re: countering my own argument with “Dances With Wolves”- that’s fair enough. I might say that Best Picture 1991 is the exception that tests the rule, and thus perhaps my rule fails. Incidentally, I did see “Dances” again about a year ago, and I agree with you that it has aged well. I do think it’s an exceptional film.

The fact that I admire it, however, doesn’t change my opinion that “Goodfellas” is a better film and would’ve made a more appropriate Best Pic winner. History certainly has been unfair to “Dances”, but I think that’s an inevitable side effect of winning the award over a film that is widely considered to be superior.

Back to Ledger, I think we’re talking at cross-purposes here. While I’m arguing that he’s a deserving winner, you’re certainly not suggesting that his performance is poor. And in staking out the position that his death affects all perceptions of his work, you have found that I have no disagreement with you.

Honestly, I think you’re working with a variation on my thoughts about Sean Penn’s win and the passing of Prop 8- that an influence outside the scope of his performance pushed him to victory. In what amounted to a toss-up between Penn and Rourke, a prevailing sentiment regarding the election result decided the contest.

Even as I say that, however, I don’t believe Penn to be less than deserving, as you’ve suggested with Ledger. Going back to the “Dances” and “Goodfellas” analogy, I don’t see any contenders who were more worthy than Ledger. If Ledger is less than deserving, as you suggest, who is more wholly deserving?

Second of all, to Chris… have you seen “Dances With Wolves” recently? I’m telling you it holds up much better than Oscar history has painted it. I suppose the same could be said for much of Costner’s work from that era. Movies like “Swing Vote” have made us forget.

While you make a good argument, I just can’t get entirely behind it because the whole thing is not scientific. Yeah, normally all the nominees are deserving winners (though by besmirching “Dances” for beating “Goodfellas,” aren’t you proving your own theory wrong?)… but this was not a normal circumstance. Nobody saw much less heard about “Dark Knight” without the cloud of Ledger’s death, so it permeated every bit of the movie.

The lack of “science” comes in because it there was no Control in this experiment. If Ledger had died AFTER the ballots were tallied and he’d still won, then we would know for sure. But I’m saying since his death predated every bit of this very popular movie, with a very popular character, there’s no way to say it didn’t affect everything from the start, which is a long way of saying “His dying won him an Oscar.” Which is a jerk-ass way of saying it.

Again–I’m not saying he wasn’t good. I am saying I have no way of really telling how good he was because the cloud of his death has affected EVERY bit of it.

Look at it this way: if Johnny Depp had died after completing the first “Pirates of the Caribbean,” I believe he would have gotten much more serious consideration because we would have all read more into his performance. Not even perennial spoiler Sean Penn could have stolen the spotlight that year.

However, I think there are enormous differences in terms of how their deaths impacted the perception of these final performances. Lee’s Eric Draven was a potential breakthrough role, the kind of part that might catapult him from being a genre/B-movie guy to a mainstream star. Still, prior to “The Crow,” Lee was not really a known quantity, and I think it can be fairly argued that his death caught the attention of a bigger audience than the film might have drawn otherwise.

Ledger, on the other hand, passed away as a much more established star. His death didn’t bring him wide notoriety, for he already had it. It’s not as if his passing made people suddenly realize “Hey! This guy can act! Furthermore, “The Dark Knight” was going to be a huge event movie regardless of Ledger’s passing, and as an attempt to make a “serious” comic book movie, an Oscar is precisely the validation the filmmakers sought.

Let me also say something about deserving the Oscar- to my way of thinking, if you got the nom, you’re almost certainly a deserving winner. Would I have thought that Philip Seymour Hoffman was undeserving if he’d won this year? No.

I believe that Ledger’s nom was completely legit; I didn’t see it announced and think “Huh? No way!” Also, among the other nominees, I don’t see anyone that I think got screwed by Ledger’s win. This isn’t “Dances With Wolves” and “Goodfellas.”

Aside from that, you took the words right out of my mouth–there’s really no way to separate the performance from the knowledge of his death, so it’ll always kind of be there. I would argue that the knowledge gives extra fuel to certain moments (particularly the bit in the interrogation scene where he yell/cries/laughs, “You have nothing… NOTHING to threaten me with!”

When combined with his untimely death, I think moments like these elevate to a kind of mythic level where we stop watching a performance and almost fool ourselves into seeing the sad truth of the man playing the character.

Ultimately, his death hurts our ability to accurately evaluate his performance. We’ll always read a little more into it (did he have a death wish? Was this sad craziness really what director Nolan saw when he cast him, unconventionally?) than there might have ever been in the first place.

Let me ask you this, um… whoever you are: How much do the circumstances of Ledger’s performance in “Dark Knight” remind you Brandon Lee’s in “The Crow” (premature death, comic book character, make-up, long stringy hair)?

-Ledger was a previous Oscar nominee, so he already had at least some credibility as an actor.

-The Joker was obviously conceived as the kind of showy, high-profile role that makes for clear Oscar bait (assuming that the performance was right).

-To borrow a bit from Klaus Kinski (via his old roommate, Werner Herzog), I truly think that Ledger’s Joker is monumental, epochal- the performance really is great. Certainly the make-up and costuming help, but it’s Ledger’s eyes that really sell it (like when Gamble calls him crazy- “No. I’m not.” A simple response becomes chilling.) He walks the line on being crazy and psychotic without going over the top- there’s actually a lot of restraint in the performance. It’s a role that so easily could’ve flopped or come off as campy, but doesn’t.

So, did Ledger deserve it? I say yes.