Heath Ledger Has a Posse

An unfortunate scene from Terry Gilliam's "The Imagination of Dr. Parnassus", which Ledger was in the middle of filming when he met his untimely end Tuesday afternoon.


This is where reality makes fiction feel grislier. Not that it should. The reports aren't claiming this as a suicide. He was sick with pneumonia at the time. There were "pills in his vicinity", so it could have been accidental.

The media's leapt upon the story, digging for details, insight. TMZ's laying off Britney Spears for a few hours to exploit every angle of this one.

"Inside the Building Where Heath Died!"

"Heath Had Substance Abuse Problem!"

"Ledger's Eerily Prophetic Interview!"

There is nothing prophetic here. Like most things in the world, there's no sense to be made out of this.

No reasons why this had to happen.

Great fortunes are bestowed upon people who don't fucking deserve it.

Terrible things happen to good people.

There are genuine cautionary tales, to be sure. But I think, more often than not, there are stories like this one. And as comforting as it might be to try to make sense out of it, dissect it, comb for warning signs... sometimes you can't do anything:

The rotten things happen and the world is powerless to prevent them.

Reports are that The Dark Knight is in the can and all of his post-production work was completed (so that he could move onto the Gilliam movie). Ledger's Joker features so prominently in the viral ad campaigns, I've a feeling some of it may be rendered more gruesome in light of his passing.

In the wake of a death, everything is suddenly tinged with prescience.

Renfro to Ledger—that is a wide fucking margin. Renfro had so much promise and seemed to be perennially struggling on the fringes because of drugs. Ledger had had his breakthroughs and seemed primed for superstardom with this upcoming Batman movie. Renfro 25, Ledger 28.

And the hits don't stop...