Though I first buzzed about an Academy Award nomination for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight more than a month before his death, I now want to take it all back. I feel all the talk of Ledger’s posthumous Oscar chances will cloud my mind when I finally do see it, and it will probably also cloud the Academy’s judgment, too. Six months from now, when the nominations are announced on January 22 (coincidentally the one-year anniversary of Ledger’s death), if Ledger is not recognized for his role as The Joker, there will surely be an uproar — actually, Hollywood might just up and self-implode.
I’m not the only one annoyed by all the Oscar buzz. Terry Gilliam, who directed Ledger in The Brothers Grimm and the upcoming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is calling “bullshit” on the whole thing, particularly against Warner Bros., which Gilliam accuses of exploiting Ledger’s death and chance of a posthumous Oscar for publicity purposes. Considering most Oscar campaigns for live actors are really just part of movie marketing, he has a good point.
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So Warner Brothers is planning to work a “tribute” to the late Heath Ledger into their New York premiere of The Dark Knight next month. Reports OK! Mag (yeah, I know):
The studio behind the Batman Begins sequel is planning a tribute to the late actor at the New York City premiere and has been working closely with the Ledger family to make it come to fruition.
If all goes according to plan, Heath’s family will be flown in from Australia for the event and Michelle Williams, his ex and mother of their 2-year-old daughter Matilda, will walk the red carpet as well.
So: will this amount to a trashy trotting-out of a widow to ensure maximum tabloid coverage of a tentpole from a studio that could really use a big hit to justify their recent swerve away from producing smaller films? Or is it actually a classy way of explicitly acknowledging the obvious cloud that hangs over this wannabe blockbuster? I took an informal poll via Twitter, and responses leaned towards the latter, but do use the comments to tell us what you think.
