Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:27:31 +0100
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Subject: Re: Heath Ledger
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Some random associative thoughts...
'...I speculated about the affect this
loss would have on the film industry..."
There's a telling spelling
error there, affect instead of effect.
I wonder whether some
of the scathing comments made here - quite understably, since this is not
meant to be a fan forum - regarding the initial statement would have been made
if the deceased actor had been, say, Robert De Niro or Paul Newman or some
other long established actor/star?!
So maybe we should discuss
emotionality and emotional investments not only in ctors/actresses/stars, but
also in films generally?
On a tangent, I thought
Heath Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain was fine, especially in his
character's silences. Personally, I felt the film's ending to be almost too
powerful, too sad. Which reminds me, as another digression, of what a producer
once told me: that films that are emotionally very powerful don't tend to do
well at the box office; audiences, he said, preferred the emotionally
superficial...
H
I've been lurking on this forum for some time, and I
am dismayed by the insensitive responses to someone else's emotional
admission. I understand why someone might think that it is not appropriate
fodder for this forum, but does that warrant the ad hominem remarks that we
have seen so far? One writer calls her letter "ridiculous" and another
suggests that those who agree with Connie are not worthy to be called
colleagues and uses association with Dr. Phil and Oprah as a pejorative. Is
this a community in which one is not allowed to admit a certain kind of
interest without the danger of being flamed? Connie offered off-forum
discussion of this topic. That should have been accepted in the spirit in
which it was offered.
Well, I agree with Connie. I was also startled to see
that Ledger had died, and I speculated about the affect this loss would have
on the film industry and on the community of his fans, which may turn out to
be larger than we think. The dialectic between author and audience plays an
immense role in the creation of meaning in text, and public and professional
reactions to this death will likely have ramifications throughout the film
industry that will find their way into the products they
produce.
There is no genre of art that can be measured by only
one aspect in its creation. Film is a product of many authors, of which
actors are one. Each actor adds his or her own unique artistic
interpretation and input to a film; each actor is an artistic
component without which individual expression a film would not be the
same. Thus it should matter to a student of film when
an actor passes away.
Even so...
Even if you can't see the merit in mourning someone
else's death, can't you at least be civil?
Angela Mathews
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