March 15–22, 2001
movies
Looking back at the films of Powell and Pressburger.
Collectively calling themselves "The Archers," Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger "signed" their films with the image of an arrow thunking into a target. The accuracy of the shot reflected how they felt about the finished product. Suffice it to say that the five of their films currently in print are all bullseyes.
Pressburger, a Hungarian Jew, had made films in Berlin and Paris before settling in London just before the outbreak of World War II. It was there he met Powell, already a director of little (very little) distinction. Though the two took a joint "Written, produced and directed by" credit, it’s generally agreed that Powell performed more of the directing, and Pressburger, who took pride in becoming more English than the English, handled the (generally sparse) dialogue. Best known for such musically-inspired films as The Red Shoes (1948) and The Tales of Hoffman (1951), they created a body of work which often turns on the tension between the sensual and the societal, the unruly, often dangerous passions of the body and the finer, more exacting needs of the spirit. (Note: Reviews are based on the version currently available from Criterion/Home Vision; other versions are in circulation, but quality varies.)
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The Red Shoes is usually considered the Archers’ masterpiece. The 1948 film, loosely taking its theme of artistic obsession from the Hans Christian Andersen story of the same name, focuses on the battle between a young composer (Marius Goring) and a demanding ballet impresario (Anton Walbrook) over burgeoning prima ballerina Moira Shearer. Shot in dazzling color by cinematographer Jack Cardiff (who also worked with the Archers on A Matter of Life and Death and Black Narcissus), the film brilliantly turns Shearer’s ballets into psychodramatic landscapes. The audience disappears, and what starts out as a straightforward dance becomes a flight of purest fancy: Shearer plummets through the air like a goddess descending to earth, and the noise of applause becomes the sound of pounding surf. The climax’s gender politics are a little vexing — Shearer is forced to choose between loving her husband and following her career, as if she couldn’t have both — but the film’s vision is unequalled. DVD extras include commentary by Shearer, Goring, Cardiff, composer Brian Easdale, film historian Ian Christie and avowed Powell aficionado Martin Scorsese.
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Cardiff won an Oscar for his cinematography on this lush-looking tale of colonial disintegration in India. (Alfred Junge brought home a statue for art direction as well.) Shot entirely in London’s Pinewood Studios, Black Narcissus, which tells the story of a nun (Deborah Kerr) sent to found a new order high atop the Himalayas, is near-hysterical at times, what with its attempts to show jungle madness taking its toll on fragile British constitutions. But though, like The Rules of the Game, it’s an elegy for an era we can only be too glad has passed, the film still packs a punch. Extras include a conversation between Scorsese and a slurry Powell, recorded near the end of his life and a 27-minute redaction of Craig McCall’s fascinating documentary on Cardiff.
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Here’s where we run into trouble. Shot in black and white — it was 1945, and no color stock was readily available — this romantic fairy tale suffers from singularly stuffy performances from its leads, Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller. As a soldier on leave who also happens to be the "laird"-in-exile of one of the Scottish Hebrides, Livesey brings every negative British stereotype to life: You can practically hear the "d"s in "very." The story’s meant to be about Hiller — a headstrong woman who’s come to the north to marry a wealthy man — learning to cast off her preconceptions and throw caution to the wind, but since she and Livesey look like they have maybe three red blood cells between them, it’s none too convincing. An audio essay by Ian Christie and the 1994 documentary I Know Where I’m Going! Revisited round out the disc.
($39.95/ $29.95 VHS)
Video doesn’t do the colors in these two films (from 1950 and 1951 respectively) any good, though if you’re this far down the list, you’ll probably enjoy them all the same. Tales brings Jacques Offenbach’s opera to life, though compared to The Red Shoes the presentation pales a bit. And Pimpernel, starring David Niven, is a jokey take on the famous character.
