Deconstructing Heath Ledger (or at least the tributes to him)

By Steven Zeitchik
How awards shows will handle the inevitable Heath Ledger wins over the coming weeks is one of the season's most interesting questions. Will it go somber? Celebratory? Retrospective? Different combinations in different venues?

Also open -- who'll be accepting for him at Globes, Oscars, SAG, et al (yes, yes, assuming he wins --  like assuming there will be gravity and a sunrise tomorrow).

Thursday night's Critics Choice awards at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium -- a serviceable but largely tame affair, with few moments of eye-catching spontaneity -- offered the first clue.

When presenters announced Ledger's win, the show went into  respectful-but-not-overly-mournful mode: a standing ovation and a black-and-white head shot of the actor on the room's three large screens. "Dark Knight" director Chris Nolan took the stage to accept the award.

Nolan basically struck the right note for the event, deferential but not gushing.

"Anyone who's seen any of the extraordinary work Heath did knows I can't presume to speak for him in any way," he said. "But I can speak for those of who worked with him...I'd like to think he'd be quietly proud of the effect of the role he's had on audiences." Nolan closed with "his contribution to cinema should be greatly appreciated."

It worked for the room, and the moment. On bigger stages, though, we have a feeling there's going to be viewer expectation to up the emotional ante. And Nolan's words, like his original Newsweek tribute, were the right mix of eloquence and homage -- not as personal or specific, but no less moving.

But if he accepts future ones he'll have to be careful not to repeat it -- basically, to find a way to strike the same tone without sounding like he's saying the same thing.

As for who'll be accepting for Ledger....when it comes to the Oscars we imagine his parents will be there, as they were at the Dark Knight premiere in New York back in the summer. But again, the balance thing: the Globes and SAG may be big venues, but if it his parents do turn out there might be some fatigue by the time the Oscars roll around.

With the Globes Sunday and Oscar noms in thirteen days, the comparisons to Peter Finch, who won a posthumous Oscar, are starting to come fast and furious. And If the press wasn't already going to flog the story, there's this: the one-year anniversary of Ledger's death comes on the same exact day the Oscar noms are announced. We have a feeling the Academy's going to have to worry a little less about ratings this year.

Comments

[Mark in Orlando]

I agree that the tone last night was perfect. Everyone knows he's going to win. His biggest competition, Josh Brolin, was clapping harder than anybody in the room. When the tone is considered for future events, I think it'll be important to remember just as everyone knows he's going to win everything, including the Oscar, that he would have won everything anyway. No one is even suggesting these are tribute awards. They need to be presented as worthy awards given WITH a tribute not as one.