listen, with tales of his giving spirit, easy going nature and love for his two year old, the celebrity chumsuckers are already smelling buckets of ratings blood.
They’re circling the story, and its 24 news cycle ocean, ready to pick apart the bones of any snippet of sensationalism with their own brand of self-serving guesswork.
Did he simply mix too many sleeping pills with a case of exhaustion, pneumonia and/or some other fatalistic catalyst? Who saw him last? Who has insight into what he was thinking before, during, and after the act?
Sign them up, champion their appearance and indirect information, and let the ethically inert yakking begin.
As the Gilliam camp regroups, as Nolan eventually releases a statement in support and suffering for his lost collaborator, as mothers weep, fangals gawk and fanboys fidget (no Joker in Part 3, huh?), the tragedy of a human life lost will be swept up in yet another wave of that grand old Day of the Locust legend of young prominence poisoned and fading into myth.
You’ll hear the names of other Hall of Flame-Out members mentioned, nods to everyone from James Dean to Kurt Cobain.
Even when his death is ruled something other than a purposeful attack on everything he achieved, his acting skill and the resulting acclaim will play Devil’s advocate to the continuing disbelief.
Poems will attempt to explain his allure, songs will be sung trying to make sense of potential snuffed out, the standard siren’s lament to all fallen figureheads.
While it may sound resoundingly callous, we’ll get over this death. We’ll mourn the fallen, place him in perspective, line up for Dark Knight come July, and indulge in the months of unfathomable pre-release publicity. It will all be so careful, so cautious, so…cash flowing.
by
Anonymous
on Wed 06 Feb 2008 06:27 PM CET | Permanent Link
Dean didn't die in a "car race". He died in a car accident, one for which he was not at fault. Another driver hit his car. Get your facts straight before you deign to flex your rhetorical muscle. Of course, like extremists of any stripe, those at Radical Left are generally not expected to be bound by the facts. Thruthiness is always available when truth does not support your argument. Have a nice day and thank you for the continued propagation of bullshit. An intergel part of the far left as well as the far right.
