I am a movie lover. Reality is not quite good enough for us which is why there's always a desperate need to escape for a few hours. In those brief hours, an artist is given the opportunity to entertain us, make us think, make us laugh, make us cry, enlighten us. Perhaps the greatest connection made between the silver screen and its audience is knowing that what you're seeing is hitting you in a way it is not hitting anyone else. More basically, when watching a film, we are alone no matter who surrounds us. We can all lay our opinion under broad terms like "good" or "bad" but each individual moment of that movie magic is being felt by you in a different way than anyone else.
So when an artist and their art comes along that we respond to, we will keep them with us for the rest of our lives. For me, it is true of Robert Altman. I will see every Robert Altman movie I can. I love his view of the world. I love his drifting camera and the way all his characters could have their own movies, feel like living breathing people. It is also true for Nicole Kidman, whose elegance and acting style always keep me captivated.
This is why it is so brutal for us cinephiles when one of these artists dies. I don't recall the last celebrity death that didn't make me gasp. Both Brad Renfro (to me, Josh from Ghost World) and Suzanne Pleschette (Karen's mother, Lois, on Will and Grace) passed away in the past 10 days. Suzanne was 70, Brad was 25. When someone older dies, we mourn the loss, but celebrate the life that was lived. When someone so young dies, we mourn the loss and the life that wasn't finished. Both of these people committed comedic characters to my memory. If you know me, you know how much I love both Ghost World and Will and Grace. The humor and characters of both can sum up much of who I am. I guess you really are what you watch.
Over the past hours, since learning of the death of Heath Ledger, I have felt a great loss. It was River Phoenix all over again. River was also deeply attached to the generation before mine, and to cinema lovers for his turn as a gay hustler in My Own Private Idaho. The sky was the limit. The loss of Heath was probably my generation's first true celebrity loss. It felt like so much more. When an actor and filmmaker creates a character, in order for it to be in the level of Phoenix's in Idaho and Ledger's in Brokeback Mountain, part of their soul is shared. It's not just about method or style, they pull part of themselves out and leave it all in the open. This is why their performances deserve to be called brave, not because of the "playing gay" part. Afficionados of film will have a handful of actors and films that they have a connection to. Because of this, we will follow their career with great interest and see much of what they do. And when they die, since they gave us part of themselves, a little bit of us dies with them.
What a nice change of pace he was from the classic Hollywood, clean cut type! Both he and Michelle Williams didn't seem into the whole Hollywood thing - a genuine rarity for young actors. A true bohemian who built up an eclectic resume working with many great talents, it seemed that between his Oscar nominated turn in Brokeback to his role as the Joker in this summer's Dark Knight, he was at a point in his career that any actor would envy. Add to that, he was attached to Terrence Malick's next film. I won't soon forget Mr. Ledger crooning to Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You or telling Billy Bob Thornton he loved him right before his character's suicide in Monster's Ball. Those deranged clips from him in The Dark Knight are a distinct contrast to the image most of us will hold closest in his career and the one that will now have even more of an emotional whallop: the final scene in Brokeback Mountain.
My thoughts are with everyone Heath's short life touched, especially his daughter Matilda Rose.
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