scottfairley.com is now up (or should be soon).
As such, Curses and Prayers will no longer be updated. Thanks to all.
Cheers,
Scott William Fairley
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Dark Knight is cursed!
In October, 2007, tragedy struck the production of The Dark Knight. A stunt technician by the name of Conway Wickliffe was killed during production. And naturally, everyone knows that Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose in January 2008. Apparently, this coupled with an unrelated (but ill-timed) accusation of assault towards Christian Bale and a presumably unrelated car accident involving actor Morgan Freeman earlier this week is enough to have people asking if The Dark Knight is cursed. The corresponding article from The Daily Telegraph begins as follows:
FIRST Heath Ledger.Then a film crew member dies. Batman Christian Bale is arrested on assault charges, Mary-Kate Olsen refuses to be interviewed by US investigators over Ledger's death and overnight, Morgan Freeman is seriously injured in a car smash.
Stop right there. The article begins with a mistake. Heath Ledger died three months after Conway Wickliffe. Second, what the hell does Mary-Kate Olsen have to do with this movie at all? I suppose it's implied that she knew Heath Ledger, and I'm going to go on a limb and say she saw the movie. But does she have a more tangible link to the movie than that? I doubt that very much. Heath Ledger's death, tragic as it was, didn't have anything to do with the movie. I suppose it's debatable that he took too much of his character home with him, but that's all idle speculation. Besides, his overdose was from a combination of six different medications, not just ambien, and was also suffering from pneumonia at the time of his death. Not to mention it was long enough after The Dark Knight and I'm Not Here's filming that he had begun work on a new project. I don't know what Mary-Kate Olsen's link to his overdose was, but it has absolutely nothing to do with The Dark Knight, unless Mary-Kate Olsen has a time machine. And if she does, she's clearly hoarding it for selfish purposes.
Secondly, Morgan Freeman's car accident. It's not proof of a curse, it's one of over 6 million car accidents that happen in the United States each year. These things happen.
Here's my issue with all this hoopla. Nobody seems to care enough about the one person who actually did die making the movie. Yes, he was a stuntman, and that profession carries with it an extreme risk, but he knew that and decided that making movies more exciting was worth the risk. He likely wasn't taking that risk because of the financial payoff. Actors make obscene amounts of money for what is ultimately not a lot of work. They're rarely at risk, and if the script requests that of them, they have a much lesser paid stuntman to do it, some of whom have died in filming. It's unfair.
I'm not trying to make it seem like Ledger's death, Bale's arrest, and Freeman's car accident are peanuts, but let's keep our priorities straight. Only one person died for the movie, and he'll never be a household name. I hope I'm not the only person who thinks that's not quite right.
FIRST Heath Ledger.Then a film crew member dies. Batman Christian Bale is arrested on assault charges, Mary-Kate Olsen refuses to be interviewed by US investigators over Ledger's death and overnight, Morgan Freeman is seriously injured in a car smash.
Stop right there. The article begins with a mistake. Heath Ledger died three months after Conway Wickliffe. Second, what the hell does Mary-Kate Olsen have to do with this movie at all? I suppose it's implied that she knew Heath Ledger, and I'm going to go on a limb and say she saw the movie. But does she have a more tangible link to the movie than that? I doubt that very much. Heath Ledger's death, tragic as it was, didn't have anything to do with the movie. I suppose it's debatable that he took too much of his character home with him, but that's all idle speculation. Besides, his overdose was from a combination of six different medications, not just ambien, and was also suffering from pneumonia at the time of his death. Not to mention it was long enough after The Dark Knight and I'm Not Here's filming that he had begun work on a new project. I don't know what Mary-Kate Olsen's link to his overdose was, but it has absolutely nothing to do with The Dark Knight, unless Mary-Kate Olsen has a time machine. And if she does, she's clearly hoarding it for selfish purposes.
Secondly, Morgan Freeman's car accident. It's not proof of a curse, it's one of over 6 million car accidents that happen in the United States each year. These things happen.
Here's my issue with all this hoopla. Nobody seems to care enough about the one person who actually did die making the movie. Yes, he was a stuntman, and that profession carries with it an extreme risk, but he knew that and decided that making movies more exciting was worth the risk. He likely wasn't taking that risk because of the financial payoff. Actors make obscene amounts of money for what is ultimately not a lot of work. They're rarely at risk, and if the script requests that of them, they have a much lesser paid stuntman to do it, some of whom have died in filming. It's unfair.
I'm not trying to make it seem like Ledger's death, Bale's arrest, and Freeman's car accident are peanuts, but let's keep our priorities straight. Only one person died for the movie, and he'll never be a household name. I hope I'm not the only person who thinks that's not quite right.
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