Heath Ledger Earned It!
February 23rd 2009 10:00
Let me preface this entry by saying that I have never been on the Heath Ledger "bandwagon." To be quite honest, other than his work in The Patriot, I never left the theater asking myself "I wonder where his career is going?" Even though he became immensely popular after Brokeback Mountain, I still did not give much thought to Ledger. I wanted to say all this so none of you trolls out there think that I am just another typical "OMG LEDGER IS F***ING AWESOME ROFLCOPTER!!!!" person.
The way I judge actors/actresses has never changed throughout my life-long obsession of movies; the film itself does not have to be even close to Oscar worthy (hell, to this day Bruce Campbell is my God!). I found 10 Things I Hate About You to be yet another cheap attempt to get my generation's hard-earned money, The Brothers Grimm just down-right strange, and Brokeback Mountain boring as hell, so obviously my views on how an award should be given away are completely different from the AMPAS.
That being said, I was utterly astonished by Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight. I went into that movie praying to God that he would be terrible, just so the other fantastic actors could shine (Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine); I wanted Ledger to be horrible so all of the Internet fanboys would simply shut up! But something incredible happened for me when I watched the preview of The Dark Knight. Not only did every other actor who I had pulled for come through, but so did the one guy I was hoping would fail!
Heath Ledger pulled off the hype to such an incredible extent that for once I found myself agreeing with everyone else. I was never a fan of the original Michael Keaton/Tim Burton Batman films, so I do not have a lot to go on. Of course, I have seen every Batman movie that has come out, but it was not until Batman Begins that I found myself truly invested in the characters. So, when Heath's portrayal of the Joker came along to counter-balance Christian Bale's fantastic Bruce Wayne, I was skeptical. However, Heath managed to not only circumvent Jack Nicholson's "Joker," but to make it his own in such a way that Nicholson's portrayal will be all but forgotten except for those of us born before 1990.
Ledger's death was of course unfortunate, and sadly it was not until July of 2008, five months afterward, that I truly realized how amazing of an actor he was. A lot of bloggers/trolls/a**hats will of course be spending the next decade asking the question "did Ledger only win because of his death?" There is no way to answer that, of course. That could be the exact reason why, or it may not be. Either way, I personally feel that Ledger's Joker was terrifying to the point of Jeffery Dahmer proportions, and that he dedicated himself fully to that character.
Overdose?
Hype?
Death?
Politically correct?
To me...it has never mattered. As soon as I left the theater on July 18, 2008, Heath Ledger had won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
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Comment by Big Bird
I was not the hugest fan of Heath either but making the Joker his own like he did, it was tremendous, though it sucks that it will forever be tainted by, as you said, those a**hats who will ask if he deserved it. He won, so i guess we'll all have to live with it, even if some people don't agree with it.
Comment by Taylor