In the months following the actor’s death, the question of the future of the Masses loomed large. Before Ledger had stepped in, the Masses was an idea that had blossomed on South Orange, with little overhead but big ideas. With his backing, no idea has been too huge or unrealistic to at least contemplate its completion. Ledger’s estate opted against continuing to finance the Masses, and by the beginning of April, the collective understood that with their lease up at the end of June, they’d have to either find financing or move to a smaller space.
There is hope. Billy Zane connected the Masses with an Australian investor interested in keeping Ledger’s mission alive, though all they’ve got at this point is a handshake. Their landlord is allowing them to stay in the space on a month-to-month basis, and each individual member is freelancing jobs to pay the rent.
Trevor DiCarlo
Marfa bound: Alex Ebert and the Masses on the road.
Blake Bertuccelli
Artistic freedom: Heath Ledger directing Ben Harper's
"Morning Yearning"
Related Content
More About
Even with financing, though, the group's members know that the landscape has permanently shifted.
“It’s changed. Absolutely,” Auber says. “I’m sorry to say this because we do want the Masses to keep going. But obviously it’s not the same. Now it’s ... now it’s a company. Before, there was a supernatural ingredient that made it something I’d never seen before. It’s still a place where I have great friends, who I want to see all the time, but from a purely professional point of view, having Heath out there making incredible movies, meeting incredible people and bringing them in — that is a big river of energy constantly coming to the Masses. Now, we’ll still make movies and meet incredible people, but Heath’s charisma was a different level of attraction for us.”
One night, right after Ledger died, Slagle had some of his best friends in her car. It was raining. “I was just like looking up at the sky and [thinking], ‘Give me wings, keep me safe with all these people,’” she says. “You know, those are the moments where it would get really clear that if there was one thing that we could do, it would be to stay attached, just like he would have wanted us to.”
“Every time a motorcycle drives by here,” Amato says in his office, “I could jump back a year and think none of this ever happened. That Ducati — yeah, that’s his motorcycle coming. ... So much to miss.”
Over the course of four days in Marfa, the ever-growing dozen-odd Magnetic Zeros have secured bikes (plus one gracious stranger’s Volvo) and become a part of the town. And on this fifth and last night of the trip, with the future of the Masses far from certain, a renegade party breaks out, with Mia Doi Todd and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros delivering the salvation.
Doi Todd sings a song she’s been playing at Masses gatherings for the past year, one that’s became a kind of anthem for the group, “River of Life.” She had played it on the beach in Mexico, had played it at a Dublab party Ledger had flown in from New York to attend a few months before he died, and now, as she plays it in Marfa, it seems to touch something in the people witnessing the music.
“Mia’s there, and I’m sitting right there in front of her," Amato says, “and she’s singing ‘River of Life’ and conjuring.”
After, the lights go out, and festival director Robin Lambaria takes the stage to introduce Ledger’s as-yet-unreleased video for Grace Woodroofe’s “Quicksand,” which features the singer in a duet with Alex Ebert. Lambaria introduces it with three simple words: “Thank you, Heath.”
It’s late, maybe 2 a.m., by the time Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros take the stage, but the little space is still packed with 150 people. During the previous five days, the band has been playing nonstop, working out songs, refining others. There’s something about going on a journey as a group that forms a lifelong connection, and for the Magnetic Zeros, the Marfa experience seems to be solidifying something.
But three songs into their set, the police show up — three different varieties: the sheriff, the liquor commissioner and the state police. It turns out that the venue is unlicensed, the alcohol in peoples’ hands is prohibited and things are getting noisy. But the small crowd — the Masses, most of the Marfa Film Festival attendees and a few locals — isn’t ready for this night to end. An officer informs Lambaria that unless the whole party shuts down, everyone will be thrown in jail. Lambaria shares the threat with Ebert, who is onstage and not ready to stop.
