"It was dreadful. Her eyes welled up. It was awful."
It's sleeting out and black, black, black.
I counted today. I own eight movies and one TV series with Heath Ledger in. I have seen one more movie than I own, rounding it out to ten. The IMDB lists twenty-three projects in his filmography. Two of those are in production, and five were TV shows in which he might have appeared in only a single episode. Twenty-three. Twenty-three. That's it. And there will never be more.
My abortive attempt to watch A Knight's Tale this afternoon ended when I picked up the DVD. I got no further than thinking about my favorite line ("I don't know how to dance.") before I promptly put it back on the shelf. It's too soon. I'd figured it would have stopped bothering me by now, but it absolutely has not. It's only just settling in. I can look at pictures, but seeing him move . . . that would be hard. And I don't think I could bear to hear his voice. He had such a beautiful voice.
The one interview I watched on YouTube was too much. The host gave him a silly gift, and he burst into delighted laughter. I had to turn it off, because it was just too painful. Laughter is one of the most alive sounds you'll ever hear, and his even more than most. When something hit him right and he really cracked up, he sounded for all the world like . . . well, like a great big dork. It was a little kid's laugh made big. No pretensions whatsoever. Absolutely genuine. I live in Oklahoma, land of hicks. I hear a lot of bass-ackwards farmboy laughs, and believe me, that is what he sounded like: a colossal Aussie hick. And he had the big, farmboy smile to go with it.
"Charisma as natural as gravity" were Christopher Nolan's words.
At this point, the laudatory quotes from his colleagues have all blended together in my mind, along with broody song lyrics and fucking Rilke poetry, but someone out there remarked that Heath was the sort of actor you only got once every fifty years or so. I certainly hope that's true. On the one hand, I am afraid I won't ever find another actor whose work I connect with on that level. On the other, I am afraid that I will.
I would rather believe that he was a rare thing, so that I can feel less like a fool for missing him. It is just so monstrously unfair, and the longer I think about it, the more sick at heart I become.
Because not spending time with him somehow is dreadful and impossible, I spent today making two Knight's Tale wallpapers and a set of icons for each. I meant to make some for Casanova, too, since that movie gets no love, but this is as much as I could bear to do.
Comments are lovely. Credit would be swell. No hotlinking, please.
Download 800 x 600
Download 1024x768
Download 1440x900
Download 800 x 600
Download 1024x768
Download 1440x900
I realize this is terribly self-indulgent, and that only a vanishingly small number of you were as attached as I was and so, of course, have limited interest.
But, well, pain is pain.
I counted today. I own eight movies and one TV series with Heath Ledger in. I have seen one more movie than I own, rounding it out to ten. The IMDB lists twenty-three projects in his filmography. Two of those are in production, and five were TV shows in which he might have appeared in only a single episode. Twenty-three. Twenty-three. That's it. And there will never be more.
My abortive attempt to watch A Knight's Tale this afternoon ended when I picked up the DVD. I got no further than thinking about my favorite line ("I don't know how to dance.") before I promptly put it back on the shelf. It's too soon. I'd figured it would have stopped bothering me by now, but it absolutely has not. It's only just settling in. I can look at pictures, but seeing him move . . . that would be hard. And I don't think I could bear to hear his voice. He had such a beautiful voice.
The one interview I watched on YouTube was too much. The host gave him a silly gift, and he burst into delighted laughter. I had to turn it off, because it was just too painful. Laughter is one of the most alive sounds you'll ever hear, and his even more than most. When something hit him right and he really cracked up, he sounded for all the world like . . . well, like a great big dork. It was a little kid's laugh made big. No pretensions whatsoever. Absolutely genuine. I live in Oklahoma, land of hicks. I hear a lot of bass-ackwards farmboy laughs, and believe me, that is what he sounded like: a colossal Aussie hick. And he had the big, farmboy smile to go with it.
"Charisma as natural as gravity" were Christopher Nolan's words.
At this point, the laudatory quotes from his colleagues have all blended together in my mind, along with broody song lyrics and fucking Rilke poetry, but someone out there remarked that Heath was the sort of actor you only got once every fifty years or so. I certainly hope that's true. On the one hand, I am afraid I won't ever find another actor whose work I connect with on that level. On the other, I am afraid that I will.
I would rather believe that he was a rare thing, so that I can feel less like a fool for missing him. It is just so monstrously unfair, and the longer I think about it, the more sick at heart I become.
Because not spending time with him somehow is dreadful and impossible, I spent today making two Knight's Tale wallpapers and a set of icons for each. I meant to make some for Casanova, too, since that movie gets no love, but this is as much as I could bear to do.
Comments are lovely. Credit would be swell. No hotlinking, please.
Download 800 x 600
Download 1024x768
Download 1440x900
Download 800 x 600
Download 1024x768
Download 1440x900
I realize this is terribly self-indulgent, and that only a vanishingly small number of you were as attached as I was and so, of course, have limited interest.
But, well, pain is pain.