oh, this week is so fired
- June 11th, 2015
- Posted in other people's art
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We’ve lost another giant. Christopher Lee is dead.
He played so very many characters. I’m not sure where I encountered him first, just chronologically, and recognised him as who he was – Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man? Zantor, on Space: 1999? Professor Stone on The Avengers? I’ve no idea. He’s just been such a fixture for so long – sometimes goofy, sometimes brilliant, but always a force.
Dammit.
What’s your favourite Christopher Lee role? I’m going to skip the easy answer and say Lord Haggard, The Last Unicorn. It’s a fantastic voice performance, and his use of voice was one of his best talents. What about you?
2 comments on Livejournal.
After the heaps of absolutely appropriate scorn for the Nic Cage version, I sat and watched the original ‘Wicker Man.’ That’s my pick.
Chris: the original is a total classic. Plus he’s got Ed Woodward to play against. It’s a dynamite pairing.
I’ll second his role as Lord Summerisle. Trolling a Bible-thumping cop will never get old.
It’s morbid, but I can’t go past THE ANTHROPORMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION OF DEATH in the cartoon versions of Terry Pratchett’s “Soul Music” and “Wyrd Sisters” made in 1997. I mostly liked the 2006 “Hogfather” adaptation, but there was something missing from Death’s voice. Then I saw the older cartoons, and found that the missing thing had been there all along. Just to be clear, no other TV adaptations of the novels exist, not even ones featuring Christopher Lee.
Also, there’s a promotional video on the Charlemagne Productions YouTube channel for his “A Heavy Metal Christmas Too”. In it, he says “In closing, of course, I wish you all a very happy Christmas, and… for the sake of the world… and those people in it… a safe new year in 2014.” The way he spoke, I could believe that whether I (and everyone else who saw the video) had a safe or unsafe 2014 was entirely in his control, so I’m glad he chose “safe”.
Mycroft Holmes in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes as well as Henry Baskerville in The Hound of the Baskervilles
There was a relatively minor role for him in a comedy, where he played a character who was a dignified businessman at work and the leader of a rogue biker gang for relaxation.
Peri: I’ve never even heard of that one – the Pratchett adaptations, specifically, I mean. Added to my list-of-things-to-find-eventually. (Which is, I must confess, an awfully large list, but still.)
Susan: I thought someone would bring up his Holmes-related roles eventually. ^_^
solarbird:
The 1997 cartoons of “Soul Music” and “Wyrd Sisters” are a mixed bag. They manage some clever visual parodies. The animation is decent (especially on Magrat in “Wyrd Sisters”, who in most scenes is covered in jewelry that shifts whenever she waves her arms.) However, some scenes are laboured; you could probably make a fan cut with two-thirds of the length. The colours seem chosen without much care, making many scenes look muddy and poorly composed.
And, of course, “Soul Music” had the challenge of portraying music that the book said was indescribable. In that, it mostly succeeded, not by being the best music ever, but by having The Band With Rocks in repeat the history of rock music from the 1950s to the 1980s.
When I read the books, I never “heard” Lias Bluestone (the troll drummer) speaking in a deep south accent, but after hearing George Harris in the role I can’t imagine him any other way.
A DVD release exists. It’s easy enough to find on Amazon, but doesn’t seem to have an active distributor. They also released the soundtrack on iTunes, with complete versions of songs that are only heard in fragments during the TV series. (In particular, the full version of “Gatherin’ Rhubarb” has several whole verses of innuendo that were left out of the TV broadcast.)
https://itunes.apple.com/album/soul-music/id295153491
Several individuals have uploaded the whole thing to YouTube. The links below are to fragments of it, and provide no support to the original creators.
That wandered a long way from Christopher Lee, didn’t it? Here is DEATH (Christopher Lee) talking to Susan (Debra Gillett):
https://youtu.be/ZL-EhYt0Nns?t=15m2s
“Gatherin’ Rhubarb” (Folk)
https://youtu.be/ba0vayNpyWM?t=11m58s
“She Won’t Change Her Mind” (The Beatles)
https://youtu.be/ZE3nHEcPds4?t=15m27s
“The Touchstone” (Woodstock)
https://youtu.be/kl3RxZgyyyw?t=8m40s
“Pathway to Paradise” (Psychadelic)
https://youtu.be/kl3RxZgyyyw?t=10m57s
“Sioni Bod Da” (Harp solo)
https://youtu.be/pFV3YoHtK88?t=2m37s