Heath Ledger’s Music Video Premieres: ‘King Rat’ for Modest Mouse

In 2007, Hollywood actor Heath Ledger, who died of an accidental overdose in January 2008, presented the Modest Mouse frontman with an idea for a video that would target whalers off the coast of Australia. He then agreed to direct the video and thus send a very strong message to the entire world. A few hours ago, the video was finally released online, as Reuters can confirm.

The video was never completed by Ledger, so production on it stalled when he was found dead in his apartment over a year ago. The Masses, a music and film company that the actor was involved with, agreed at a later time to take the video for Modest Mouse’s “Rat Pack” and finish it, so that it would be ready in time for the release of the band’s latest album “No One’s First, and You’re Next.”

“An animated music video directed by the late actor Heath Ledger debuted on the Web on Tuesday, and it’s an attack on the whaling industry set to the song ‘King Rat’ by alternative rock band Modest Mouse. […] The video was fully conceived but unfinished when Ledger died of an accidental prescription-drug overdose in January 2008, MySpace said. After his death, The Masses, a film and music company that Ledger was involved with, completed the video, MySpace said.” Reuters says of the new release.

The video uses irony and very brutal images to criticize illegal whaling. Disturbing images show what it would be like if the roles were reversed in a cruel world, where fish showed the same kind of sympathy for humans as we do now for whales. People are being sought out, gunned down or clubbed to death, skinned and then used to make cookies that go then to the fish and even their “pets.” Since Ledger wanted the message to make a powerful impact, he needed powerful, strong images to deliver it, it is being said, wherefrom the concept of the clip.

The video ends with the message, “This began with our friend, a great defender of life, and was completed in his spirit.” Watch Modest Mouse’s “King Rat,” directed by the late Heath Ledger, below.