Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger

From this year, comes this exhaustive love letter from Martin Scorsese (who narrates & gives testimony on camera) about Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, master British filmmakers who elevated their medium into art. Using archive interviews w/the pair & copious scenes from their films, their work was exemplified by their use of special effects & otherworldly subject matter which would put their oeuvre far & away ahead of the pack of what their contemporaries were doing which would be a boon of inspiration for Scorsese (his use of color as emotions was a direct lift from their work) during his formative years. For those who only know a handful of their work (The Red Shoes, The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp, A Matter of Life & Death, Peeping Tom & Black Narcissus to name a few), here's your chance to get a more comprehensive picture of what made them so great which w/a tour guide as knowledgeable (his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker is Powell's widow) as Scorsese is, you can't go wrong.

Martin Scorsese has been trying to get people to know and like the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger since the 60s when he was a film student at NYU. He actually discovered his first Archer films as a child, seeing The Tales of Hoffman on television and The Red Shoes in theaters with his father, but it wasn't until he became a success himself with the release of Mean Streets that he discovered that Michael Powell was still alive. Searching out the retired, English filmmaker at his small cottage in Kent, Scorsese is the singular force behind the rediscovery of Powell's films decades after he had made his pair of Australian films, and this documentary is probably the furthest that appreciation is going to reach.

Told by Scorsese who narrates the entire documentary, the story of Michael Powell in particular and his professional relationship with Emeric Pressburger is cast through the lens of Scorsese's own experience, opening with him as a child and his appreciation of some 19th century opera on television. Interspersed, Scorsese covers basic biography of Powell and Pressburger individually before really digging into their careers.

The documentary really is a primer for audiences, an introduction to the strange, otherworldly visions of the Archers who, as Scorsese put it, were experimental filmmakers in the British studio system. Having just gone through all of it (except for Pressburger's Twice Upon a Time, his only sole directing credit that I couldn't find a copy of anywhere), I got swept away in Scorsese's telling. I can't talk about how it would affect the uninitiated, but I have to assume that the strange sights and Scorsese's descriptions of their techniques, effects, and influence, especially on his own work, would interest those newly discovering the works of the British and Austro-Hungarian team.

It's interesting to note the differences of opinions that Scorsese and I have about the work. For instance, Scorsese considers The Red Shoes to be one of the greatest films ever made while I think it is merely very, very good. Or that he calls Gone to Earth a gothic masterpiece and I found it rather dull. Or that he considers both Oh...Rosalinda! And Ill Met by Moonlight to be disappointments, but I found them quite competent entertainments. Which is to say that while our opinions differed, I still loved hearing him talk about all of it.

If I have disappointments, it's that he skips over some professional details that I need answers to (I'll have to just read Powell's autobiography to get them, I think), namely around how Powell managed to pull together the production of The Queen's Guards after the horrendous reaction to Peeping Tom, or how The Boy Who Turned Yellow exists at all. It's understandable that Scorsese's focus is on Powell's successes rather than his failures, namely the artistic successes since he spends a goodly amount of time talking about Peeping Tom, a personal favorite of his. Still, with Scorsese's personal connection to Powell, a few seconds to talk about these things that concern me and no one else on the planet would have been nice.

It was interesting to hear of Powell's influences beyond what I found to be the obvious of Lubitsch (like in His Lordship) and Hitchcock (like in Crown v. Stevens and several others) to his earliest work with Rex Ingram, including clips from The Four Horsemen that emphasized the otherworldly approach to cinema that obviously Powell reformed in his own way through what he called "compositional film", the combination of sight and sound with an emphasis on synching the action on screen to the music, something he started with Black Narcissus and embraced fully across the entirety of the film with The Tales of Hoffman. It's a term that I couldn't have come up with myself but which fits this kind of idealized form of Powell's work rather completely.

I also really liked how Scorsese and the documentary's director, David Hinton, were able to include a fair number of clips from Scorsese's own work to highlight the influence of Powell's approach to making movies, Scorsese emphasizing the use of movement within a frame and editing to music. The largest clips come from Raging Bull, but the parallel between the obsessive characters like Lermontov in The Red Shoes or Mark in Peeping Tom with some of Scorsese's own characters like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver or even May from The Age of Innocence helps deepen the connection between the two men's work.

And, of course, there's the actual personal connections starting with the energetic young director of Mean Streets searching out Powell in the English countryside, glad to hear that anyone would be interested in his films at all, much less a rising New York director from America. It continues on with Scorsese helping him find work in Los Angeles, the marriage between Powell and Scorsese's editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and ending with behind-the-scenes clips of Powell on the set of The King of Comedy as Scorsese talks about how Powell, the older, more mature, creative voice in his life was able to help him through tough times. He never talks about Powell's death, almost making it feel like Powell is still alive in some way, and it seems appropriate considering how Scorsese's entire efforts around Powell are to bring the man and his work alive to a world that had forgotten and abandoned him.

Really, the personal touch from Scorsese is what gives the film that wonderful emotional connection. There's talking about how Powell and Pressburger's work was great, and then there's Scorsese talking about a friend whose work he greatly admired.

This is a wonderful documentary and introduction to the work of The Archers for those who haven't seen it, and it's also a wonderful bit of catharsis for those who have.

I've seen a few Powell & Pressburger films, not as many as Martin Scorsese I suspect. Here in Made In England he rightly waxes lyrical about the legendary filmmakers and British cinema, with a dizzying display of archive, some apparently rather rare, although I'm no expert to distinguish. It starts as much Scorsese's story as P&P's (forgive the abbreviation). He talks of obsessively watching films like The Tales of Hoffman on black and white American TV. I'll admit I struggle with that film, but little Martin loved it. I guess what I'm looking for here, is letting Scorsese tell his origin story through these films and find the films that I've been missing. The controversial Peeping Tom (technically just Powell) and the operatic The Red Shoes both look like a must see, but I'm thankful I've seen many of the others featured. Like The 49th Parallel, made during the war, its propaganda but made in the most beautifully cinematic way. It's essentially a film buff talking about films for other film buffs. I doubt this would catch the attention of a particularly wide audience, but it should really. It's a compelling story. Neither Micheal Powell nor Emeric Pressburger had easy starts, but both passionate and eager about film, once together, each gave the other the strength to succeed. In an era of defined roles, their partnership appears to have been a baffling mystery to many, but essentially Emeric wrote, Micheal directed and they both produced, and thanks to the success of films like The 49th Parallel, they made what they wanted. Films like The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. A brilliant post war film that annoyed Winston Churchill, "Such a wonderful leader, but he just wasn't a good film critic". Pressburger is right, Blimp is an absolute masterpiece and certainly one of my favourites. It's a delight to hear how Scorsese talks about it like an old friend. Watching clips of their films like this, it throws into light their repeated use of the same actors. They too become like old friends. Roger Livesey pops up a lot, sometimes as the lead, other times as supporting like in A Matter of Life and Death, another epic piece of cinema and Deborah Kerr, again from Blimp and later Black Narcissus. There's lots of fun parallels drawn between P&P and Scorsese's work, as he hammers home his fandom. There's no punches pulled though as P&P hit troubled waters with studios... and each other. It's a functional documentary, it doesn't need to be anything more. Its aim is to shine a light on the life and work of Powell & Pressburger and it does that wonderfully.

I'm a long-time admirer of the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and so it seems is Martin Scorsese as he amply demonstrates in this warm and informed tribute to the duo. The first film of theirs I ever recall seeing was the wonderfully imaginative "A Matter of Life and Death", still one of my all-time favourites but of course there are so many other movies in their canon to admire and here Scorsese takes us through each of them in a linear fashion as well as imparting the usual biographical information about them.

I'm not quite sure why his commentary couldn't just have been done by voiceover which would have saved us the numerous static, cutaway shots to Marty sat in a cinema seat gazing intently at us as if the fourth wall was the movie-screen itself, other than to show us that it was indeed the renowned Mr Scorsese strewing pearls of wisdom our way, reinforcing his presence in so doing. I've not pegged him as being self-aggrandizing before so I'm going to discount that possibility too but I guess the producers thought it might have helped sell the movie a bit more when you can see as well as hear the esteemed contemporary director doing his stuff. Maybe I'm being too severe on him, in not conceding the personal nature of the project to him and also given he was personal friends with Powell for the last 16 years of the latter's life.

Another carp would be Scorsese unnecessarily referencing his own movies to the point where we're shown clips from his own films supposedly inspired by P & P. I'm not that big a fan of Scorsese's work and didn't appreciate him leveraging his own movies into the narrative to perhaps shine some unrequired reflected glory onto the Archers own productions, believe me, they don't need it. And just one more moan for the road, I didn't often hear him mention by name many of the wonderful actors employed in the various films.

Anyway, once I got past all the "All about Marty" vibes, I was able to really enjoy revisiting these marvellous films, some of them among the best ever in the medium and you can tell he's watched each and every one of them and written every word he speaks. There are welcome archive interview clips of Michael and Emeric as well as some of Powell's home movies - especially the endearing man-about-town clip of him at an advanced age in contemporary Hollywood and numerous stills photos of the two. The clips from the movies themselves are judiciously selected and aptly analyzed by Mr S.

I guess if the actual presence of the mighty Marty caused a few more people to catch this fine documentary then I suppose I can park my aforementioned reservations.

I just hope the viewer's next move was to hunt down a Powell and Pressburger film and not one by Scorsese as they'd be far better off if they did the former.

Using some rarely seen interview footage of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and very, very, few industry talking heads, this is a fitting tribute to two men who trail-blazed British cinema in the 1940s and truly inspired the presenter - Martin Scorsese. His pieces to camera are sparingly interspersed into his narration of the astonishingly bold and creative aspiration of these film-makers who made a range of films ranging from lightly comedic romances through the dark times of WWII and their more propagandist elements, to full blown theatrical adaptations using great artistes like Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann, Robert Sounseville, Ludmilla Tcherina and the usually present Anton Walbrook. In partnership with the additional, often inspired, vision of regular cinematographers like Jack Cardiff and Christopher Challis they used colour, shade, light and most importantly (I think) music to augment some stirring characterisations and potent stories that tackled a plethora of topics that resonated strongly with audiences hitherto unexposed to the sheer grandeur of the experience on the screen before them. The documentary is composed so as to leave virtually all of the heavy lifting to the pair themselves. Scorsese gently, but enthusiastically and insightfully, guides us through their careers without spending much time on their personal lives or other distractions, and that allows us to savour the variety of the Archer's productions, the delicacy of their writing - especially from David Niven, Roger Livesey and Kim Hunter in "A Matter of Life and Death" (1946), and leaves us with a sympathetically and critically crafted appraisal of two cinema geniuses. It's a chronology of sorts, but not just of film making - it tells us a little about the evolving attitudes and tastes of the audiences too.