Subject:CINEMA listeners react to the passing of Heath Ledger

Subject:CINEMA Listeners and PNR Visitors have been sending in their thoughts about the passing of Heath Ledger. I thought i’d share some of them with all our readers.

First of all, From Kim

Calling You

They called you "Star"
Some called you "Friend"
One called you "Father"
All called you "Excellent"
Now you belong to the Universe
And we are left to wonder
What more you could have done
But we have the gifts you left us
And for those – we are grateful
You truly are a star – forever now above us
Shimmering in Eternity

– For Heath

From Rob Collier, Coos Bay OR

I saw the news online at Digg.com about this. How sad. I truly hope
this was an accidental overdose and not a suicide. I dread seeing all
the news in the coming days on the "paparazzi" channels with their
speculation and commentary. Shows like that make me ill. I have only
seen a couple of his films and I am still looking forward to his Joker
in the The Dark Knight film.

Rest in Peace and God Bless You Heath Ledger.

From Jonathan Lyttle, Edinburgh, Scotland

I just finished typing this [letter]and then heard the tragic news about Heath Ledger. It has certainly made me pause for thought. I guess I’ll still send this email but I’m not sure what to say about Heath. What can you say when stuff like this happens?

I haven’t seen many of his movies but I recently saw Brokeback Mountain . My reaction to it was a bit like The Maltese Falcon – I just couldn’t take it seriously. However, subconsciously, there must have been something about his performance that got to me because I was really looking forward to seeing him as the Joker in the upcoming Batman movie. I felt that this was the movie that was going to propel him to household-name status and convert me into a fan. This could still happen, but sadly, too late.

My heart goes out to his family and especially his little daughter. Yes, he was a movie star but he was also a father and that’s the real tragedy here. I know you’ll pay tribute to him and I’ll say a little prayer when I listen to it.

Posted by our friend Larry Richman on his 411blog:

Academy Award Nomination Day should be a happy one. In theory. Who would have thought that, come the end of the afternoon, it would not be the most important story of the day?

I was just preparing my article about the Oscar nominations when word came of Heath Ledger’s death. Needless to say, as most people, I was stunned — in disbelief. I wanted to say something but there were just no words. I sent and received phone calls, emails, MySpace messages, etc. for hours until I almost collapsed. Keeping busy helped since I didn’t have to stop and think about this terrible loss.

It didn’t really hit me until today as I started to hear back from friends of mine who had worked with him. Several friends were in movies with Heath and many others knew him or had met him through other people. Everyone said what a classy guy he was, caring and intelligent and talented.

Needless to say, writing about nominations wasn’t exactly a priority at that point. I even received some release updates for films I’ve been following and that took a backseat as well. So you’ll excuse me if this blog isn’t on top of the news right now as much as usual. In two days I leave for a week at the Santa Barbara Film Festival so we’ll be focusing on that.

What a loss. My heart goes out to Heath’s family and all who knew him or were touched by him and his work.

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If you’d care to share your thoughts about this awful tragedy, please send them along to subjectcinema (at) popcornnroses.com. In addition to posting as many as we can, we’ll also be discussing this tragedy on this weekend’s Subject:CINEMA.