Apologies for what must seem like an opportunistic post: my friend Pam noted one time that she had trouble reading my blog sometimes because of how often it turned into celebrity obituaries.

But really here - I’m at a loss.

Heath Ledger seemed invincible, like he’d always be with us - a stable font of emotional and physical strength. His characters, yes, were often emotionally damaged, but he’s always had a knack for projecting a tremendous forcefulness, a 19th century resolve that seemed both primal and existential. His enormous gift for acting, his ability to carry a scene about three levels farther - I can name at least a half-dozen movies he was the best thing about - seemed almost like the stuff of legend.

I remember standing by one of the emergency exits during a sold-out show I was ushering of Brokeback Mountain the year it played the Telluride Film Festival. Emotionally drained by that film’s riveting melodrama, I was nevertheless ecstatic - the actor of our generation had announced himself. Ennis del Mar - sullen, bullish, emotionally devastated - was the great method performance of our time, and yet it seemed like just the beginning. Like Terry Malloy or Christy Brown or Travis Bickle or Matthew Poncelet, it was a whole, and yet only part of the story. Ledger’s performance is the engine for that film’s power, and yet that performance also seemed like the engine for Ledger’s career. His work since Brokeback - even in uneven movies like Candy - has been at a level comparable to any English-language actor at the peak of his career, and yet it seemed like Ledger was going to be able to push farther.

Once I collected myself, I called my friend Tim:

“Don’t laugh.”
“Okay.”
“I saw Brokeback. It’s wonderful, and best of all, Heath Ledger is our Marlon Brando.”

And now he’s our James Dean.

I’m inconsolable.

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