“Did you hear about Heath Ledger?” My mother has a way of introducing subjects that let you know exactly where they’re going…she’s like a walking inadvertent headline writer. As soon as she said that in a particular tone, I knew she wasn’t talking about an arrest or a bad interview or a sudden appearance at a club with Britney. Before she got her next sentence out, I knew we were talking death. And I then had an immediate and visceral response:
What does this mean for the Batman movies?
I’ve never been supremely overly affected by a celebrity death. I was 2 when Lennon died, and by the time George passed, he had been sick for a while and everyone knew it was coming. I didn’t really start liking Nirvana until after Cobain committed suicide, so that day was more thinking about other people who care and less about caring myself. I also hadn’t really started loving the music of Kevin Gilbert or Elliott Smith when they died. The most distraught a celebrity death ever made me was probably when Phil Hartman was killed…that one still would be “too soon” for me if I was playing a game of Celebrity Dinner.
And I can’t say that I’m supremely touched or emotional about the loss of Heath Ledger. He was a damn good actor, and I never heard anything bad about him. It sucks that he died (for whatever reason it turns out he did, whether it’s accidental OD, intentional OD, pneumonia, whatever), and it especially sucks that he left behind a young daughter. Any loss of human life, especially at an early age, is an unfortunate, self-contained tragedy. Godspeed to him on whatever journey he undertakes on the other side. I feel bad that he’s gone. But, you know…not really, soul-chillingly bad.
But…but…OK, I won’t lie that I’ve worried about confronting this before. I spent the first half of this decade secretly terrified that someone integral to the Star Wars movies would croak before they were done. Ewan could spin out on his bike and not be able to complete Episode III. Anthony Daniels could have a stroke before recording all of 3PO’s lines (and the ensuing commercials). Lucas himself could drop the coil. John Williams was my always number 1 fear…he’s not super-old, but he’s not young either, and I could just imagine a despondent Lucas giving an interview to Bill Moyers, saying, “Johnny stopped in the doorway and he pointed at his head and said, ‘George, I have the final theme for you – it’s all up here.’ Then he walked out, and that was the last time I ever saw him. We just cobbled together outtakes from the Special Edition Ewok song to fill the space.”
In other words, yes, when considering the possible death of another human being, I placed the fear that a piece of fluffy celluloid entertainment that I wanted to see might somehow be compromised over the value of the life in question. And now I’m doing it again, but not in a hypothetical situation. It’s Holyfield, and important questions need to be answered: was he finished with filming The Dark Knight? If so, had he done what he needed to do in post-production?* If there have to be reshoots before the June release, what will they do to get new footage? And what if the Joker was supposed to still be around in the third movie…will they recast? Will they do some weird Livia Soprano CGI thing? Will they re-write the whole tale and take the Joker out of chapter 3? If so, what will we be missing by not having the greatest character in this particular universe involved in the story?
These are the things that concern me. Those things, and the fact that I’m a horrible, self-centered human being for caring about a movie instead of someone’s life. But in my defense…the movie looks really good.
R.I.P., Mr. Ledger. I apologize on behalf of my twisted priorities.
*Apparently, Harry Knowles says yes to both of those first two questions. In case you, too, were worried about such things…you savages.
