Heath Ledger is dead at 28, in case you live in a remote nook in the Himalayas and the only website your wind-up laptop can tune into is this one. He played the “Robbie” character in Todd Haynes’ unconventional-Bob-Dylan-biopic, “I’m Not There.” That was the character who spent a lot of time wrangling with his wife. I can’t say I know anything about Ledger. His death is sad, like any premature death. There’s a recent interview with him on YouTube, which was linked on the Dylan site Expecting Rain this morning. In it he describes how he was not particularly familiar with Dylan’s work until he did this film. He was putting it off, as something to be delved into later in life. I wonder what else he was putting off. We all have those things, both the trivial and the deadly serious things, that we put off for some more opportune time. What’s that quote from Jack Fate near the end of that other cinema classic, “Masked and Anonymous”? All about how you spend your life killing time, but in the end time kills you. Not such an original thought, but one worth being reminded of frequently. And a successful young actor’s death in his Soho apartment is such a reminder, I suppose.

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Crass segue or not, another Australian star who starred in “I’m Not There” is Cate Blanchett, and this is as good a time as any to note that she has been nominated for an Oscar for her performance as “Jude,” a character based on the 1965/66 image of Bob Dylan. She already was awarded a Golden Globe award for that turn at acting, of-course, although there was no hoopla and acceptance speech to witness due to the current TV writers’ strike in the United States. Everyone is struck by her performance in that film, and rightly so, although I can’t help wondering whether people would consider it really at the Oscar-worthy level if she were not a woman. Or, conversely, if Dylan were not a man. You know what I mean. It was Haynes’ idea to have a woman play one of the Dylans . (Remember when Oprah Winfrey was being considered for the role? I do.) An actress actually had to pull it off, of-course, and Blanchett does that remarkably. But I felt warmer, while actually watching the film, towards the performances of Marcus Carl Franklin (as the young “Woody” character) and, frankly, Richard Gere’s “Billy.” There wasn’t any, well, aping of Dylan going on in those performances, and I found the roles more appealing and interesting. But what do I know?

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The other day I mentioned the compilation of live TV performances being released in Britain, “Re-Transmissions,” and was curious as to why it was said to be only an audio CD release rather than a DVD release. Well, in fact, it is being released as a three DVD set, called “Live Transmissions.,” for what it’s worth.

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