Which will you take

I can't really say why I felt so sad when I saw the news about Heath Ledger scroll across the closed captioning at the TV in the coffee shop I was having a business meeting in yesterday afternoon. For the most part, I always feel that it's really unfortunate when a celebrity dies unexpectedly and young, but no more so than the news of anyone I don't know. But Heath Ledger...he actually made me feel sad.

Part of it was that I saw Brokeback Mountain again recently and was reminded just what a tragic story it is. Part of it is that the Fourth of July scene in that movie (as well as Jake Gyllenhaal's Thanksgiving scene) really hit me hard and has always stuck with me, acting out a desire to be able to stand up for your values by backing it up with your fists. But even besides that, his character was tragic. It's hard to divorce him from that character.

And I was really excited (and still am) by his turn at Joker, but I really got sad when I found out that he'd obsessed over Nick Drake and had wanted to tell his story. Even though he had given it up when he apparently felt he couldn't do the story justice, that didn't keep me from imagining what an incredible--if difficult--movie it would have been.

Nick Drake, "Which Will"