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MADE IN ENGLAND
THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER

PRESENTED BY
MARTIN SCORSESE

DIRECTED BY
DAVID HINTON

I was born in 1942

and I developed asthma
at about three years old.

And that meant that I couldn't run around
and play as much as other children,

and so I found myself

sitting in front of the TV,
watching movies.

Some of the very first moving images
that I can remember seeing

are from
The Thief of Baghdad.

Whip yourself, winds of heaven!

Whip till you wail aloud!

I didn't know it then, but Michael Powell
was one of the directors on that film.

And for a kid,

there could be no better initiation

into the Michael Powell mysteries.

This was a picture made
by a great showman

and every image

filled me with wonder.

The power a movie can hold,

it absolutely enthralled me.

My eyes!

I'm blind!

Of course, what I was seeing then

wasn't a glorious
Technicolor print of the film

but actually a very poor
black and white version

on a 16 inch screen
on our family TV.

And yet

it still had the power to grip me

and stay with me
forever in my mind.

American films, yes.

Even Italian films, neorealist films
I saw on television.

But the interesting thing about
television at that time

was that many of the films
that were shown on American TV

were British films.

Because American distributors
would not sell to TV.

But apparently British distributors would.

And that's why

British Cinema for me,
was so formative.

I used to get excited by the different

logos of the different
British film companies.

But there was one which
held out a very special promise.

That was the target of The Archers

A PRODUCTION OF THE ARCHERS

that heralded a Powell Pressburger film.

And by the time I was ten or eleven,

I'd be watching Powell Pressburger
films endlessly on TV.

They were shown a lot.

There was one called
The Tales of Hoffmann.

Which is not an obvious film
you'd say for a child to enjoy.

It's basically a 19th-century opera, but

I just didn't watch it once,
I mean, I watched it

repeatedly and obsessively.

It was on this program
called
Million Dollar Movie

which showed the same film all week,

twice every evening

and three times on the weekend.

But the thing was
that I was hypnotized by it.

And those repeated viewings
taught me pretty much

everything I know about
the relation of camera to music.

And even now,

music and images from that picture

often run through my mind.

In fact

I think the Powell Pressburger
films have had

a profound effect on
the sensibility that I bring

to all the work I was able to do.

I was so bewitched by them as a child

that they make up a big part
of my film subconscious.

Now going to the cinema with my father

was also a very important
part of my childhood.

The nicest theaters then were spectacles
in themselves, great movie palaces

and the screens were huge.

And they filled you with hope
and expectation of wonder.

And one film

that fulfilled all those expectations

was
The Red Shoes.

It was the first time I saw
The Archers logo in color.

And of course, I particularly
remember the ballet sequence.

Wanting to know how they made
the dancer turn into a scrap of newspaper.

These days I'm told
that Powell Pressburger

represents something called
'English Romanticism'

But I don't really know what that is.

To me, the overwhelming
impression of their films

has always been to do with color,

light

movement and a sense of music.

And even as a child,

I was certainly struck by
the theatricality of
The Red Shoes.

The cinematic theatricality.

The design of actors in the frame,

the surprising ways
they looked and they moved.

The dramatic angles and lighting.

You got the sense that

anything could happen in a film like this.

And I was riveted by the mystery

and the hysteria of the picture.

The experience was so intense, in fact,
that first viewing of
The Red Shoes

may be one of the origins of
my own obsession with cinema itself.

When I became a student
and then a young filmmaker

Powell and Pressburger
remained a constant fascination.

But we could only see their films
in very incomplete forms.

Very degraded versions, bad copies.

But we knew there was something special
going on with these movies.

And we became fascinated by
the distinctive signature on the films.

Written, produced and directed
by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Now a shared credit like that

was really unheard of and
we wanted to know who did what,

who said cut, who said action?

It was all a mystery.

In those days, the only sources
of information were books

and magazines, maybe.

And we read about British directors,
of course,

like David Lean and Carol Reed
and Alfred Hitchcock.

But there was rarely, rarely
a mention of Powell Pressburger.

So in effect,

they became mythical beings

to myself and my friends.

Then finally in 1970

I got to see a 35mm color print
of
Peeping Tom.

Which had become a legendary work
among film students and filmmakers.

It'll be two quid.

I was an obsessive young filmmaker
watching a film

about an obsessive young filmmaker
who is also a psychopath.

It's a horror movie
with no blood.

Where the object of terror
seems to be the film camera itself.

No!

When I first saw it, it was
hard for me to believe

that such a raw and
provocative film was made

by the same Michael Powell
who had made
The Red Shoes.

But indeed, it was.

And he dared to do what no one else
had really dared before him.

To show how close moviemaking
can come to madness.

How it can devour you
if you let it.

By this time, I was
making movies on my own.

And in 1974, after I made
Mean Streets,
I went to England

and I found myself at a cocktail party
given by a man named Michael Kaplan.

And I was asking him
about this, this mystery.

Now, do you know of a Michael Powell?

Does he exist?

Is there such a person?

And he said "Oh, yes,
he's living in a caravan somewhere."

Well, that turned out
to be an exaggeration.

He was actually living
in a cottage in Gloucestershire,

but he'd fallen on very hard times.

He'd been pretty much forgotten

and abandoned by
the British film industry

and he could barely even afford
to heat his own house.

But of course, I wanted to meet him

and a drink was arranged.

So suddenly there I was
talking to Michael Powell.

Who was amazed that someone
wanted to discuss his pictures with him.

He had no idea that his work
had been an inspiration to me,

and Brian De Palma,

and Coppola and so many
others of the new generation.

Of course, I speak fast and
I was very energetic and very excited.

I was bombarding him with questions.

And he didn't say much.

Michael didn't say much.
He was very reserved.

Very quiet in his answers.

But later, I discovered
that he was moved by the meeting.

Because he wrote in his autobiography

that during that meeting,

he felt the blood course
through his veins again.

The other day,
I ate a ricochet biscuit.

Well, that's the kind of biscuit
That's supposed to

Bounce off the wall
Back in your mouth

If you don't bounce back...

You go hungry!

After our meeting, I arranged
for Michael to see
Mean Streets.

And he sent me a letter
praising the film.

Except...

he said that I use too much red.

I GOT TIRED OF THE RED

Too much red?

I didn't point out to him that his films
had something to do with this too.

Look at all the red he uses.

Anyway, we started to write to each other
and eventually he came to New York.

He was introduced to a lot of people
and he was invited to become

the senior director in residence
at Zoetrope,

Francis Coppola's company in L.A.

And his life sort of turned around.

I got a sort of routine here. I...

I work on my autobiography in the morning

and about 11 o'clock,
I walk over to the studio.

I stop the traffic this way.

If I did it in New York,
they'd run right over me.

You can get away
with anything in California.

Believe it or not

this magnificent building

was built by Dr Kalmus of Technicolor,

for Technicolor.

Wonderful art deco building.

Those were the days.

Glorious Technicolor!

Morning Colonel.
Anything for me?

OK.

Michael was born in the village
of Bekesbourne, Kent in 1905,

and grew up in the countryside,

the son of a hop farmer.

His career in the movies began
when he was twenty.

Went on holiday, got a job in
a film company in the south of France

and never came back.

He started work as
a general dogsbody

at the Victorine Studios in Nice

where the American director Rex Ingram

was making epic silent films for MGM.

I was with a big American company
working in Europe,

discipline was lax

and I had the run of all the departments.

And I always think it was
his apprenticeship with Ingram

that made Michael aim
for grandeur in his pictures.

Lush images, heightened emotions

and a preference for shock
and spectacle over realism.

And quote "good taste" unquote.

Now, while working with Ingram

he also did acting and stunt work

in a series of comedy shorts
that they called
The Riviera Revels.

But here he is in 1927

throwing himself into the role
of an innocent English tourist.

Michael returned to England in 1928

and he went into partnership with
the American producer Jerry Jackson

to make 'quota quickies.'

These were short features which
were made very fast, very cheap,

Are you there Bob?

God! It's us. My light's out.

And Michael learned
his trade as a director

by hammering out
more than 20 of them.

Light's gone out.

Full astern.

Port or starboard?

My God!

It's the phantom light.
The one they all talk about.

Where the devil are we?

Wait a moment, Mr. Owen.
We're just off the North Stake rocks

Bring us down again!

Warn the engine room.

This one is
The Phantom Light.

That was a near one.

You're right, Sir, it was.

By 1937 Michael had acquired
the experience and the confidence

to make his first really personal work.

The Edge of the World.

It's about a small community on
a remote island off the coast of Scotland.

It was a great leap forward for Michael.

A beautiful committed and poetic film.

And on the strength of it,

he was given a contract by
the producer Alexander Korda

at Denham studios.

Korda put Michael to work on
a film called
The Spy In Black.

[They whisper in German]

Introducing him at a script conference
to a writer called Emeric Pressburger.

Emeric felt in his pocket

and he produced his version of the script.

This is it.

It was a nice little
rolled up piece of paper

and he unrolled it
and he read the first scene

and I was spellbound.

I just listened while
he went on reading

and unfolding it and unfolding it
and unfolding it.

He'd stood the story on its head.

He turned a man into a woman,
a woman into a man.

He'd altered the suspense,
he'd rewritten the end.

I looked at this producer,
he was purple in the face.

I looked at the writer,
he was prepared to faint.

And I was just rejoicing

that I was going to work
with somebody like this

and that I wasn't going
to let him get away in a hurry either.

Have you heard
The Soldier's March
?

I say, that medal ribbon?

I don't seem to recognize it.

What is it?

The Iron Cross, second class.

Second class.

Then you must be a prisoner of war.

No.

You are.

Oh dear.

Emeric Pressburger,
like Alex Korda

was a Hungarian but also
very much a European.

And he went to university
in Prague, and Stuttgart.

Then my father died
and my student years have finished.

And I had nothing.

And so I came to Berlin

and I wanted to write.

I sent film story after film story,

and everything came back,
until one day,

one story didn't come back.

Emeric was eventually
hired by the script department

of the famous UFA studios.

This was the greatest
European studio of its era.

It's the home of Fritz Lang
and German expressionism.

And Emeric spent
several happy years there.

Here he is in 1932, you can
glimpse him right on the set

here of an UFA production
in Budapest.

Emeric was however Jewish

and the rise of the Nazis
forced him to flee Berlin.

First for Paris
and then for London

where he arrived in 1935
on a stateless passport.

Emeric described his arrival in England
as like being born at the age of 33.

He knew nothing about British life

and he had to learn
the English language from scratch.

Meeting Michael was
a great blessing for him

because he was someone
who responded immediately

to his novel script ideas.

Do you think that it was
something specifically European

or even Hungarian
that you responded to?

No, it was a beautiful mind
I responded to.

He didn't have to be Hungarian.

I have never met a person
who not only understood

what I was driving at

but guessed already
half of it before I said it.

That's Michael.

I don't think that that happens
very often in one's lifetime, but this is

how it...

how I felt.

The partners soon developed
the collaborative method that

they would use for the next 20 years.

Emeric would always
write the original script

which established the shape of the scenes

and the pair would then work
together on the dialogue.

They were perfectly in tune
about what they wanted to express.

And they never argued.

Do we have a go at each other?

Not really.

No, we trust time.

In a few hours time

he sees that I was right.

London is calling.

London, calling to the world.

Calling to a world at war.

When Britain went to war
with Germany in 1939

the film industry survived
by committing itself wholeheartedly

to the war effort.

These are not Hollywood sound effects.

This is the music they play
every night in London,

the symphony of war.

For Powell and Pressburger

this was the most important event
of their professional lives,

giving a striking new depth

and a sense of purpose to their work.

So the curtain rises on Canada.

Down!

Swines!

Filthy swine devils!

Jahner!

49th Parallel
tells
the story of six fugitive Nazis

making their way across Canada.

Every British film now
had a specific propaganda aim.

And the intention here

was to urge America into the war.

Run, Les! Run!

By bringing the horrors of the Nazi threat
right onto America's doorstep.

It was a big idea for an epic picture.

And in production terms
it was a huge enterprise.

This brought out some of
the differences between the two men.

Emeric was the genius
of story and structure,

while Michael was the dynamo
and the man of action.

Leading his crew to locations
all over Canada.

I was moving against
the seasons all the time.

Emeric was writing the script
back home in London

and I was shooting a lot
of exteriors like this

before the autumn came down.

In one episode, the Nazi seek shelter
among a group of fellow Germans.

A religious community of Hutterites.

Germans!

Brothers!

I asked you to join with me
in paying homage to our glorious
Führer
.

Heil Hitler!

Heil Hitler!

Now this film insists
on making a distinction

between being a Nazi and being a German.

This was very important to Emeric,

who had spent so many
happy years in Germany

and had so many German friends.

We are not your brothers.

Our children grew up against
new backgrounds, new horizons.

And they are free!

Free to grow up as children,

free to run, to laugh
without being forced into uniforms.

Without being forced to march up and down
the streets singing battle songs!

So here is Emeric making
propaganda for the British.

But instead of simplifying everything
like propaganda usually does.

He's always seeking
to complicate our sympathies.

You're Nazis aren't you?

Aren't you?

I should tell the police about you.

Little girls should be
seen and not heard.

- That'll do.
- What's the matter with you?

That'll do.

Vogel!

Come along, Anna.

I'll take you home.

Herr Leutnant
, we can't let them go.

I'd like to see what
you're going to do about it.

- Vogel!
- Yes,
Herr Leutnant
?

Have you forgotten who you are?

I'll take her home,
Herr Leutnant
.

Emeric even makes us
feel deeply for one of the Nazis,

a baker when he starts to rebel
against his comrades.

Engine Room Artificer Vogel.

You're under arrest.

You're accused of desertion
and treachery to the Third Reich.

In the absence of
a properly constituted court,

I assume authority
as your superior officer

and sentence you to death.

Have you anything to say?

The sentence will be carried
out immediately in the name of the
Führer
.

49TH PARALLEL IS WAR'S BEST FILM

49th Parallel
ended up
a big commercial hit.

And it won Emeric an Oscar too,
for best original story.

Riding high on this success

the partners now decided to form
their own production company,

The Archers.

Well as far as possible,
we tried to share everything.

Of course, directing on the floor
that was entirely my job.

But as far as we could,
we shared every decision, didn't we?

Yes.

Do you have anything to add to that,
Mr Pressburger? That can't be--

Well, I don't think so.

On the whole, as a simple answer,
I would say that Michael directed

on his own.

And I was more the writer.

- And we produce together.
- Yes.

The pair signed a production deal
with the Rank Organization.

J. ARTHUR RANK
PRESENTS

Which gave them the one thing
that they wanted most.

The freedom to control their own work.

Now, for me, one of the most
exciting things about The Archers

is that they were like experimental
filmmakers working within the system.

And it was Rank
who created the conditions for that.

By now was 1942

and the worst of the Blitz was over.

But Britain was still
faring badly in the war.

And it was at this delicate moment

that Michael and Emeric
decided to make a film

satirizing old-fashioned ideas
within the British military.

As you would expect,
they met a lot of official opposition.

Winston Churchill himself
was quite hostile to the idea.

"I'm not prepared to allow propaganda
detrimental to the morale of the army.

Who are the people behind it?"

Churchill, such a wonderful leader,

but he just wasn't a good film critic.

It says a lot about
Powell and Pressburger's confidence

and attitude to authority
that they went ahead

and they made the picture anyway.

This meant they would never get
their knighthoods, of course,

but Britain was still a democracy

and no one actually prevented
them from making the picture.

The central figure of the film's
a British officer called Clive Candy.

He was inspired by the cartoon character
of Colonel Blimp.

You're an extremely
impudent young officer.

But let me tell you that in 40 years time,
you'll be an old gentleman too.

But over the course of two hours,

this two-dimensional caricature
will be transformed

into a rich and complex character.

What's that?

- VC, sir.
- Where did you get it?

South Africa. Jordaan Siding.

You're Candy!

"Sugar" Candy.

Yes, Sir.

The film transports us
back 40 years to 1902

when Candy was
a hot-tempered young officer.

On a visit to Berlin,
he succeeds in insulting

the whole of the German Imperial army.

And as a consequence,
he must fight a duel.

Duel?

The duel is one of my favorite
Powell and Pressburger scenes.

I wish I'd brought my uniform.

Simply for the unique and
unexpected way that they present it.

Would you undo your shirt?

Thank you.

More as a matter of etiquette
than a matter of combat.

Do you want to roll up your sleeve
or will you rip it off?

What's better?

I am not permitted to give advice.

I think I'll rip it.

It is definitely better.

Doctor your scissors, please.

I see here that paragraph 133 says,

"A few hours previous to the duel
it is advisable to take a bath."

Only the principles, not the seconds.

The scene also represents
the first encounter

between the two central
characters of the story,

Clive Candy and
Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff.

They have never met before

but they must now do battle
on a point of honor.

[Soldier speaks in German]

Into fighting position, please.

Afterwards

they will become friends for life.

Fertig?

Ready?

Los!

Just as the duel begins,

Michael has the audacity to start pulling
the camera back and up.

It's an act of terrific bravado.

After all this preparation

to retreat from showing the actual fight.

Only a very bold film director
would make that choice.

But for Michael,
the fight itself is irrelevant.

What matters is the meeting
between the two men

and the relationship that comes out of it.

This had a direct influence
on the way that I showed

very little of
the big championship fight

in my movie
Raging Bull.

The long Steadicam shot of
Jake LaMotta's journey to the ring

comes straight from
the duel scene in
Blimp.

The important thing here
is the destructive road

that Jake took to get to the fight

rather than the fight itself.

- Kretschmar-Schuldorff.
- Yes I know.

After the duel,
Clive and Theo recover

from their wounds in
the same nursing home.

I'm very glad you've come.

Where they both fall in love
with the same woman.

Stop mooning about.

- I'm not mooning about!
- Keep your hair on.

I say, old girl, what's up?

Edith? I say, what's the matter?

I love your Miss Hunter.

You're cuckoo.

You cuckoo

because Miss Hunter

loves me.

Clive turns out to be deeply romantic

and hopelessly inhibited.

A toast.

Here's to the happiness of my fiance
who was never my fiance.

And here's to the man who tried to kill me
before he was introduced to me

- May I kiss the bride?
- Why ask? I did not ask.

- Goodbye, Clive.
- Goodbye, Edith, old girl.

He doesn't even realize
until too late that

he is in love.

I hope we'll meet again sometime.

I'm sure we shall.

And suddenly
he finds that his heart is broken.

LION, EAST AFRICA, 1903

WARTHOG, SUDAN, 1904

RHINOCEROS, EAST AFRICA, 1905

Many, many years of Candy's life
are simply written off

because they are years without love.

It is brutal, funny,

and devastating.

HUN, FLANDERS, 1918

During the First World War

Candy finds another woman
who is the spitting image

of the Edith he has lost.

Nurse?

Do you know the name of the girl
sitting at the end of that table?

Come on, Wynne.

He marries her,

and for a while achieves
a fragile happiness.

Darling?

Don't hum.

Was I humming?

It's a little habit you've got.

There's something important here.

Candy's professional life

is mostly treated satirically
and ironically.

What'll I do if I don't hum?

But his emotional life

is always rendered with sincerity
and tenderness.

Perhaps the most audacious thing of all

is the way that every
important woman in Candy's life

is played by the same actress
Deborah Kerr.

She is his first love, Edith.

Then his wife Barbara.

And then later
his young driver in World War II.

Mind if we try and beat the lights, sir?

This radical casting idea
came from Emeric.

Come on, don't be all night.

And it fills the film with
a constant sense of longing and loss.

And Deborah Kerr was only 20 years old
when she set to work on this film,

but she proved herself already
a master of her art.

And Powell and Pressburger

succeeded in what they
most loved to do.

Take a big risk and bring it off.

I was certainly influenced by
Blimp
when I came to make
The Age of Innocence,

I'll write to you as soon as I'm settled
and let you know where I am.

Oh, yes, that would be lovely.

Well, I'll see you very soon in Paris.

Oh, if you and May could come.

Because I was drawn into
that film by the love story.

An impossible love between two people
who aren't supposed to fall in love.

Good night, Newland.

Good night, Sillerton.
Good night, Larry.

And it lasts for years.

I believed it was
the same frustrated desire

tinged with regret

that I like so much in
Blimp.

I think that's what attracted me.

The fact that emotion is repressed

and that reserve is a must.

I was in love with her.
Your wife.

She never told me.

She never knew.

But I seem to remem--

Oh, Clive, that last day in Berlin,
when I told you

you seemed genuinely happy.

Dash it, I didn't know then.

But on the train, I started to miss her.

On the boat, it was worse.

By the time I got back to London,
well, I'd got it properly.

My Aunt Margaret got
onto the scent straight away.

Women have a nose
for these sort of things.

You may say that she was my ideal.

Sir?

Did you feel sympathetic
to Blimp as a character?

Oh, yes, I identified completely with him.

- Lots of things are exactly like me.
- Such as?

Couldn't be more English.

I was sentimental.

And...

love women and dogs.

I'd always felt enormously sympathetic
with that kind of man.

Honorable, puzzled, innocent.

I see myself very much like that.

Blimp
is Powell and Pressburger's
first really profound and personal film.

And for me

their first masterpiece.

I've watched it so many times
that it's become part of my life.

And the longer I live

the stronger grows my sense
of what the characters are feeling.

It's the film that says the most
to me about growing up,

growing old

and eventually,
having to let go.

The Archer's next work,
A Canterbury Tale

begins like a classic
'Merry England' film.

With Chaucer's pilgrims
on the road to Canterbury.

But then...

a famous transition.

The medieval falcon
turns into a modern Spitfire.

The film that we are about to see

suggests that a connection
to our history is crucial

to our spiritual wellbeing.

One of the propaganda tasks
at the time was to ask,

what are we fighting for?

And Powell and Pressburger now
sought their answers to that question

in the history and traditions
of the English countryside.

Why don't you keep your beastly carriers
off the Pilgrims Road?

Michael loved his native Kent.

He loved the people
and culture of England.

And in this film,
he wanted to express all that.

Eight o'clock, Bob.

He had a specially deep feelings
for Canterbury Cathedral.

That's where he had sung as a boy
in the King's School Choir.

From the bend,
at the eastern edge of the hill,

pilgrims saw Canterbury
for the first time.

You've seen it?

Yes.

With a friend of mine.

A boy or a girl?

Boy.

I hope he writes to you.

No, he doesn't.

Maybe the mail was lost
by enemy action.

No, Bob.

As it happens,

he was lost by enemy action.

He was a pilot.

Shot down?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

The central characters of the film are,
without knowing it,

modern pilgrims.

Each on their own journey to Canterbury.

They're lost souls,

all in some way adrift and bereft.

All in need of a blessing
to heal and restore them.

And here

as the Land Girl Alison
walks in the Kent countryside

the place starts to speak to her.

She hears in the landscape,
the voices and the music

of the old pilgrims.

Her ancestors.

If you stop, listen,

pay attention,

the past will speak to you.

And the voices of the past

will help you to make sense
of your life in the present.

Glorious, isn't it?

Is anybody there?

Michael and Emeric are always trying

to set traps to capture magic,
as Emeric puts it.

They wanna go beyond the representation
of everyday experiences

and find ways to communicate what
is deep and mysterious in our lives.

There's a mysticism here that's quite
new in Powell and Pressburger's work.

There are higher courts
than the local bench of magistrates.

With a light touch

they seek to conjure up
the world of the spirit.

Pilgrims for Canterbury
all out and get your blessings.

Rum sort of pilgrimage for you.

Pilgrimage can be
either to receive a blessing

or to do penance.

I don't need either.

Perhaps you are an instrument.

Do I get a flaming sword?

Nothing would surprise me.

I'll believe that when I see
a halo around my head.

You get a very good view
of the cathedral now.

For all its strangeness,

this is the most humble of
the famous Archers films.

The most restrained and earnest,

and the one most concerned
with ordinary lives.

The central characters
are in the same condition

that most of the audience
would have been in 1944.

Separated from their loved ones.

Dutifully putting up a brave front.

But quietly,

full of fear, loneliness and grief.

One thing that the film
very much wants to do

is offer consolation
to the suffering.

And just when Alison is in despair,

she gets the news that her fiance's father

is in Canterbury looking for her.

For over two weeks now,
he's waited for you here

in Canterbury.

Why?

Because he has news, Miss Allison,
official news about Mr Geoffrey.

He's in Gibraltar.

Miss Alison.

This is a film that says
that miracles do happen.

I must open the windows.

And at the end of your pilgrimage,

you may indeed receive a blessing.

The film finishes with a whole regiment
of troops marching into the cathedral.

They're about to go overseas

and we don't know how many
of them will come back.

Here, perhaps

Canterbury Cathedral represents

embattled Britain herself
as a place worth protecting.

A place worth fighting for.

Powell and Pressburger are preachers
as much as propagandists in this film.

The result was their first flop.

The film is just too strange
and elusive for a mass audience.

But the partners were
unshaken by this setback.

There was a period of
profound trust between them

and they knew exactly
where they were going next.

When Joan was only one year old,
she already knew where she was going.

Going right, left.

No, straight on.

With
I Know Where I'm Going
we know right away

that we're going to enjoy ourselves.

By now it was clear that the Allies
were going to win the war

and Michael and Emeric were
able to relax a little.

Allowing their sense of humor to bloom.

She's 25 now.

And in one thing, she's never changed,

she still knows where she's going.

Good evening, Miss Webster.

Good evening, Leon.

Hello, darling.

We're introduced to
a new kind of character

in the shape of Joan Webster

Daddy?

I'm going to be married.

What?

- Your table, Miss Webster.
- Thank you, Fred.

Let's go in, darling. Bring a drink.

It's the first Archers film
to place a woman front and center

and she is perhaps not a million miles
away from Wendy Green,

the woman who Emeric had avidly courted
and recently married.

Wendy, it seems was strong-willed,

sophisticated and materialistic.

Charged to your account
madam, of course.

Perhaps that's why the script seemed
to flow so easily for Emeric.

He drafted the whole thing out
in less than a week.

Lady Bellinger's car!

Joans story begins with a journey north.

You can't marry
Consolidated Chemical Industries.

Can't I?

She's on her way
to a small Scottish island

where she is due to
wed Sir Robert Bellinger,

the wealthy head
of Consolidated Chemical Industries.

Do you, Joan Webster

take Consolidated Chemical Industries

to be your lawful wedded husband?

- I do.
-
Glasgow Central!

Oh! Yes?

There's a gentleman to meet you.
And the stationmaster's with him.

You'll need all your time
to get to Buchanan Street.

Now, The Archers are
really having fun here.

Watch that top hat.

This journey north was perhaps
a gift that Emeric gave to Michael

because it was a journey
that Michael loved to make himself.

Scotland was his favorite place
to be in the world.

And whenever he finished shooting a film,

he would refresh himself
by going on hiking trips there.

Hear ye!

For Joan Webster,

the Western Isles turn out to be
a challenging proposition.

Bad luck, no crossing today.

She'll spend much of the film
trying to get a boat to the island

where her fiance is waiting.

Would you like to wait up at the house?
I know the people.

Thank you.

But it's been arranged for
the boat to meet me here

and I better be here to meet it.

Good.

If my boat doesn't come,
will you take me?

No, I will not, m'lady.

In just three or four
intensely atmospheric shots

we get a pungent sense of
how alien the place is to her.

You'll see a wee gate,
up the brae.

Joan must accept the hospitality
of the locals until the weather improves.

And they turn out to be a bunch
of eccentric and independent people

whose outlook on life is
very different from her own.

I was just going down to get you.

Come on in, we've lit the fire.
You met the Colonel I see.

I've had that exceptional pleasure.
My name's Barnstable.

Colonel Barnstable,
the greatest hawk trainer--

Falconer, my dear Torquil!

The greatest falconer
in the Western Isles.

In the world, old boy.

Although it's a comedy and romance,

it's also a film about values.

And these feisty characters
stand for all sorts of qualities

that Michael and Emeric
liked and believed in.

- Catriona!
- There's the dear girl now.

Courage, kindness and generosity,

warmth and good fellowship.

Torquil!

[They speak Gaelic]

Mrs Potts!

The character who most fully
embodies all of these qualities

is Torquil.

He's a naval officer on leave.

Have you got a match
or a lighter?

Thanks.

He clearly represents a terrible threat
to Joan's marriage plans.

And the question of the film becomes,

can she resist him?

Thank you.

What stands in Torquil's way,
of course, is Sir Robert Bellinger.

Hello, my dear.
Robert speaking.

Cartier delivered the ring, I hope.

Of course, Robert, everything was lovely.

Now, listen, Joan, write down a
telephone number. Are you ready?

2-36.
You got it?

It's the Robinson's number.
They've rented the castle at Sorn.

They're the only people worthwhile
knowing around here. Over.

And when we meet his friends,

the Robinsons, they are superior

and sensitive and self-regarding.

Let's have a look at you.

Oh yes, you pass.

You're going to marry
Sir Robert Bellinger, aren't you?

Yes. Do you mind?

I don't mind.

He's rich, isn't he?

Well, I haven't counted his money.

Are you rich?

No.

Coming after
A Canterbury Tale
Emeric called this film

the second episode in The Archer's
crusade against materialism.

People around here
are very poor, I suppose.

- Not poor. They just haven't got money.
- It's the same thing.

Oh, no, something quite different.

Better?

The longer that Joan
spends with Torquil

the more she falls under the spell
of this man and his world.

Careful.

That's a fine song.
Nut Brown Maiden.
Do you know it?

Tune up, my boys!

My favorite part is where Torquil

recites the words of a song.

"Ho ro my nut-brown maiden,

Hee ree my nut-brown maiden,

Ho ro ro ro maiden,

You're the maid for me."

Now, this is a film that you
show to someone you care about

as a way of possibly trying to say
something that you can't put into words.

Share the experience so to speak.

And I know I'm not the only person
to have done that.

It's a film that seems to

cast a spell over many
romantic relationships.

Is it not enough that you've been told
that you cannot sail today?

Do you think you know better than
folk who have lived here all their lives?

Ruairidh said it was going down.
Kenny said so too.

What do you expect Kenny to say?
You bought him, did you not?

There's no need to shout at me!

Oh, go ahead, then!

And drown yourself!

She's running away from you.

Say that again.

In the end, we find Joan and Torquil
together in a small boat.

Get down under the hood
and hang on!

Oh! My dress!

Don't mess about! Bail!

The motor has gone,
the weather is evil

and they're heading towards
a terrible whirlpool, Corryvreckan.

This is a film about
love as a force of nature

that can knock your life
completely off course.

And Joan's fate seems to lie,
not just in the hands of Torquil

but in the hands of the nature gods.

The film has something which
is rather unusual for The Archers,

a conventional happy ending.

But this romance is
a truly enchanted creation.

In my view, it's one of the most
beautiful love stories ever made.

Hoy!

Hoy!

It is also a mystical poem
on the natural world.

And a sermon on correct values.

By now, the whole country was
starting to think about

what kind of place Britain should become

once the hostilities were over.

And Michael and Emeric used this
film to offer the idealistic proposal

that it might become a nation

that values people according
to their character

rather than their money.

MINISTRY OF INFORMATION

FILM DIVISION, THEATRE

The themes of all The Archers
films during the war years

had to be agreed with
the Ministry of Information.

Well, the Ministry of Information
had a films division.

Jack Beddington was
the head of it.

And no film could be made during
the wartime without their approval.

And Jack Beddington asked us
to come and meet him

and said,

while we were losing the war,

our relations with the Americans
were very good,

but now we're winning the war
they're not so good.

So he said, would you two consider
writing an original film and making

an original film about Anglo-American
relations, to improve them?

The Archer's response
is not a combat film

but a poetic fantasy.

You seem like a nice girl.
I can't give you my position.

Instruments gone, crew gone too.

All except Bob, here,
my sparks, he's dead.

The rest bailed out on my orders.

Time 0335, you get that?

In the first scene we meet Peter,
played by David Niven.

We've had it.
And I'd rather jump than fry.

After the first 1000 feet
what's the difference?

I shan't know anything anyway,

I say, I hope I haven't frightened you.

- No, I'm not frightened.
- Good girl.

From the cockpit of his doomed plane
he speaks to June, played by Kim Hunter.

Are you in love with anybody?
No, no, don't answer that.

I could love a man like you, Peter.

I love you, June, you're life
and I'm leaving you.

Peter is hurtling towards death

and falling in love,
at the same time.

I'm signing off now, June.
Goodbye.

Goodbye, June.

Hello, G for George. Hello G-George.

Hello G-George?

Hel--

So long, Bob,
I'll see you in a minute.

You know what we wear
by now. Proper wings!

This is an emphatic expression

of why Powell and Pressburger
were not documentary filmmakers.

They wanted to achieve
the kind of heightened intensity

that is only possible
through artifice.

Peter washes up on a deserted shore
with no idea where he is.

He miraculously meets June
cycling along the beach.

Hello.

Hello yourself. What's wrong?

And the couple are instantly
certain of their love for each other.

You're June.

You're Peter.

The trouble is that according
to divine calculations,

Peter ought to be dead.

91,716 invoiced

91,715 checked in.

- Conductor 71?
-
Madame
,

it could have
happened to anybody.

How did it happen?

Everything was calculated
except for this accursed fog.

The pilot jumped, he got lost in the fog,
I missed him.

The heavenly conductor is now ordered
to go back to Earth,

find Peter and rectify his mistake.

By the way,
Monsieur
, when you see Peter,
would you give him a message for me?

- Avec plaisir.
- Just say, “What ho.”

Bon.

One is starved for Technicolor up there.

What a night for love.

The idea of the two worlds was
Emeric's most audacious concept yet.

And he made a bold decision
about color too

when he decided that the other world
should be a rather dry, bureaucratic,

monochrome sort of place.

Whereas this world is the colorful one.

The home of fire and passion,
beauty, and poetry.

Peter's problem is that he's not sure
which world he belongs in anymore.

Will he be allowed to live out
his love for June here on Earth

or will he have to move on
to the other world.

In short,

does he belong among the living,

or the dead?

He's having a series
of highly organized hallucinations

comparable to an experience
of actual life.

A combination of vision
of hearing and of idea.

The film marked a big moment
for Powell Pressburger

because this is where they threw off
entirely the shackles of realism

and happily embraced surrealism.

Doc, he's here! June!

Michael, always loved
the idea of the film director

as a magician with a box of tricks.

Doc?

Reveling in old-style effects
and illusions

It's as though he's remembering
his youth in silent movies,

working with Rex Ingram
at the Victorine studios.

The Rex Ingram influence
gave the film its scale too,

making it ambitious
as well as adventurous.

Come back!

Peter! Peter! Come back!

The film needed marvels of set design
and cinematography in order to succeed.

But by now, The Archers
had evolved into a big family

of highly skilled technicians.

One of the most important members of
the team was art director Alfred Junger,

a design wizard

who also had the practical skills
of an engineer or an architect.

We had the greatest film art director
that I think has ever lived.

He goes back, you see, to the early days
of Fritz Lang and
Metropolis

and when we asked him to do things
like the moving stairway

that all had to be
worked out in perspective

and shot practically
all the same day.

Because end of the war,
we didn't have enough steel

and we didn't have enough
electric power

to work that staircase all the time.

So all the shots up the staircase
or shots down the staircase,

were all worked out in perspective
on the drawing board.

I think it's a very important point
with all these people

they are all, not only
marvelous technicians,

but they are all people

who loved solving problems.

And we loved setting them!

There are a great number of,

there are a great number of people who
are very happy when there are no problems,

but there are some
who adore problems.

And we had this big team
around us by now, you know

who just came saying,
"What's the problem?"

How do you work with actors,
Mr Powell, on the set?

I just start the day saying
I've been thinking about this sequence,

I suggest we do this,

what do you think?

And they usually say they
want to do something different.

So then we argue.

Not for long.

David Niven, just heaven to work with.

And very punctilious.
David always leaves at 10 to 6, exactly.

Even if you're in
the middle of a shot

comes up and says,
"Sorry, old man, gotta go, you know!"

- And he's gone!
-
Oh really?

It was Michael who decided that
everything that Peter experiences

must be based on solid medical evidence.

And all the visual fireworks of the film
are underpinned by a very serious purpose.

They are means by which Michael can take
his camera inside a tormented psyche

and tell a story

about the mental damage
done by war.

He's haunted by these visions of the dead

flowing into the other world
in an unending stream

and he's uncertain how
he himself was spared.

These days, we might call it
survivor's guilt.

This was a time right after the war

when the primary trend in movies
was the emergence of film noir.

Bitter cynical movies, usually,

where the characters
are doomed from the start.

Peter. Peter!

Powell and Pressburger went
against the grain of all of that.

In all their major pictures of
the war years, they seek to offer help,

consolation, and
the possibility of renewal.

In
A Matter of Life and Death
what they offer is a vision of love.

Permit me.

The hard won triumph of love,
surviving all and conquering all.

That's it, the only real bit
of evidence we have.

Quick. We must not keep
the court waiting.

One of the film's most beautiful conceits

is that despite the epic scale
of the imagery,

the proof of love is the tiniest thing.

A single tear gathered on a rose.

Goodbye, darling.

And June provides a second proof

when she willingly takes Peter's place
on the stairway to heaven

showing that she's prepared
to give up her life for his.

In this moment of self sacrifice

the moral of the film is bluntly stated.

Yes, Mr Farlan, nothing is stronger
than the law in the universe,

but on Earth,
nothing is stronger than love.

We cling together in the face of power

and in the face of death.

The single tear on the rose
weighs more heavy

than the battalions of heaven.

Outside the Empire, thousands of
Londoners crowding the approaches

to see the Royal Family
and also the many film stars

and notabilities attending
the Royal Command Film Performance.

A Matter of Life and Death
represents
Powell and Pressburger

at the peak of their powers.

And it was chosen for the first-ever
Royal Film Performance.

So great was the throng that the arrival
of the Royal Family was delayed.

And when they did reach their objective,
there was barely room

for them to make their way
through the crowd into the cinema.

The Archers were on top of the world
but it was 1946 now

and there was suddenly
no war effort to serve anymore.

Emeric no longer had the impetus
which had driven him on

to write one original story after another.

And this left The Archers
with a big dilemma.

What sort of films should
they now be making?

We suddenly felt now
we have made several of our films

isn't there the time now

to make a film which has
absolutely nothing to do with war?

Black Narcissus
marked a whole new
direction in Powell Pressburger's work.

It was their first
non-original story

and it was a post-war escape

into a different and a distant world.

Rumer Godden's novel depicts
the trials and tribulations

of a small group of nuns trying

to establish a convent
in the Himalayas.

The atmosphere seems to agitate the senses

and the nuns find themselves troubled

by dangerous temptations
and simmering conflicts.

I found myself in the Himalayas
making a film about nuns.

And our mountains were painted on glass.

Since the whole film is set in India

It was a startlingly bold decision
when Michael decided

to shoot everything in England,

using ingenious sets,
trick shots, match shots

all to recreate the Himalayan setting.

Partly this was a practical choice

because everything to do with filmmaking
was so much less mobile, in those days.

Everything had to be fully
visualized in advance

and very little could
be spontaneous or improvised.

Black Narcissus
made a virtue of this

by making each shot into
a production in itself.

A painterly composition in which
every aspect of the image

is meticulously controlled.

This is truly a cinema
of beautifully wrought imagemaking.

And it gives the film the vividness
and the intensity

of an hallucination.

The cameraman was Jack Cardiff.

And here he consciously
drew on the example

of artists like
Rembrandt and Vermeer.

There's something special about his
very English sense of Technicolor too.

The nuns were very deliberately
dressed in white,

or off white robes, then surrounded by
cool tones of stone, and green and blue.

So that when you see a hot color like red,

it really jumps out at you.

I still remember the first time I saw
the film in a nitrate color print.

When the rhododendrons exploded
onto the screen it was almost

a physical shock.

I'm not sure if I know another film

where the color
contributes so much

to the story and the
emotion of a picture.

Now, right at the center
of all the elaborate design

is human faces.

In particular, the face of Deborah Kerr
who plays Sister Clodagh.

And standing in contrast
and in opposition to Sister Clodagh

is Sister Ruth played by Kathleen Byron.

David Farrar is
the unsettling presence who...

Thank you.

Stirs up a feverish rivalry
between the two women.

I've noticed you're very pleased
to see him yourself.

If that was in your mind, it's better said
I think you're out of your senses.

In a bold move for those times,

Ferrar is presented very much
from the women's point of view

as a male sex object.

The result is a classic struggle
between flesh and the spirit.

You can't order me about

you have nothing to do
with me anymore.

When Sister Ruth puts on
a red dress and red lipstick,

it's both a brazen act

and a visual shock.

Sex erupts into the story
through the use of color.

These images were regarded
as shockingly erotic in the 1940s,

when my friends and I first
saw the film, it was on TV.

We saw it in black and white

in a version that had been
censored by the Catholic Church,

but we were still kind of taken

and kind of amazed by the
psychosexual energy of the film

that was inherent in the images
that we were allowed to see.

- Ayah, wake up!
- Oh, what is it? What is it?

It's Sister Ruth!

Stop her! She's gone mad!

Go and talk to Sister Clodagh.

She brought you here.
She can get you back again.

Sister Clodagh, Sister Clodagh!

- You know what she says about you?
- Whatever she said, it was true.

- You say that because you love her!
- I don't love anyone!

Clodagh...

At the climax of Ruth's madness,

she faints, she blacks out and
the whole screen is flooded with red.

It's a terrific way of putting into images
the intensity of her passion.

Red, burning desire.

More than any of
Powell Pressburger's previous films,

this one was an expressionistic exercise
in high style.

And the sequence which
most interested Michael

was a ten minute experiment
in what he called

"composed film."

It's a carefully choreographed
sequence of pure action,

no dialogue at all
for the whole ten minutes.

The idea was that music
would take the lead

dictating the character's movements,

expressing their thoughts and feelings
more vividly than words ever could.

The music was written first

and then the sequence was shot

step by step

so that each shot

fitted the music, exactly.

Everything fits together
into a single organic whole.

It turns the melodrama into opera.

It worked, it worked!

I could hardly believe my eyes.

Filmmaking was never the same
for me again after that.

And when
Red Shoes
came up
the year following,

we worked out the whole ballet
to be a composed film.

The Red Shoes
is a story of a girl
torn between art and love.

Vicky Page is an ambitious
young ballerina

who's taken up by
the great impresario Lermontov.

But when she falls in love
with the composer Julian Craster

her life gets ripped in two.

This was a project with a long history.

Emeric had first written a script for
a ballet film back in the 1930s.

But the main thing that Michael
was looking for now in his script

was opportunities to experiment.

His first radical decision
was that he would only do the film

if Vicky Page was played by a real
ballerina rather than an actress.

It was a tall order
to find a great dancer

who could also act well enough
to carry a big movie.

But he eventually found everything
that he wanted in Moira Shearer.

The only trouble was that
she didn't want to do the film,

and it took about a year
to convince her.

She was very much a part of
the ballet culture of her time.

And she always thought that dancing

was a much higher art
than making movies.

Good luck!

Good luck.

The bravest idea of the film
was to place at the heart of it,

an original ballet.

All right, Ivan.

Time to go down, Craster.

- Good luck, Mr Craster.
- Thank you, Mr Lermontov.

- Nervous?
- No.

Come on!

Stopping the story of a movie
for over 15 minutes

to present a full length ballet?

This was a huge risk they were taking.

Nobody had ever done
such a thing before

and no one had any idea how
audiences were going to react.

The Ballet of The Red Shoes
is based
on a Hans Andersen fairytale

about a girl who is mad to dance.

The magical red shoes allow her
to fulfill her dreams.

But when she wants to stop dancing,

the shoes won't let her.

This ballet was the part of the film
that excited Michael most of all.

Released from the constraints of dialogue

he could really go to town
with experimentation,

working freely with music, light, images,

movement, energy.

The most radical part
of his conception

was to represent the ballet,

not as a theater audience would see it,

but as the dancer would experience it
inside her head.

Michael used the body
and the physicality of the dancer

to express the inner life of the dancer.

He used physical action to
represent psychological pain.

And that subjective approach

had a very big influence on

what I did with the boxing scenes
in
Raging Bull
.

When I watched De Niro
doing his moves,

I saw that it was dance,
it was choreography.

I also realized that I should stay
in the ring as much as possible.

And stay inside the fighter's head.

See and hear it from his point of view.

...a right to the jaw, a hard left-hand
to the body thrown by LaMotta.

Round eight and it's anybody's...

That way you get
the impression of the fight,

the battle, the struggle,
the suffering.

But you're also free to do whatever
you want visually,

to communicate what Jake is feeling.

A hard left hand to the body,
Robinson is driven out of the ring...

How he perceives things in the ring.

Which makes it very personal.

LaMotta has taken charge of the fight,

the undefeated Sugar Ray,
his winning ways are in jeopardy.

LaMotta coming at him again.

LaMotta, feigning left hand...

At the end of the ballet of
The Red Shoes
,

the dancer's passion
carries her to her doom.

The ballet is an ecstatic celebration
of the glory of art.

But it also says
that being an artist

will destroy you.

It says that a true artist makes art

not because they want to

but because they have to.

It's not a choice, but a compulsion.

Of course, what made
Red Shoes
unique was that it was about art

and nothing but art.

And nothing but art,
the best of art, would do.

There's something of
both Michael and Emeric

in the film's most obsessive character,
Boris Lermontov

Powell Pressburger films
often deal with egocentric, volatile

addictive personalities.

But these characters speak to me
and it may be obvious that many

of the characters that I'm drawn to
are influenced by Powell's heroes.

They too are antiheroes,
broken people driven by conflicts.

Strangely, I can even see

something of an affinity between
Lermontov and Travis,

Travis Bickle in
Taxi Driver

because they're both characters
on the edge of things.

Listening, observing other people

always on the verge of exploding.

Good evening, Mr Craster.

Won't they be missing you
at the Covent Garden tonight?

[She speaks French]

Oh, for God's sake,
leave me alone, both of you.

Please Julian, wait until
after the performance.

It'll be too late then.

You are already too late, Mr Craster.

Tell him why you've left him.

- I haven't left him.
- Oh, yes, you have left him.

Nobody can have two lives
and your life is dancing.

What makes the drama of
The Red Shoes
so compelling to me is the fact

that all three of the main characters
are driven and tortured people.

Well, Vicky...

I love you, Julian.

Nobody but you.

But you love that more.

I don't know!

I don't know...

if you go with him now,
I will never take you back. Never!

Do you want to destroy our love?

Adolescent nonsense!

Alright, go then, go with him!

Be a faithful housewife!

Of course, a scene like this
is very risky.

The performances are pushed to the extreme

and it's easy to regard the whole thing
as trashy, pulp material.

But I see it as an impulsive and
instinctive heightening of reality.

Life is so unimportant.

And from now onwards, you will dance!

Like nobody ever before.

Eventually life and art come together

and the red shoes acquire
the same power in life

that they had in the ballet.

I will never forget that most vivid image
of Moira Shearer's eyes.

When the shoes begin to take her away.

Her face, grotesque,

echoes of an ancient tragic mask.

It's so bold and flamboyant and extreme.

I liked, I like that it sometimes
seems out of control.

Not the emotions of the characters,

but the emotions of the people
who made the film.

Their passion's out of control.

And their total commitment
to their fairytale story

creates an unforgettable climax.

No!

Why do you think it was so important for
you to show somebody dying for their art?

I think because I would do it myself.

- Really?
- Mm.

You don’t believe me.

When the executives of Rank
saw
The Red Shoes
, they hated it.

The company was increasingly in the hands
of bureaucrats and money men

who saw it as a disastrously
uncommercial art movie.

'RED SHOES' GETS ROUSING WELCOME
FROM N.Y. CRITICS

It was two Americans,
Bob Benjamin and Arthur Krim

who transformed the fortunes
of the picture

by running it continuously
in a single theater in New York.

THE RED SHOES ARE STILL DANCING
ON BROADWAY AFTER 2 YEARS!

From there, he went on to become
The Archers' most popular film.

One of the greatest
and most successful pictures ever made.

For me, it's the ultimate
subversive commercial movie.

It's the epitome of everything
that I admire most

about Powell and Pressburger.

It is utterly satisfying
as popular entertainment

but also wildly
inventive, profound,

complex and not
at all comforting.

It's a film that has been
gloriously vindicated by history.

But back in 1949

Michael and Emeric were so disgusted
by the way that Rank treated the picture

that they split from the company.

They crossed over to London Films and
linked up once again with Alex Korda.

Alex was the most pleasant,

fun-loving creature

who could charm money out,

not only those who had the money,
but strangely,

also of people, some people
who had no money at all.

Which, of course, ended in disaster.

The Small Back Room
was the first film
they made under their new deal.

And it represented another
startling change in direction.

Having just made
a huge Technicolor masterpiece,

Michael now decided, naturally,
that he wanted to make

a small black and white picture.

"I needed to escape
from romance into reality"

is how he put it.

The reality, of course,
is what The Archers

were always accused of avoiding.

So they now faced up
squarely to their critics

by taking a journey through
a bleak succession of blacked-out streets,

crowded pubs,

desolate flats

and stuffy offices.

What excited Michael most
about the film though,

was the troubled psychology
of the characters,

drawn from Nigel Balchin's
original novel.

I must have a drink.

Ask me to have a drink, woman.

Have a drink, Sammy.

Whiskey?

No, thanks, Susan.
I'll have some of my nice medicine.

Sammy, the central character
is a munitions expert

who's lost a foot,
and now wears a prosthetic.

Why don't you take the thing off?

You know that helps.

No.

You do when you're alone.

Why will you keep it on when I'm here?

It's all right now.

You must realize that you can have ideas
that'll win the war four times over...

but it still won't do anybody any good
unless you can sell them.

We're not in a university department now.

No, nor in an advertising agency,
where you belong.

Now look here, Sammy,

You may think you're a great big scientist
and I'm just a commercial stooge...

But the plain fact is if you make
a mess of things, I have to clear it up.

And the equally plain fact

is the stuff you build a reputation on
comes chiefly out of my head!

I'm not a politician or a salesman,
but neither am I a kid of ten.

Sammy's frequently in physical pain

and this feeds a craving for whiskey
that he struggles to control.

Sammy?

You could run the section yourself.
Even Pinker says so.

But you just won't face things.

You go on being sorry for yourself
with everything in the world to live for.

But what's so special about
only having one foot?

You just haven't got the guts!

- Will you shut up?
- Every word I said is true.

Oh, Sammy, you're such a fool.

Why don't you pull yourself together, Sue?

You're making an ass of yourself.

Next time you just decide to go home
when we're out together

I'd be obliged if you'd tell me.

The Archers demonstrated here
that if they chose

they could do heartfelt work

in the British realist tradition.

Reining in their instincts
for fantasy and comedy

and focusing instead on
the emotional truth

of a complicated love story.

I've been thinking, if you really think
I'm such a poor sap as you said tonight...

we'd better get out of
each other's way.

The same thought had occurred to me.

The finished film is
full of anger, and anguish

and the critics loved it.

Well, get out of it!

The only trouble was that
audiences just weren't interested.

They didn't want grim stories

which harked back to
the miseries of the war years.

So instead of being a new beginning,

The Small Back Room
proved to be a dead end.

In characteristic fashion,

the pair now bounced from
the bleakest picture they had ever made

into their most frivolous film to date.

Alexander Korda had directed
a very profitable version

of
The Scarlet Pimpernel
back in the 1930s.

And he now wanted it remade
as a Technicolor spectacular.

Sam Goldwyn would bring in
the Hollywood money.

And for the first time in their
partnership, Powell and Pressburger

found themselves doing something
that neither of them wanted to do,

a remake of a worn out classic.

Nobody can help you,
not even your government.

Now, what do you say?

You seem to have
thought of everything.

Nothing is left of me now, but to say...

congratulations.

You're very kind, Sir Percy.

They decided that the only thing to do
with the corny old Pimpernel story

was to transform it into
an exuberant entertainment

by filling it with comedy and music.

There's an impudent cinematic joke
when Cyril Cusack

finds himself sneezing uncontrollably,

and when he sneezes,
they cut to fireworks.

It's the most startling
imagery and editing,

it's got nothing to
do with the story.

I mean, it's not as though

there are fireworks going on
outside the walls in the movie.

It's simply a visual metaphor
coming right out of the blue.

You know, I think you--
Actually, you could trace it back

to early silent films

where often you could see
what a person's hearing.

Or it's like an experiment
in avant garde film

where anything can happen with images.

But for Michael and Emeric
to be doing this here

in the middle of a drama,

for me, it represents their pure enjoyment
in just making movies.

But back in 1950

you didn't make fun of the plot
in an adventure story.

And Sam Goldwyn hated them for it.

All he wanted was a color version
of the original picture.

So they had to do reshoots and re-edits
And the result was a miserable

compromise which satisfied nobody.

In the same difficult year of 1950,

They entered into another co-production
with another big Hollywood producer,

David Selznick.

This time, the film was
Gone to Earth
,

a steamy tale of Shropshire folk

based on a novel by Mary Webb.

Selznick wanted the movie
to be a showcase

for his new wife Jennifer Jones,

who turned out to be terrific.

We were delighted to have Jennifer Jones.

Not so delighted with Selznick.

He was madly in love with her.

And intensely possessive.

And also afraid to come on the set
when she was there

because she would throw something at him.

And so you can,

you were continually conscious of
a glaring eyeball from behind the set.

Gone to earth!

Gone to Earth
is a kind of
gothic masterpiece.

It's full of Michael's
deep feeling for the land,

the natural world
and the rituals of English country life.

"When at once, a little of midnight

climbed to the steepest stones on
the top of God's little mountain.

lay your shawl on the devil's chair

and walk around it.

Ask your wish."

If I be to go to
"Hunter's Spinney..."

If I be to go...

let me hear the fairy music.

Jennifer Jones' character Hazel
is a wild thing

in a world of traps and snares.

They're after us, Foxy.

Which way are they headin'?

"Hunter's Spinney"! This way!

- They'll pull you down!
- Drop it, they'll pull you down!

Give her to me, you little fool,
give her to me!

Gone to earth!

The trouble was that Selznick then refused
to accept the film that they delivered.

At the end, his conception of the film...

was different.

And he wanted us to make changes
and we didn't.

And he had the film for North America.

So he shot extra scenes with Jennifer,

I think Rouben Mamoulian shot them.

Selznick ended up suing them and releasing
his own version called
The Wild Heart
.

So The Archer's two attempts

to make commercial pictures
with Hollywood producers

both turned into a shambles
of recrimination and lawsuits.

The switch from wartime idealism
to peacetime commercialism

was proving to be very tough.

Creatively speaking,
everything was going awry

and the partners urgently needed to get
back to making their own kind of pictures.

It was the conductor Mr Thomas Beecham

who proposed a film of Offenbach's opera,
TALES OF HOFFMANN
.

And Emeric seized on the idea.

Music was always his first love
among the arts.

Emeric also found a fellow spirit
in the German writer Hoffmann.

They had a shared taste for the magical,
the morbid and the fantastical.

In the first tale, Hoffmann falls in
love with a mechanical doll, Olympia.

That young fellow there, I vow

Very soon will pop the question

My friend indeed

What excited Michael here

was the radical idea of
rethinking opera as cinema

by transforming it into dance.

Birds in woodland ways
Are winging...

He cast dancers, rather
than singers, in key parts.

This brought the stories to life visually

and drove the production
towards Michael's ideal of a film

in which everything is choreographed.

The whole thing was shot
like a silent movie

with music always played back on the set.

So the performers and the crew

were all under the spell of it.

Of course, movement itself is central
to the art of motion pictures.

I love the way a camera can move.

I love cutting from
one movement to another.

And in those special moments
when everything is moving just right,

whether you're on the set
or you're in the editing room,

you feel possessed by
a very powerful energy.

When I'm asked out of all movies,
what is your favorite scene?

I always think about the sword fight

in the Gondola in
Hoffmann
.

It's so supple and fluid.

Thoroughly, physical
and entirely dreamlike.

There's no sound effects at all.

It's both very immediate

and very distant.

And it's something that
no other art form can do.

It's pure film.

Practically every technique known
to movies is employed in
Hoffmann

and there's absolutely no respect
for conventional continuity.

The film keeps surpassing itself

with the surreal and surprising
nature of its imagery.

You get broad theatrical effects
combined with perfect cinematic detail.

Like the movement of Olympia's eyes here.

And the eyes are choreographed too,
just like everything else.

I always noticed that,
particularly with Robert Helpmann's eyes

just a glance

and it's as if he danced five steps.

One of Michael's favorite mantras was
"All Art is One".

Because he believed that in a film,

you could bring together literature,
music, dance, drama and design

to create a kind of total cinema that
would transcend the traditional arts.

The Tales of Hoffmann
is the closest
that he got to achieving that.

It also represented the fulfillment
of all his most adventurous ideas.

I mean, the whole thing
is both a composed film

like the 10 minute experiment
in
Black Narcissus

and a surreal psychodrama,
like the ballet in
The Red Shoes
.

The result is a film that
performs like a symphony.

You can watch it over and over again,

discovering new things each time.

It's as close to pure expression
as cinema can get.

Just image after image

designed to communicate feelings
in a very explicit way.

History was made
in New York last weekend,

as for the first time,
the Metropolitan Opera House

was turned into a cinema.

And the reason was
Tales of Hoffmann
,

a new British picture from London Films,
given its world premiere

at a gala social occasion
in aid of the Red Cross.

After the big premiere in New York,

Powell and Pressburger got a letter of
congratulations from one of their heroes,

Cecil B DeMille.

I THANK YOU FOR OUSTANDING
COURAGE AND ARTISTRY

But a painful controversy developed when
the film was shown at Cannes,

Alex Korda thought the third act
was slow and dull

and it ought to be cut out.

Michael adamantly refused,

but he felt that Emeric
was siding with Korda.

And he took this badly.

It was the last time that Michael
would work with Korda.

Or worse than that,

it shook the firm foundations of trust
between him and Emeric.

There was now a grim period
of three years

during which the partners
didn't make a single film together.

Michael was full of ambitious ideas,

but he insisted on creative freedom.

And who would give him that now

that he's burned his bridges
with Korda and Rank?

Frustrated and restless, he spent
a lot of time traveling the world.

He was a celebrity, an important man,

but he was not sure what to do
with himself anymore.

Michael dreamed of adventurous
productions with great artists,

maybe financed by television.

And one idea was a story from the Odyssey

starring Orson Welles with
a libretto by Dylan Thomas,

and music by Stravinsky.

Emeric was always
the more practical of the two.

He went back to Korda
to direct a film on his own.

This was a tale for children called
Twice Upon a Time
.

But it was not a success.

The shaken and embattled partnership
tried to recover their momentum

with all kinds of new projects.

But they couldn't get anything
off the ground.

There just wasn't much money around
for British film production

in the early fifties, and it was hard

to make any kind of deal without
losing their independence.

I mean, you want to make a picture
and you want to get the money,

well, you know, you go everywhere you talk
to everybody, you do what you can.

But Michael and Emeric weren't used
to working that way.

They wanted to hang on
to their independence

and they suffered because of it.

The stress and strain seemed to drag
the two men in opposite directions,

with Michael becoming
more idealistic and combative

while Emeric grew
more disappointed and frustrated.

Eventually they scraped together
the wherewithal to make
Oh... Rosalinda!!

An updating of
Die Fledermaus

set in contemporary Vienna.

The slogan of the movie suited
their mood at the time:

"The situation is hopeless
but not serious."

It seems to me

with great respect

to have happened like this!

The film starts off promisingly with
an utterly distinctive design

and some characteristically
ambitious ideas.

But it never quite lives up
to that early promise.

Rosalinda!

It is not a composed film,
like their best musical works,

but something looser and less disciplined.

And I think they never
really had the money

that they needed to carry through
their ideas with conviction

and the champagne that the film offers
mostly turns out to be flat

rather than sparkling.

The British public,
certainly disappointed Emeric

by refusing to share his very
European taste for operetta.

And the partners were by now desperately
in need of some kind of success.

The next job they took on was
an old-fashioned war movie called

The Battle of the River Plate.

Michael had a great time shooting it
because he was allowed

to take command of
a large fleet of warships

in order to get the film's
magnificent shots of ships at sea.

What gave the images their
spectacular impact on the screen

was the fact that they were shot in
the new widescreen format of VistaVision

which was like the IMAX of its day.

You sat in the cinema and
you felt like you were on the deck

of one of those ships.

The scale and clarity of it was magical.

And out of nowhere, the pair
suddenly had a box office hit again.

The Empire Theater in Leicester Square
was the magnet that drew a vast crowd

of Londoners who came
to see all they could

of those attending
the Royal Film Performance.

Young French star Brigitte Bardot,
for example.

And Mrs Arthur Miller, who you probably
know even better as Marilyn Monroe.

Her Majesty talking with Miss Monroe

remarks that they were
neighbors at Windsor.

Dramatically speaking, for the first time,

they had made
a very conventional movie.

With nothing surprising or new about it.

...it's suicide,
she’s tearing herself apart!

The twilight of the gods.

But the success of
River Plate

meant that they suddenly
had standing in the industry again

and Rank offered them
a five-year contract for seven films.

Emeric was eager to accept,
but Michael feared that

they would end up making mediocre pictures
full of mediocre contract players.

And he couldn't stomach the idea of
giving up their dreams and their autonomy.

Eventually he agreed to do
just one film for Rank

and this would be
Ill Met by Moonlight
.

The subject might have been
a great one for The Archers.

It was based on the true story
of Paddy Leigh Fermor,

a very British hero,

a gentleman amateur,

who managed to kidnap a German general
on Crete during World War II.

Come on!

The problem with the film is that
Emeric wanted to tell the story

in a downbeat documentary way,

while Michael wanted to make
a big romantic picture.

Once again, the VistaVision camera
afforded some big beautiful images.

But at its heart, the film was confused
and it was uninspired.

Michael felt that Emeric
had become tired and timid

and that he had lost
all his fire and ambition.

Emeric felt that Michael had gone mad

and become wildly unreasonable
about everything.

Michael hated Rank's choice
of Dirk Bogarde as the lead.

Come on, flash the signal.

Sugar baker, SB.

How do I flash "sugar baker"?

Don't you know the Morse code?

Me? But don't you...

No.

So...

Do you know the Morse code?

But of course.

Aren't you professional soldiers?

Good lord, no.

The Major here?

No, an amateur, distinguished
amateur, but still an amateur.

Michael was refused permission
to shoot in Crete,

and had to make the film
in France instead.

Everything added up to make a weary
and troubled production

that no one really believed in.

When Michael saw the film 30 years later,

even he was surprised
by how poor it was.

He felt the acting was mediocre,
the camera work a mistake.

And even in 1957, the whole thing
must have looked painfully old-fashioned.

"The script was underwritten,
and weak on action", he said

"the gags were unoriginal

and the surprises,

not surprising."

During the editing
the Powell and Pressburger team

faced up to the fact that they
no longer saw things in the same way,

and decided to dissolve their partnership.

I didn't like being tied
down to the facts.

Yes, I read that you resisted
that sort of realism and wanted to--

-
Bit more imagination in it.
- Oh, yes. And...

and so we sort of naturally
drifted apart on this.

On this idea.

You didn't have a sort of
hammer and tongs argument and...

No, no.

Throwing down the gauntlet for realism
and you marching off in a huff about...

No, it was just a rather sad mutual gap.

You can't have
a mutual gap, can you?

A sad gap which opened
between two loving people.

This is the way Emeric summed up
the partnership once.

"I always had the feeling that we were
amateurs in a world of professionals.

Amateurs stand so much closer
to what they are doing

and they are driven by enthusiasm,

which is so much more forceful than
what professionals are driven by."

People are always asking us how
we managed to work together for so long.

Something like eighteen years.

The answer is

love.

You can't have a collaboration

in anything

without love.

Emeric and Michael
always remained good friends

and neither man ever said
a bad word about the other.

I started to write novels.
Very, very few of them, only two.

And...

well, I think nice novels.

Mark, what a beautiful little boy.

Who is he?

Me.

Course it is.

Then who took this film?

My father.

Michael went on to make one more
great film without Emeric.

Ah! What's that?

That was
Peeping Tom
.

And for me, it represents Michael's
determination to keep on experimenting.

Mark, what are you doing?

Wanted to photograph you watching.

No, no!

Michael even included
himself in this story

casting himself as
the bullying father

who terrifies his own child
in order to study his fear.

What's he doing?

Giving me a present.

What is it?

Can't you guess?

A camera.

That child grows up to be a killer.

And what's most unsettling about it,

of course, is that he's
shown sympathetically.

As a shy and suffering person.

Switch it off, Mark!

Mark, switch it off!

His trouble is that he is not
at home in this world

and he feels truly alive and whole

only in the images he creates
built from the destruction of others.

Every night you switch on
that film machine.

What are these films
you can't wait to look at?

What's the film you're showing now?

Take me to your cinema.

Yes.

The atmosphere that
permeates the whole film

is one of overwhelming sadness.

What am I seeing, Mark?

Why don't you answer?

Oh!

It's no good.

I was afraid it wouldn't be.

What?

The lights fade too soon.

It's a very disturbing
and transgressive film,

but it's also very moving because

at the heart of it
is this radical compassion,

it asks you to feel for someone

who is a madman and a murderer.

What do you think you've spoiled?

An opportunity.

Now, I have to find another one.

Watch them, Helen.

Watch them, say goodbye,

one by one.

I have timed it so often.

Helen!

Helen!

I'm afraid.

No, no, Mark!

And I'm glad...

I'm afraid.

"I was shocked to the core
to find a director of his standing

befouling the screen
with such perverted nonsense."

"The word for Michael Powell's
Peeping Tom
is, quite simply, nasty."

"
Peeping Tom
stinks more than
anything else in British films

since
The Stranglers of Bombay
."

"The only really satisfactory way
to dispose of
Peeping Tom

would be to shovel it up and flush it
swiftly down the nearest sewer."

I believed in the film,
they didn't.

It vanished for 20 years.

And I vanished with it.

I was no longer bankable.

I was too independent.

I wanted my own way.

The other thing that counted against
Michael was the fact that by now

it was the 60s.

Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz,

Lindsay Anderson were
making fresh energetic,

a kind of classic films which drew
on the documentary tradition

and the ideas of
the European New Wave.

This is Ron, I want a word with you!

For these young men,
Michael represented ancient history.

- Give me my money back!
- Call it!

Cut!

I go out of frame,
you don't follow me at all?

- No, we don't follow you.
- Oh, it’s alright then. Alright, good.

Oh, sorry...

No, I had a feeling in that take
that I was opening my mouth

and licking my lips a little too much.
I suddenly found myself doing that.

- Yes, do it again.
- Would you like to take another?

Action!

After much struggle,
he managed to put together

two low budget pictures in Australia.

Mrs Ryan, I want a word with you!

I want a word...

Including this one

Age of Consent
with Helen Mirren
and James Mason.

- Give me that money back, it’s mine!
- You stole it from me!

Cut!

It never became a real tug of war,
with both of you tugging.

If it really is a tug of war, so that your
life is depending on the bag.

And if you lose the bag,
you've gone, you know.

Cora!

Action now.

Cut!

It was wonderful, darling.

Marvellous. Are you alright?

It was very clever.

Everybody happy?

He had no way of knowing it,
but this would be his last feature film.

He was never able to raise
the money to make another one.

She's dead.

Grandma?

Of course, it was during the very years

that Michael was struggling
and sinking into obscurity

that people like me
and Francis Coppola were discovering

his work on the other side
of the Atlantic.

And our great fortune was that we were
watching the Powell Pressburger films

without any cultural baggage.

We had no prejudices based on
when they were made

or how they were received.

We just saw them as enjoyable films

and sometimes wonderful works of art.

We watched all types of British films,
whether it was Grierson or Jennings,

David Lean or Carol Reed,
Hitchcock or Powell and Pressburger.

And we didn't think of any one style
as better than the others.

For us, they all reflected
different aspects of one people.

The British.

And we were open to all of it.

When I got to know Michael well,

he certainly seemed to me imbued
with the spirit and the soul of Britain.

And it was my great good fortune
in the 1980s

to finally see him and Emeric rediscovered

and reassessed in Britain too.

I can't begin to describe
how touched

and how happy I am
to be presenting this award tonight.

An award which I feel very deeply
is long, long overdue.

These two giants of the cinema

who had pretty much disappeared
into oblivion for 20 years

were finally granted the honor
and respect that they deserved.

In 1984, Michael got married

to my longtime film editor,
Thelma Schoonmaker,

who's edited all my films
since
Raging Bull
.

They lived here in New York
and Michael became a constant friend

and a constant presence in my life.

He was a guy who hadn't made
a picture in 25-30 years.

But every day he was planning one.

When I went through difficult times,
he was a tremendous support.

I remember when I was finishing
The King of Comedy

I was at a very low point.

But Michael somehow seemed to understand
everything I was going through.

He never...

he was never intrusive.

But he was able to talk to me personally

from the experience that he had
of a very long creative life.

And his voice was very different from

the voices of the others
around me at the time.

He had a spirit that
was always strong

and uncompromised.

Even when he seemed
to be a forgotten man.

That spirit supported me
in periods of doubt

and desolation.

I look back on it now

and I find it extraordinary that
I knew Michael Powell personally

for 16 years.

And he was not only
a support but a guide.

Pushing me along, giving me confidence,
keeping me bold in my own work.

It's OK, fellas, no problem.

This one's gone. What?
OK, yeah.

I'll never be able to
fully understand or express

why he meant so much to me
and why he'll always be with me.

And that current of thought

always leads back to those
films he made with Emeric.

I'm signing off now, June.

Goodbye, goodbye June.

Hello, G for George.
Hello, G-George?

Hello G-George?

David Niven saying goodbye
to Kim Hunter over the radio

in
A Matter of Life and Death
.

Let it ring.

The intensely erotic scenes between
Kathleen Byron and David Farrar

in
The Small Back Room
.

The camera moving up
and away from the duel

in
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
.

Certain films, you simply run
all the time and you live with them.

As you grow older,
they grow deeper.

I'm not sure how it happens, but it does.

For me, that body of work
is a wondrous presence,

a constant source of energy,

and a reminder

of what life and art
are all about.

When you look back

do you think that somehow
or other, the British

didn't appreciate you both
as much as they might have?

When did the British
ever appreciate their great men?

Cut.

I hope this will,
this will be cut.

MADE IN ENGLAND