Academy Award winning Heath Ledger may have left family, friends and millions of fans stunned nearly a year and a half ago when he tragically died from a drug overdose in New York City, but even more shocking is his career which keeps living on. Even after the memorable actor’s death, Heath has “received” several awards for best supporting actor (Dark Knight), he will have a lead role in an as of now unreleased film (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) and finally is credited with the creation of the latest Modest Mouse music video.
So yes, you have probably heard about Heath’s final role in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but Ledger’s latest big posthumous achievement is the direction of the music video King Rat (bonus track from the band’s 2007 release We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank). According to a VH1 interview which took place in spring of 2007 prior to Ledger’s death, Isaac Brock (lead of Modest Mouse) stated “Heath and I have a mutual friend and when we were in Australia, my fiance and some of us in the band went out on a boat with him and his family and friends and talked about the idea [of him directing King Rat]. He’s got a video production company and was interested in working on something. We were talking back and forth for a while. [But then the idea sort of dropped until] he just sent me an email saying that he wanted to do it. [...] I hope it works out and I don’t sound like a fucking liar at the end of this” (Chart Attack).
The animated music video finally debuted last month on August 4th. The video, which sheds light on the traumatic impact of whaling off the coast of Australia, was “fully conceived down to the last detail but unfinished when Heath passed away in January of 2008. In the interest of fully realizing Heath’s final work as a visual artist, THE MASSES (a film and music company which Heath was a partner in) finished the video in his honor, with the support and advocacy of Isaac Brock” (Modest Mouse).
So where can you catch the music video?
Modest Mouse disabled external embedding of the King Rat music video on their YouTube Channel so you will have to click here to watch it.
6. Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I’ve truly enjoyed surfing around your blog posts. After all I will be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
I lately came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first remark. I don