Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger celebrates 'unique collaboration'

"Made in England" is the kind of "blockbuster film about film that will play everywhere cinema is appreciated".

It celebrates the "gorgeous, radical work" of the British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and is aimed at "the expert, the enthusiast and the student alike", said Screen Daily.

The key credit on this documentary is "presented by Martin Scorsese", which "he literally does, as a talking head". The US film-maker has championed the duo's work for at least 50 years.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Before launching into a film-by-film analysis of their output, Scorsese's narration fills in some biographical details: Kent-born Powell getting his start as a gofer at a film studio in Nice, and Jewish-Hungarian screenwriter Pressburger's flight to Britain from Nazi Germany. The pair first collaborated on the 1939 thriller "The Spy in Black", before 1941's "taut" anti-Nazi war drama "49th Parallel" became a hit, making their name as a team and winning Pressburger a writing Oscar, said Variety.

YouTube

Watch On

The duo's "golden age" spanned "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp", a "romantic anti-war epic said to have rubbed Winston Churchill the wrong way"; the "heart-clutching afterlife fantasy 'A Matter of Life and Death'; the sensualist convent psychodrama 'Black Narcissus'; and the luminous, fairytale-riffing ballet tragedy 'The Red Shoes'".

The British establishment "shamed itself" by turning its back on "these homegrown masters". 

"Notoriously," said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian, "Powell had become an un-person in British cinema during the 60s, unable to work after critics and distributors had an immoral panic about 'Peeping Tom', the satirical horror masterpiece that Powell had directed on his own."

But "now the Powell/Pressburger films almost cannot be seen except through the medium of Scorsese's glorious evangelism; their movies and his have virtually become intertextual events", said Bradshaw.

As the film progresses, Scorsese plays clips of his films, including "Raging Bull" and "The Age of Innocence", showing how he was influenced by the pair. "How remarkable", said Bradshaw, that a director who emerged in the era when gritty realism "supplanted the romantic idealism of Powell and Pressburger" was to give their work a second lease of life.

Director David Hinton "paints a sweeping portrait of a unique collaboration" that elevated their talents "into something close to magic", said Time Out.

"Made in England" makes "good use of its star narrator", who had a friendship with Powell, and draws parallels between the "forbidden love story in 'Colonel Blimp' and 'The Age of Innocence', the violent dance of 'The Red Shoes' and 'Raging Bull', and the menacing, lurking presence of Lermontov to that of Travis Bickle in 'Taxi Driver'".

All in all, it serves as a "grand introduction to some of their unforgettable images". And even a "10-second clip of 'Black Narcissus' or 'The Red Shoes' holds more punch than most other films".

"Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger" was screened at the Berlin Film Festival and is in UK cinemas from 10 May