In response to the death of Heath Ledger

This started out as a comment on Telf's last entry, but grew in length so I decided to make my own post.

The death of Heath Ledger is truly a shame. Every film I'd seen Ledger in he had impressed me more. Through his passing I can't help but feel the world of film has been denied a future screen icon.

No doubt he'll be remembered in the main for Brokeback Mountain, a film I've yet to see. I'll remember him as Patrick in Ten Things I Hate About You as that was the first film I remember seeing him in and being really impressed. I'm not usually a teen comedy person on the whole, but I studied Ten Things... for my dissertation module in the final year of my degree and enjoyed it a great deal more than I expected. That was in no small part to Ledger's performance. His performance incorporated elements of Arthur Fonzerelli in Happy Days to The Breakfast Club's John Bender, and did justice to Shakespeare in a genre that lends itself very easily to a lack of credibility.

Hopefully his performance as The Joker in the forthcoming The Dark Knight will serve as a fitting eulogy to his acting career. If the buzz surrounding the film is anything to go by, ironically it may serve as an indicator of a brilliant career that will now never be.

R.I.P. Heath Ledger.