I've yet to brave the crowds for Dark Knight, but I'm sufficiently death-obsessed of late to be fascinated by Heath Ledger's "Joker from beyond the grave" and all the weird mimetic magic implied. Actually, what's been obsessing me even more is the semi-double suicide of beautiful brilliant couple Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, and Duncan's blog, "The Wit of the Staircase."
Among the treasures I found on the staircase was a link to an online journal called OBIT, devoted to the concept of "what death can mean to the living, and what living may have meant to the dead." and which has a fascinating compendium of links and quotes relating to Heath's final performance, asking questions of whether the "staring into the void" bravery of his turn as the Joker could have led him to his sad fate.
The looking into the void thing can be a real danger if you are too brilliant for your own good. It's sucked some of our best and brightest right down the rabbit hole from which no man returns. What's freaking me out is just how jealous I am of what Duncan and Blake seemed to have: their fascinating rapport, their friends and artistic successes, their love and "perfection" for each other, and their fearless pursuit of whatever bizarre esoteric niches caught their fancy. Is it also, perhaps, that they died with so much undone, so poetically, the "long swim" and Tylenol PM plus bourbon (mmmmmm bourbon)? Is this the fate of our best and brightest when they get too far ahead of the pack, and realize they have no choice but to speed up into the void, or else go back with the rest and grow old as gracelessly and relentlessly as merciless banal time dictates, watching their beauty and relevance slowly fade under the dictatorial tick tock of the swiping scythe?
Gosh, I don't mean to sound grim, of course there's great artists who've survived the abyss and come back. I just wonder what separates the survivors from the departed? Is it just my Slim Pickens-on-the-bomb style jet black humor that keeps my chin up even as things turn darker than a Tim Burton film? I pray for all these fallen heroes' departed souls, and when I finally brave the crowds to see DARK KNIGHT, I know I'll be thinking "God bless you, Heath. Come back soon."
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The land beyond beyond....
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7 comments:
The Duncan/Blake Suicides are the stuff of myth. I see their story becoming some kind of early 21rst Century touchstone in the decades to come. There will be novels and songs and movies, maybe even some kind of avante-garde Robert Wilson-type opera-multi-media spectacle, or, even better, a large corner of the net dedicated to their life and work.
At first, when I heard about these two, I thought, Oh well, who cares, but then I delved a little deeper into their story, and the ingredients sucked me right in; drug use, paranoia, Hollywood, Scientology, child sex rings, New York in the mid-90's during the boom, Venice Beach, more drugs, D.C. Punk, and much, much more.
One of my least commendatory moments was when I heard about Duncan's suicide.
First thought (and I am not proud of this):
'Geez. And she was a fan of my blog . . . '
Pitiful.
For what it's worth, I believe their claims about Beck and the Scientologists... (though they and Beck deny it, of course they would)... that would drive me into paranoid insanity too.
The problem with all the paranoia is where to stop. The Scientologists themselves are essentially paranoid conspirarcy theorists, but the more suspicious and paranoid you become ABOUT them, the more you become LIKE them, even if that voice you're listening to isn't L. Ron Hubbard but the one in your head. To avoid slipping down the rabbit hole, I'd say skepticism in matters of factual assertion is always the way to go (in other words, questioning is fine but when you start to make leaps of faith about facts that you can't quite back up, you're in for a world of trouble).
I don't buy the Ledger's death-by-overdose-of-Joker-thing too seriously. For one, it seems like something drummed up to increase the hype and mystique surrounding the film (and hell, in that sense it worked, on me no less than others). Which leads one to wonder if the whole thing was planned...perhaps Katie Holms, driven equally by a secret Scientologist cabal run by her husband and resentment at losing her part to Maggie Gyllenhal, poisoned Ledger. Why not poison Maggie instead, you ask? Too obvious...clearly you wouldn't make much of a conspiracy theorist.
Wow, that IS some cool faith-leaping, Movieman, and I dig your blog.
I agree about never taking leaps of faith too seriously. I'm all about speculation though, and I believe all conspiracy theories the way I believe a movie I'm watching is "really happening" at the time I'm watching it. We all are able to do that split of "pretend belief" otherwise we'd only ever watch documentaries... the thing is, we don't all realize we can apply the same principle to real life.
The Vanity Fair piece is tainted by Nancy Jo Sales relationship with the creepy priest Father Frank Morales. The CO$ connection to their deaths is negligible and the "child sex rings" stuff is a joke. Heavy drugs and drinking.
Their deaths were predicted weeks in advance. And that's the real story here.
Q: But really who cares?
A: Nobody.
Stella!!
http://perezhilton.com/?p=6382&cp=3
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