heath ledger – Kelley Eskridge

The Dark Knight

So. Finally, after all the hype and the waiting, I’ve seen The Dark Knight. I’ll be seeing it again, and may have more to say about it after a more careful viewing, but here’s my gut response:

Awesome movie.

It did things I really didn’t expect, and what I expected was done so well as to be nearly seamless (no such thing as a perfect movie…) For me, this film comes closest to the essence and impact of Frank Miller‘s graphic novel. It’s not all a big party in Gotham, you know? Things happen to people.

It’s not so easy to balance the psychological exploration of what comes when people encounter a monster and find a little of themselves looking out of the eyes of chaos, and the blow-it-up fast-moving fun of a summer movie. But that’s what you get in The Dark Knight, and the ultimate coolness of this film is that you don’t get it in alternate jangling layers, but in an integrated structure that brings you deeper and deeper in, gradually, the way good wine changes as it breathes.

The writing… well, new benchmark for me, for sure. Lots there to learn from about structure, plotting, economy of exposition, showing versus telling, pacing…. And the direction and the performances lift the marvelous words to the place story always wants to go, into the realm of Well, it couldn’t have been any other way than this.

And then there is Heath Ledger, whose performance is absolutely fearless. Never mind the fences — he is swinging for the moon every second on screen, and damn near making it. Brilliant, riveting work, just electric. He found his way into a place that most actors don’t go with their villains — absolute joy. Not the movie cliche of capering gleeful inhuman evil, but the very human abandonment to that which we can no longer resist. In one scene, the Joker says I am an agent of chaos. He’s not kidding: but when he says chaos, he doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter what happens — he means that whatever happens is Nothing But Good. Nothing But Joy. All outcomes equally compelling, equally desired, equally embraced. The difference between the monster and the heroes is that the monster has a pure super-oxygenated joy in whatever the next moment brings.

The next time I write story — screenplay, fiction, whatever — I will think of Heath Ledger and hope to be as fierce and as fearless, to write with the same tight balancing act of skill and abandon, the controlled recklessness, the what the fuck of it all.

So. Wow.

And the audience behaved beautifully. The popcorn was fresh. And I wore my special movie t-shirt:
(Click on the image to enlarge — but be warned, it’s called “Spoilt” for a reason…)

It was a good afternoon.

Dark Knight, Joker’s wild

The Dark Knight. July 18.

And here’s another kind of madness — what I expect will be a brilliant and masterful and lunatic tour-de-force performance from Heath Ledger, who Rolling Stone calls “mad-crazy-blazing brilliant,” and who by all accounts gave himself over to his work the way we all hope to, the way that burns. I only wish he could be here to see how people will respond.

I am looking forward to this movie like… I dunno. Like dancing to Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Like a southern summer storm, where the electricity gets right under your skin. Movies can put me straight into the heart of story, and this kind of story is where I’m living right now — big feelings, big choices, identity, exhaustion, the bright spots and shadows of the self. I am in a mood right now to see people ride their own bow wave, to see people walk their own edge, to be in the company of those who reach and reach and reach.

Carpe diem

Here is a beautiful and loving tribute to Heath Ledger.

It makes me ashamed of all the time I’ve ever wasted. I don’t mean time spent staring at the ocean, or reading Travis McGee when I ought to be washing dishes, or lying on the grass watching clouds go by — that’s all time well spent, in my opinion. But all the time I’ve wasted on bullshit, pettiness, avoiding work, letting fear win, or feeling sorry for myself for more than 15 seconds. Any time spent diminishing myself.

Seize the fucking day, people. Kiss it hard and use it for something good, because one day will be the last day. And we can never be ready. The best we can be is full of days well spent.

Sweeney Todd…

…absolutely rocks.

I fell in love with the play in the 80’s. I’m not a huge fan of what I think of as typical Broadway musicals or Broadway singing — if I hear one more orange-haired moppet belt out “Tomorrow” in a size 20 voice, I will absolutely run screaming from the room. But Sweeney Todd worked because the songs work as story, not just as vehicles for voice.

And now we have Tim Burton and his vision for Sweeney, and it’s fantastic. Dark, sophisticated, visceral in a way that is both cartoonish and gut-churning (seriously, when the first guy lands on the pavement, I just about lost my popcorn…). This is a streamlined Sweeney, and it’s a naturalistic one. Many of the talented cast don’t have trained voices, and the ones who do are forgoing Broadway-belt-it-out in favor of showing us who and where they are, and why. Telling us a story of themselves, or giving us a window into themselves at a moment of crisis. I love this naturalistic approach to music. I’d much rather watch an actor sell a song than simply sing it to the back row.

In particular, I think the duets benefit from this approach, as well as from the intimacy of the camera. If songs are story, then duets are relationship, and these are so nuanced and compelling… great stuff. A grownup movie with strong performances and all the grand guignol that Sweeney Todd demands.

*****

And while we’re at it, I am so so so so excited about this. Heath Ledger is going to be amazing, I can just tell.