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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

HEATH LEDGER - A SOUL IN SEARCH - PAIN ALWAYS FINDS A WAY TO SHOW UP

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Uploaded by prissson
UPDATE:
This post gets more daily hits than any other post. It must be the title of the post. Since I posted this, the video that was orginally here was removed from its host site, so I am leaving the lyrics of the song from that video below, while posting a different video tribute to the beloved Heath.


Heath and Matilda Rose Ledger

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Uploaded by
Cliffy4479

The original video posted here is no longer available, but here are the words to the song it used..

Leave Out All The Rest


By Linkin Park

I dreamed I was missing
You were so scared
But no one would listen
Cause no one else cared

After my dreaming
I woke with this fear
What am I leaving
When I'm done here

So if you're asking me
I want you to know



When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed

And don't resent me
And when you're feeling empty
Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest

Don't be afraid
I've taken my beating
I've shared what I made

I'm strong on the surface
Not all the way through
I've never been perfect
But neither have you

So if you're asking me
I want you to know

When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed

Don't resent me
And when you're feeling empty
Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest

Forgetting
All the hurt inside
You've learned to hide so well

Pretending
Someone else can come and save me from myself
I can't be who you are

When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I've done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed

Don't resent me
And when you're feeling empty
Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest
Leave out all the rest

Forgetting
All the hurt inside
You've learned to hide so well

Pretending
Someone else can come and save me from myself
I can't be who you are
I can't be who you are

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Uploaded by falcounderground

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We all need to search for peace. Life is too dear to sacrifice that chance to drugs. If you are fortunate enough to live a long life, a healthy body that wasn't abused by drugs will be your blessed aged life's legacy to yourself.

Post script:

I want to be clear, that I don't believe that Heath was abusing drugs when he died. I believe he was trying to cope at a very difficult time in his life and the mixture of prescribed drugs, though were reported to be within the dosage limits, unfortunately when taken altogether were deadly.

We, who, admire Heath on screen and off, certainly wish it could all be different.

Heath showed so much in his eyes. I marvel each time I watch him in one of the many dvds of his movies that I now own. He truly was in a class of one in my opinion.

I have seen Heath's final screen work 13 times so far. It is the first and last film of his, that I have had the privilege to see on the big screen, as I became a fan many months after he died. Here is a review of it:

Dr. Parnassus – Much More Than Heath Ledger’s Last Movie

Source: Examiner Santa Ana

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus will always carry the unspoken but understood subtitle, Heath Ledger’s Last Movie.

Yet as many critics have already acknowledged, it deserves to be known as much more than that, though the story behind the making of Parnassus truly is a heartbreaking, incredibly touching one. And who better to tell this story behind the story than the master storyteller himself, Terry Gilliam?

Aside from all that, when looked at objectively as simply a movie, Dr. Parnassus is a surreal, sometimes whimsical, sometimes frightening fairy tale, told mainly in the slightly melodramatic but all-in-good-fun “panto” style of acting. It’s got a nice Bohemian vibe to it, right down to the beautiful, slightly threadbare costumes in richly hued brocades and velvets, medieval-looking clothes well suited to the tattered kings, princes and princesses who stride across Dr. Parnassus’s rickety stage.

Christopher Plummer infuses Parnassus with all the mystical wisdom and world-weariness you’d expect of a visionary who’s been on this earth for a thousand years or more. English model Lily Cole plays his beautiful teen-aged daughter Valentina with a nice balance of child-like wonder and womanly wiles. With his dapper Mr. Nick, the exquisitely cast Tom Waits brings us the Devil with a pencil-thin mustache and jaunty bowler hat. After seeing his face transposed through the wonders of CGI onto the neck of a gargantuan cobra looming menacingly over the landscape (we’re talking skyscraper high here, as this is a Gilliam film after all), you just can’t imagine anyone else in this role.

And then there’s Heath Ledger as Tony Shepherd, the smooth-talking con man with a mysterious past.
How can this movie not be a heart breaker to watch in many ways, knowing we’re seeing the last screen performance of Heath Ledger, filmed during his last days here on Earth? It seems almost heartless to find any fault with the movie under such sad circumstances.

This being Heath, there’s nothing at all bad about his performance. He puts his usual charisma, conviction and authenticity into it (and manages to look and feel a bit Errol Flynn-like while doing so). But by definition (he had filmed only about a third of his scenes before his death), it is literally an incomplete performance. And therein lies the rub. At this early stage in the game, there simply hadn’t been enough time or scenes yet for him to shade in his character, Tony Shepherd.

We know Tony’s hiding something about his identity from Dr. Parnassus and crew, that there might be a little menace lurking beneath that charming smile. But that’s about all we know, until a chaotic reveal near the end of the movie that features not Ledger but Colin Farrell as Tony as he makes his final trip into the Imaginarium. Tony never has a chance to earn either our sympathy or our contempt, because we just don’t know much at all about his inner life, about what drives him.

Ledger has said of acting, “”I only do this because I’m having fun. The day I stop having fun, I’ll just walk away.” And he clearly was having fun here working with Gilliam, his dear friend and former partner in crime on The Brothers Grimm.

So what Heath Ledger fan wouldn’t cherish these last new moments of Heath “having fun” on film? We get to watch Tony charm and con the daylights out of a group of English housewives in a grocery store…all while wearing a clown suit accessorized with a tutu, no less! And we get to hear him deliver verbal flourishes like this with a slightly dodgy Cockney accent: “Do you dream? Or should I say, can you put a price on your dreams?”

It feels ungrateful and unnecessary to wish for anything more out of this performance. After the intensity and ferocity of the Joker, it’s likely Ledger reveled in the more light-hearted quality of this role. He probably saw it as a nice break from the stress of a mind that was always “turning, turning, turning,” as his former partner Michelle Williams put it, always milling over the countless possibilities for the intricate, haunting roles that had become his stock in trade.

No, Tony Shepherd won’t go down in history as one of Ledger’s more profound roles. But we still feel extremely grateful to have this delightful footage of Tony, which could’ve easily ended up filed away in storage if it weren’t for the fierce determination (and love) of a fine director helped along by an esteemed group of Ledger’s actor friends. It’s this team we have to thank for bringing Heath Ledger back for one final, characteristically gracious and charming curtain call.

Comment:

I don’t see the name of the writer of this review, but after reading the way understanding, heart, humankindness comes through the words on the page, I think this has to be a fascinating person. What a wonderfully put together read about The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus... Terry Gilliam, Heath, Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, Lily Cole, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law (missing the wonderful Andrew Garfield, may I add who was marvelous…just marvelous! And Verne Troyer who was Dr Parnassus’ faithful and gentle conscious)…but I loved the spirit that ran through this review. You can feel the heart, love, respect and someone who appreciates the whole story….the story in the movie and the story surrounding the movie. Great job, whoever wrote this.

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