Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
During the early times of “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger,” Martin Scorsese said that he first encountered the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger when he was a child watching them on his family’s black and white TV set, which was not very good, and they were edited and shown in prints that didn’t do justice to their visual qualities. But even then he could see that there was something unique about these movies, which lifted them above what he called “the top tier” of British cinema a distinction that still held true under such reduced circumstances. After the partnership broke up, however, their work had been virtually ignored in this country for more than 20 years; it fell out of fashion, and one particular film in particular was greeted with such critical hostility and commercial failure that it seemed to poison the well against everything else they had done or would ever do.
So much so that when Mr. Scorsese met Mr. Powell in England in 1974, the director of “The Red Shoes” had been living for some time in a cottage where he received few visitors, at once stage or another during his exile (a word I use advisedly), he was all but blackballed from an industry over which until recently he and his partner had reigned.
This meeting turned out to be significant for both men. Within a few years Mr. Scorsese would succeed in stimulating interest in “Peeping Tom,” which began life as Mr. Powell’s first post-partnership film (1960) but ended as a career killing debacle from which its maker took nearly five years to recover, and not only would it be recognized as an ahead of its time masterwork but also its release would bring about a reconsideration of all the other films made by Powell and Pressburger together now at last available for viewing as they were meant to be seen, in restored prints that could still be going on as long as there are people willing to regard cinema as an art. But if the partnership’s reputation hardly needs refurbishing these days, that is because of such books as this one, which surpasses all previous writing on the subject while restoring its true proportions in one fell swoop.
Although ostensibly directed by documentarian David Hinton whose past credits include a 1986 episode of England’s “South Bank Show” about Powell the dominant voice here is Scorsese’s, who works as our guide to the movies and the men in a way that feels of a piece with his own epic examinations of cinema history, “A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies” (1995) and “My Voyage to Italy” (1999). If anything, it’s even more personal than those films, while he didn’t direct this one himself, it may be the most intimate movie he has ever made.
Not only were he and Powell close friends (she married his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker in 1984), but many of the ideas and images that thrilled him as a viewer turned up in his work as a director from how ingredients from “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,” Powell and Pressburger’s initially satiric, ultimately rueful portrayal of British military authority, wound up in such different films as “Raging Bull” and “The Age of Innocence” (which coincidentally features a character named Archer, which was the duo’s production company name) to how vividly “The Red Shoes,” their most famous and celebrated work, painted the portrait of obsession that would hang over “Taxi Driver.”
But this isn’t just two hours-plus for lovers only. Scorsese knows these movies inside out yet you never get the sense here that he is doing little more than recounting old observations; he talks about them with so much love and energy that even those who don’t know them will feel caught up by him. And his observations are fascinating like when he talks about all time greats such as the lurid visual beauty on display in 1947’s astonishing nun drama “Black Narcissus” or how the surreal beauty of 1951’s one of a kind “Tales of Hoffmann” exemplified Powell’s belief that cinema was the one art form in which all the others could come together. Even when he talks about lesser Powell-Pressburgers, such as 1949’s “The Elusive Pimpernel” and 1950’s “Gone to Earth” both of which were tampered with by their Hollywood producers, he says, and both of which he admits don’t quite work his thoughts are so interesting that you can’t help but be intrigued.
Though it does give some time to movies that Powell and Pressburger made on their own specifically Powell’s scabrous voyeurism thriller “Peeping Tom” (1960) and, maybe less so, his Australian drama “Age of Consent” (1969) “Made in England” is mostly concerned with the Powell Pressburger collaborations. Even so, this is a history of cinema so rich in detail and observation that it may as well be taught in every film school right now; it is also unusually watchable. If you see this movie and if you have any interest in movie history at all, you should see it be prepared to set aside some time afterward almost certainly you’ll want to go on your own little adventure through their films as soon as possible after this one ends.
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