The Gutter’s own Carol Borden has some thoughts on the delightful documentary, The Life & Deaths Of Christopher Lee!

There is very little more unwieldy than a life, but somehow The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee handles his sprawling life story with a fluid grace. Writer / director Jon Spira and his collaborators make the story of Lee’s life flow while underscoring the artificiality of recounting a life as a story by embracing that very artificiality. This is made clear from the start when we see blurry images of the crew setting up, are presented with a grayscale Christopher Lee marionette, and see footage of Peter Serafinowicz finding his Christopher Lee voice in order to narrate the film as the voice of puppet Lee (Olly Taylor & Lynn Roberson Bruce). I loved all of the film’s conceits–from the playfully macabre opening credits, to the puppet, Serafinowicz’s voice work, the animations, and the illustrations. 

There are more conventional documentary elements, but what I enjoyed most were the more unconventional elements in a documentary about an actor, especially in a crowdfunded documentary about an actor beloved by classic film fans, horror fans, Star Wars fans, Lord Of The Rings Fans, b movie enthusiasts and aficionados of Symphonic Metal. The Life & Deaths Of Christopher Lee is almost a collage of traditional documentary elements with illustrated and animated segments depicting these stories and histories, including work by Andrew Gill, Astrid Goldsmith, Dave McKean and Cornelia Skrole. All are thoughtfully done, choosing, for instance, a comic book format for Lee’s training as a pilot during World War II, but Dave McKean’s short has stuck with me. It depicts Lee’s heart surgery and includes a story about the importance of Tolkien and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy to him.

The Life & Deaths of Christopher Lee does an admirable job. And while I have no idea what Lee would have thought of it, it seems to me that the best response to an artist and their art is more art. And The Life & Deaths of Christopher Lee certainly delivers the tribute of more fantastic art in Lee’s memory.

Read more of Carol’s thoughts here.