Staging Death

Nobody dies more beautifully than Udo Kier. In Jan Soldat’s Staging Death, via lively montage Kier’s multifarious passing away in several dozen roles becomes a frantic gallop through five decades of film and television history and a comprehensive tribute to this fearless actor, who has surfed between (ostensibly) noble art and the most sacred trash. Kier's highly individual performances ooze an idiosyncratic physicality that is at its clearest, purest, and most beautiful in the moments of his on-screen death. His legendary blue eyes are sometimes open, sometimes closed, his mouth wide open for one final scream, sometimes distorted in...