1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:01:18,417 --> 00:01:22,417 MADE IN ENGLAND THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER 4 00:01:26,417 --> 00:01:29,417 PRESENTED BY MARTIN SCORSESE 5 00:02:21,500 --> 00:02:26,000 DIRECTED BY DAVID HINTON 6 00:02:37,417 --> 00:02:39,250 I was born in 1942 7 00:02:39,417 --> 00:02:42,833 and I developed asthma at about three years old. 8 00:02:44,250 --> 00:02:47,542 And that meant that I couldn't run around and play as much as other children, 9 00:02:47,583 --> 00:02:49,250 and so I found myself 10 00:02:49,292 --> 00:02:51,375 sitting in front of the TV, watching movies. 11 00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:58,417 Some of the very first moving images that I can remember seeing 12 00:02:58,458 --> 00:03:00,625 are from The Thief of Baghdad. 13 00:03:01,750 --> 00:03:04,708 Whip yourself, winds of heaven! 14 00:03:04,833 --> 00:03:07,000 Whip till you wail aloud! 15 00:03:11,208 --> 00:03:15,458 I didn't know it then, but Michael Powell was one of the directors on that film. 16 00:03:19,333 --> 00:03:20,375 And for a kid, 17 00:03:20,500 --> 00:03:22,625 there could be no better initiation 18 00:03:22,708 --> 00:03:24,500 into the Michael Powell mysteries. 19 00:03:27,958 --> 00:03:30,375 This was a picture made by a great showman 20 00:03:30,708 --> 00:03:32,500 and every image 21 00:03:32,625 --> 00:03:33,833 filled me with wonder. 22 00:03:35,917 --> 00:03:38,000 The power a movie can hold, 23 00:03:38,083 --> 00:03:39,833 it absolutely enthralled me. 24 00:03:43,125 --> 00:03:44,125 My eyes! 25 00:03:45,833 --> 00:03:46,917 I'm blind! 26 00:03:50,375 --> 00:03:52,500 Of course, what I was seeing then 27 00:03:52,542 --> 00:03:54,792 wasn't a glorious Technicolor print of the film 28 00:03:54,833 --> 00:03:58,042 but actually a very poor black and white version 29 00:03:58,083 --> 00:04:01,292 on a 16 inch screen on our family TV. 30 00:04:07,917 --> 00:04:08,917 And yet 31 00:04:08,958 --> 00:04:11,542 it still had the power to grip me 32 00:04:11,625 --> 00:04:13,833 and stay with me forever in my mind. 33 00:04:15,583 --> 00:04:17,042 American films, yes. 34 00:04:17,458 --> 00:04:20,875 Even Italian films, neorealist films I saw on television. 35 00:04:20,958 --> 00:04:23,833 But the interesting thing about television at that time 36 00:04:23,875 --> 00:04:26,875 was that many of the films that were shown on American TV 37 00:04:27,125 --> 00:04:28,292 were British films. 38 00:04:28,708 --> 00:04:32,000 Because American distributors would not sell to TV. 39 00:04:32,458 --> 00:04:34,292 But apparently British distributors would. 40 00:04:34,917 --> 00:04:36,250 And that's why 41 00:04:36,667 --> 00:04:39,542 British Cinema for me, was so formative. 42 00:04:40,583 --> 00:04:42,333 I used to get excited by the different 43 00:04:42,417 --> 00:04:45,292 logos of the different British film companies. 44 00:04:46,042 --> 00:04:49,417 But there was one which held out a very special promise. 45 00:04:50,500 --> 00:04:52,208 That was the target of The Archers 46 00:04:52,250 --> 00:04:53,167 A PRODUCTION OF THE ARCHERS 47 00:04:53,208 --> 00:04:55,542 that heralded a Powell Pressburger film. 48 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:58,542 And by the time I was ten or eleven, 49 00:04:58,583 --> 00:05:01,667 I'd be watching Powell Pressburger films endlessly on TV. 50 00:05:01,750 --> 00:05:02,792 They were shown a lot. 51 00:05:06,667 --> 00:05:09,167 There was one called The Tales of Hoffmann. 52 00:05:10,833 --> 00:05:14,833 Which is not an obvious film you'd say for a child to enjoy. 53 00:05:15,250 --> 00:05:18,125 It's basically a 19th-century opera, but 54 00:05:18,417 --> 00:05:20,750 I just didn't watch it once, I mean, I watched it 55 00:05:20,792 --> 00:05:22,500 repeatedly and obsessively. 56 00:05:24,750 --> 00:05:27,750 It was on this program called Million Dollar Movie 57 00:05:27,917 --> 00:05:30,167 which showed the same film all week, 58 00:05:30,500 --> 00:05:31,792 twice every evening 59 00:05:32,292 --> 00:05:33,833 and three times on the weekend. 60 00:05:35,375 --> 00:05:38,292 But the thing was that I was hypnotized by it. 61 00:05:39,083 --> 00:05:42,500 And those repeated viewings taught me pretty much 62 00:05:42,958 --> 00:05:45,542 everything I know about the relation of camera to music. 63 00:05:53,917 --> 00:05:54,958 And even now, 64 00:05:55,375 --> 00:05:57,500 music and images from that picture 65 00:05:57,625 --> 00:05:59,208 often run through my mind. 66 00:06:03,333 --> 00:06:04,375 In fact 67 00:06:04,417 --> 00:06:06,708 I think the Powell Pressburger films have had 68 00:06:06,750 --> 00:06:09,750 a profound effect on the sensibility that I bring 69 00:06:09,792 --> 00:06:12,125 to all the work I was able to do. 70 00:06:13,083 --> 00:06:15,167 I was so bewitched by them as a child 71 00:06:15,208 --> 00:06:19,208 that they make up a big part of my film subconscious. 72 00:06:20,417 --> 00:06:22,750 Now going to the cinema with my father 73 00:06:23,083 --> 00:06:25,792 was also a very important part of my childhood. 74 00:06:28,583 --> 00:06:32,625 The nicest theaters then were spectacles in themselves, great movie palaces 75 00:06:32,667 --> 00:06:34,875 and the screens were huge. 76 00:06:35,292 --> 00:06:38,083 And they filled you with hope and expectation of wonder. 77 00:06:40,250 --> 00:06:41,417 And one film 78 00:06:41,750 --> 00:06:44,208 that fulfilled all those expectations 79 00:06:44,375 --> 00:06:45,583 was The Red Shoes. 80 00:06:48,042 --> 00:06:50,542 It was the first time I saw The Archers logo in color. 81 00:06:53,375 --> 00:06:57,167 And of course, I particularly remember the ballet sequence. 82 00:06:57,833 --> 00:07:01,833 Wanting to know how they made the dancer turn into a scrap of newspaper. 83 00:07:03,500 --> 00:07:05,458 These days I'm told that Powell Pressburger 84 00:07:05,500 --> 00:07:08,667 represents something called 'English Romanticism' 85 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:10,500 But I don't really know what that is. 86 00:07:10,542 --> 00:07:13,167 To me, the overwhelming impression of their films 87 00:07:13,208 --> 00:07:14,833 has always been to do with color, 88 00:07:15,208 --> 00:07:16,208 light 89 00:07:16,375 --> 00:07:18,792 movement and a sense of music. 90 00:07:25,250 --> 00:07:26,417 And even as a child, 91 00:07:26,708 --> 00:07:29,833 I was certainly struck by the theatricality of The Red Shoes. 92 00:07:29,875 --> 00:07:31,625 The cinematic theatricality. 93 00:07:34,583 --> 00:07:36,458 The design of actors in the frame, 94 00:07:36,750 --> 00:07:39,625 the surprising ways they looked and they moved. 95 00:07:41,167 --> 00:07:43,333 The dramatic angles and lighting. 96 00:07:45,625 --> 00:07:46,958 You got the sense that 97 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:48,958 anything could happen in a film like this. 98 00:07:52,208 --> 00:07:54,667 And I was riveted by the mystery 99 00:07:54,708 --> 00:07:56,333 and the hysteria of the picture. 100 00:08:00,333 --> 00:08:04,500 The experience was so intense, in fact, that first viewing of The Red Shoes 101 00:08:04,917 --> 00:08:08,167 may be one of the origins of my own obsession with cinema itself. 102 00:08:09,292 --> 00:08:12,250 When I became a student and then a young filmmaker 103 00:08:12,542 --> 00:08:16,500 Powell and Pressburger remained a constant fascination. 104 00:08:18,417 --> 00:08:22,375 But we could only see their films in very incomplete forms. 105 00:08:24,333 --> 00:08:26,625 Very degraded versions, bad copies. 106 00:08:34,583 --> 00:08:37,833 But we knew there was something special going on with these movies. 107 00:08:37,875 --> 00:08:41,417 And we became fascinated by the distinctive signature on the films. 108 00:08:43,750 --> 00:08:48,208 Written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. 109 00:08:49,792 --> 00:08:51,917 Now a shared credit like that 110 00:08:52,667 --> 00:08:56,250 was really unheard of and we wanted to know who did what, 111 00:08:56,333 --> 00:08:57,958 who said cut, who said action? 112 00:08:58,250 --> 00:08:59,917 It was all a mystery. 113 00:09:00,375 --> 00:09:03,250 In those days, the only sources of information were books 114 00:09:03,292 --> 00:09:04,625 and magazines, maybe. 115 00:09:05,333 --> 00:09:07,417 And we read about British directors, of course, 116 00:09:07,583 --> 00:09:10,208 like David Lean and Carol Reed and Alfred Hitchcock. 117 00:09:10,500 --> 00:09:13,917 But there was rarely, rarely a mention of Powell Pressburger. 118 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:15,500 So in effect, 119 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:17,833 they became mythical beings 120 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:20,042 to myself and my friends. 121 00:09:27,917 --> 00:09:30,542 Then finally in 1970 122 00:09:30,958 --> 00:09:34,750 I got to see a 35mm color print of Peeping Tom. 123 00:09:35,458 --> 00:09:39,292 Which had become a legendary work among film students and filmmakers. 124 00:09:40,458 --> 00:09:41,875 It'll be two quid. 125 00:09:44,125 --> 00:09:47,083 I was an obsessive young filmmaker watching a film 126 00:09:47,125 --> 00:09:50,083 about an obsessive young filmmaker who is also a psychopath. 127 00:09:53,792 --> 00:09:56,375 It's a horror movie with no blood. 128 00:09:56,583 --> 00:10:00,417 Where the object of terror seems to be the film camera itself. 129 00:10:04,667 --> 00:10:06,083 No! 130 00:10:10,167 --> 00:10:12,333 When I first saw it, it was hard for me to believe 131 00:10:12,375 --> 00:10:14,833 that such a raw and provocative film was made 132 00:10:14,917 --> 00:10:18,375 by the same Michael Powell who had made The Red Shoes. 133 00:10:19,417 --> 00:10:20,792 But indeed, it was. 134 00:10:26,667 --> 00:10:30,583 And he dared to do what no one else had really dared before him. 135 00:10:31,125 --> 00:10:34,042 To show how close moviemaking can come to madness. 136 00:10:34,792 --> 00:10:37,333 How it can devour you if you let it. 137 00:10:41,750 --> 00:10:43,958 By this time, I was making movies on my own. 138 00:10:44,042 --> 00:10:48,583 And in 1974, after I made Mean Streets, I went to England 139 00:10:49,125 --> 00:10:52,917 and I found myself at a cocktail party given by a man named Michael Kaplan. 140 00:10:53,667 --> 00:10:56,250 And I was asking him about this, this mystery. 141 00:10:56,542 --> 00:10:58,417 Now, do you know of a Michael Powell? 142 00:10:58,875 --> 00:11:00,083 Does he exist? 143 00:11:00,250 --> 00:11:01,417 Is there such a person? 144 00:11:02,500 --> 00:11:05,083 And he said "Oh, yes, he's living in a caravan somewhere." 145 00:11:07,125 --> 00:11:10,167 Well, that turned out to be an exaggeration. 146 00:11:10,208 --> 00:11:13,250 He was actually living in a cottage in Gloucestershire, 147 00:11:13,667 --> 00:11:15,667 but he'd fallen on very hard times. 148 00:11:15,750 --> 00:11:17,667 He'd been pretty much forgotten 149 00:11:17,708 --> 00:11:19,625 and abandoned by the British film industry 150 00:11:19,667 --> 00:11:22,000 and he could barely even afford to heat his own house. 151 00:11:23,125 --> 00:11:24,667 But of course, I wanted to meet him 152 00:11:24,875 --> 00:11:26,250 and a drink was arranged. 153 00:11:27,083 --> 00:11:30,583 So suddenly there I was talking to Michael Powell. 154 00:11:31,125 --> 00:11:34,917 Who was amazed that someone wanted to discuss his pictures with him. 155 00:11:36,333 --> 00:11:40,375 He had no idea that his work had been an inspiration to me, 156 00:11:40,750 --> 00:11:41,792 and Brian De Palma, 157 00:11:41,833 --> 00:11:44,583 and Coppola and so many others of the new generation. 158 00:11:45,625 --> 00:11:49,375 Of course, I speak fast and I was very energetic and very excited. 159 00:11:49,417 --> 00:11:51,125 I was bombarding him with questions. 160 00:11:51,542 --> 00:11:52,917 And he didn't say much. 161 00:11:52,958 --> 00:11:55,250 Michael didn't say much. He was very reserved. 162 00:11:55,958 --> 00:11:57,542 Very quiet in his answers. 163 00:11:58,542 --> 00:12:01,917 But later, I discovered that he was moved by the meeting. 164 00:12:02,083 --> 00:12:04,083 Because he wrote in his autobiography 165 00:12:04,542 --> 00:12:06,125 that during that meeting, 166 00:12:06,625 --> 00:12:09,542 he felt the blood course through his veins again. 167 00:12:10,667 --> 00:12:12,833 The other day, I ate a ricochet biscuit. 168 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:14,833 Well, that's the kind of biscuit That's supposed to 169 00:12:14,875 --> 00:12:16,833 Bounce off the wall Back in your mouth 170 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:18,292 If you don't bounce back... 171 00:12:19,292 --> 00:12:20,292 You go hungry! 172 00:12:22,458 --> 00:12:25,833 After our meeting, I arranged for Michael to see Mean Streets. 173 00:12:26,708 --> 00:12:29,292 And he sent me a letter praising the film. 174 00:12:29,500 --> 00:12:30,500 Except... 175 00:12:30,583 --> 00:12:32,583 he said that I use too much red. 176 00:12:32,625 --> 00:12:33,458 I GOT TIRED OF THE RED 177 00:12:33,500 --> 00:12:34,500 Too much red? 178 00:12:38,542 --> 00:12:41,625 I didn't point out to him that his films had something to do with this too. 179 00:12:42,125 --> 00:12:43,542 Look at all the red he uses. 180 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:49,500 Anyway, we started to write to each other and eventually he came to New York. 181 00:12:49,542 --> 00:12:52,333 He was introduced to a lot of people and he was invited to become 182 00:12:52,458 --> 00:12:55,542 the senior director in residence at Zoetrope, 183 00:12:55,583 --> 00:12:57,917 Francis Coppola's company in L.A. 184 00:12:58,417 --> 00:12:59,917 And his life sort of turned around. 185 00:13:00,958 --> 00:13:04,000 I got a sort of routine here. I... 186 00:13:05,250 --> 00:13:07,417 I work on my autobiography in the morning 187 00:13:07,667 --> 00:13:10,375 and about 11 o'clock, I walk over to the studio. 188 00:13:12,542 --> 00:13:14,292 I stop the traffic this way. 189 00:13:15,083 --> 00:13:17,833 If I did it in New York, they'd run right over me. 190 00:13:19,458 --> 00:13:21,625 You can get away with anything in California. 191 00:13:23,667 --> 00:13:24,875 Believe it or not 192 00:13:25,667 --> 00:13:27,542 this magnificent building 193 00:13:28,292 --> 00:13:30,958 was built by Dr Kalmus of Technicolor, 194 00:13:31,083 --> 00:13:32,167 for Technicolor. 195 00:13:32,708 --> 00:13:34,500 Wonderful art deco building. 196 00:13:34,750 --> 00:13:36,708 Those were the days. 197 00:13:38,292 --> 00:13:39,833 Glorious Technicolor! 198 00:13:43,042 --> 00:13:45,125 Morning Colonel. Anything for me? 199 00:13:46,250 --> 00:13:47,333 OK. 200 00:13:52,958 --> 00:13:57,500 Michael was born in the village of Bekesbourne, Kent in 1905, 201 00:13:57,917 --> 00:13:59,833 and grew up in the countryside, 202 00:14:00,083 --> 00:14:01,542 the son of a hop farmer. 203 00:14:02,917 --> 00:14:05,667 His career in the movies began when he was twenty. 204 00:14:06,208 --> 00:14:09,917 Went on holiday, got a job in a film company in the south of France 205 00:14:09,958 --> 00:14:11,167 and never came back. 206 00:14:18,583 --> 00:14:20,917 He started work as a general dogsbody 207 00:14:20,958 --> 00:14:23,375 at the Victorine Studios in Nice 208 00:14:23,542 --> 00:14:26,167 where the American director Rex Ingram 209 00:14:26,250 --> 00:14:29,208 was making epic silent films for MGM. 210 00:14:39,125 --> 00:14:42,583 I was with a big American company working in Europe, 211 00:14:42,958 --> 00:14:44,792 discipline was lax 212 00:14:45,417 --> 00:14:47,875 and I had the run of all the departments. 213 00:14:59,208 --> 00:15:01,583 And I always think it was his apprenticeship with Ingram 214 00:15:01,625 --> 00:15:04,833 that made Michael aim for grandeur in his pictures. 215 00:15:05,625 --> 00:15:08,542 Lush images, heightened emotions 216 00:15:08,875 --> 00:15:12,292 and a preference for shock and spectacle over realism. 217 00:15:12,458 --> 00:15:15,333 And quote "good taste" unquote. 218 00:15:20,583 --> 00:15:22,125 Now, while working with Ingram 219 00:15:22,208 --> 00:15:24,250 he also did acting and stunt work 220 00:15:24,292 --> 00:15:28,083 in a series of comedy shorts that they called The Riviera Revels. 221 00:15:32,375 --> 00:15:34,042 But here he is in 1927 222 00:15:35,125 --> 00:15:38,292 throwing himself into the role of an innocent English tourist. 223 00:15:46,458 --> 00:15:48,917 Michael returned to England in 1928 224 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:52,625 and he went into partnership with the American producer Jerry Jackson 225 00:15:53,083 --> 00:15:54,833 to make 'quota quickies.' 226 00:15:55,083 --> 00:15:58,833 These were short features which were made very fast, very cheap, 227 00:15:59,042 --> 00:16:00,250 Are you there Bob? 228 00:16:05,292 --> 00:16:07,708 God! It's us. My light's out. 229 00:16:09,042 --> 00:16:11,375 And Michael learned his trade as a director 230 00:16:11,417 --> 00:16:13,875 by hammering out more than 20 of them. 231 00:16:13,917 --> 00:16:14,958 Light's gone out. 232 00:16:15,292 --> 00:16:16,333 Full astern. 233 00:16:16,542 --> 00:16:17,583 Port or starboard? 234 00:16:18,125 --> 00:16:19,208 My God! 235 00:16:19,708 --> 00:16:21,792 It's the phantom light. The one they all talk about. 236 00:16:21,833 --> 00:16:22,833 Where the devil are we? 237 00:16:24,750 --> 00:16:27,542 Wait a moment, Mr. Owen. We're just off the North Stake rocks 238 00:16:27,625 --> 00:16:28,833 Bring us down again! 239 00:16:31,042 --> 00:16:32,208 Warn the engine room. 240 00:16:38,667 --> 00:16:40,958 This one is The Phantom Light. 241 00:16:41,708 --> 00:16:42,708 That was a near one. 242 00:16:43,083 --> 00:16:44,375 You're right, Sir, it was. 243 00:16:46,833 --> 00:16:52,292 By 1937 Michael had acquired the experience and the confidence 244 00:16:52,417 --> 00:16:54,542 to make his first really personal work. 245 00:16:55,583 --> 00:16:56,750 The Edge of the World. 246 00:16:59,625 --> 00:17:03,542 It's about a small community on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. 247 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,042 It was a great leap forward for Michael. 248 00:18:19,708 --> 00:18:22,500 A beautiful committed and poetic film. 249 00:18:22,625 --> 00:18:23,792 And on the strength of it, 250 00:18:24,083 --> 00:18:27,250 he was given a contract by the producer Alexander Korda 251 00:18:27,542 --> 00:18:28,875 at Denham studios. 252 00:18:37,500 --> 00:18:41,458 Korda put Michael to work on a film called The Spy In Black. 253 00:18:41,708 --> 00:18:51,417 [They whisper in German] 254 00:18:52,125 --> 00:18:56,250 Introducing him at a script conference to a writer called Emeric Pressburger. 255 00:18:56,750 --> 00:18:59,083 Emeric felt in his pocket 256 00:18:59,375 --> 00:19:02,750 and he produced his version of the script. 257 00:19:03,667 --> 00:19:04,667 This is it. 258 00:19:06,208 --> 00:19:09,042 It was a nice little rolled up piece of paper 259 00:19:09,083 --> 00:19:12,292 and he unrolled it and he read the first scene 260 00:19:13,125 --> 00:19:15,042 and I was spellbound. 261 00:19:15,125 --> 00:19:17,250 I just listened while he went on reading 262 00:19:17,292 --> 00:19:20,292 and unfolding it and unfolding it and unfolding it. 263 00:19:21,875 --> 00:19:24,042 He'd stood the story on its head. 264 00:19:24,083 --> 00:19:27,000 He turned a man into a woman, a woman into a man. 265 00:19:27,042 --> 00:19:29,792 He'd altered the suspense, he'd rewritten the end. 266 00:19:30,667 --> 00:19:33,625 I looked at this producer, he was purple in the face. 267 00:19:33,667 --> 00:19:36,292 I looked at the writer, he was prepared to faint. 268 00:19:36,708 --> 00:19:37,958 And I was just rejoicing 269 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:40,333 that I was going to work with somebody like this 270 00:19:40,375 --> 00:19:43,167 and that I wasn't going to let him get away in a hurry either. 271 00:19:43,500 --> 00:19:45,417 Have you heard The Soldier's March ? 272 00:20:01,625 --> 00:20:03,625 I say, that medal ribbon? 273 00:20:03,667 --> 00:20:05,167 I don't seem to recognize it. 274 00:20:05,208 --> 00:20:06,250 What is it? 275 00:20:06,875 --> 00:20:09,583 The Iron Cross, second class. 276 00:20:10,083 --> 00:20:11,083 Second class. 277 00:20:12,625 --> 00:20:14,375 Then you must be a prisoner of war. 278 00:20:14,958 --> 00:20:16,000 No. 279 00:20:17,208 --> 00:20:18,250 You are. 280 00:20:18,917 --> 00:20:20,000 Oh dear. 281 00:20:20,875 --> 00:20:23,583 Emeric Pressburger, like Alex Korda 282 00:20:23,750 --> 00:20:26,875 was a Hungarian but also very much a European. 283 00:20:27,667 --> 00:20:30,167 And he went to university in Prague, and Stuttgart. 284 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:34,958 Then my father died and my student years have finished. 285 00:20:35,167 --> 00:20:36,875 And I had nothing. 286 00:20:39,333 --> 00:20:42,083 And so I came to Berlin 287 00:20:42,250 --> 00:20:44,792 and I wanted to write. 288 00:20:44,833 --> 00:20:47,833 I sent film story after film story, 289 00:20:48,292 --> 00:20:51,208 and everything came back, until one day, 290 00:20:51,625 --> 00:20:54,458 one story didn't come back. 291 00:20:55,333 --> 00:20:58,375 Emeric was eventually hired by the script department 292 00:20:58,417 --> 00:21:00,000 of the famous UFA studios. 293 00:21:00,667 --> 00:21:03,333 This was the greatest European studio of its era. 294 00:21:03,750 --> 00:21:06,542 It's the home of Fritz Lang and German expressionism. 295 00:21:06,833 --> 00:21:09,167 And Emeric spent several happy years there. 296 00:21:13,375 --> 00:21:16,667 Here he is in 1932, you can glimpse him right on the set 297 00:21:16,875 --> 00:21:18,917 here of an UFA production in Budapest. 298 00:21:25,292 --> 00:21:27,708 Emeric was however Jewish 299 00:21:28,250 --> 00:21:31,250 and the rise of the Nazis forced him to flee Berlin. 300 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,667 First for Paris and then for London 301 00:21:34,875 --> 00:21:38,500 where he arrived in 1935 on a stateless passport. 302 00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:46,500 Emeric described his arrival in England as like being born at the age of 33. 303 00:21:49,333 --> 00:21:51,208 He knew nothing about British life 304 00:21:51,458 --> 00:21:53,875 and he had to learn the English language from scratch. 305 00:22:00,458 --> 00:22:02,458 Meeting Michael was a great blessing for him 306 00:22:02,500 --> 00:22:05,042 because he was someone who responded immediately 307 00:22:05,292 --> 00:22:07,000 to his novel script ideas. 308 00:22:08,667 --> 00:22:12,958 Do you think that it was something specifically European 309 00:22:13,208 --> 00:22:16,167 or even Hungarian that you responded to? 310 00:22:16,458 --> 00:22:19,958 No, it was a beautiful mind I responded to. 311 00:22:20,625 --> 00:22:22,208 He didn't have to be Hungarian. 312 00:22:22,542 --> 00:22:27,542 I have never met a person who not only understood 313 00:22:27,792 --> 00:22:29,458 what I was driving at 314 00:22:29,792 --> 00:22:34,250 but guessed already half of it before I said it. 315 00:22:34,542 --> 00:22:35,625 That's Michael. 316 00:22:36,417 --> 00:22:41,833 I don't think that that happens very often in one's lifetime, but this is 317 00:22:42,833 --> 00:22:43,833 how it... 318 00:22:43,875 --> 00:22:44,958 how I felt. 319 00:22:45,917 --> 00:22:48,458 The partners soon developed the collaborative method that 320 00:22:48,500 --> 00:22:50,500 they would use for the next 20 years. 321 00:22:51,458 --> 00:22:53,708 Emeric would always write the original script 322 00:22:53,750 --> 00:22:56,167 which established the shape of the scenes 323 00:22:56,417 --> 00:22:59,708 and the pair would then work together on the dialogue. 324 00:23:00,333 --> 00:23:03,500 They were perfectly in tune about what they wanted to express. 325 00:23:03,833 --> 00:23:04,917 And they never argued. 326 00:23:05,667 --> 00:23:07,417 Do we have a go at each other? 327 00:23:07,875 --> 00:23:09,167 Not really. 328 00:23:09,458 --> 00:23:12,667 No, we trust time. 329 00:23:14,250 --> 00:23:15,667 In a few hours time 330 00:23:18,125 --> 00:23:20,458 he sees that I was right. 331 00:23:23,583 --> 00:23:25,125 London is calling. 332 00:23:25,833 --> 00:23:27,875 London, calling to the world. 333 00:23:28,083 --> 00:23:30,333 Calling to a world at war. 334 00:23:32,458 --> 00:23:35,250 When Britain went to war with Germany in 1939 335 00:23:35,458 --> 00:23:39,292 the film industry survived by committing itself wholeheartedly 336 00:23:39,500 --> 00:23:40,500 to the war effort. 337 00:23:43,125 --> 00:23:45,583 These are not Hollywood sound effects. 338 00:23:45,667 --> 00:23:48,500 This is the music they play every night in London, 339 00:23:48,792 --> 00:23:50,250 the symphony of war. 340 00:23:55,417 --> 00:23:56,792 For Powell and Pressburger 341 00:23:57,208 --> 00:24:00,708 this was the most important event of their professional lives, 342 00:24:00,750 --> 00:24:02,625 giving a striking new depth 343 00:24:02,875 --> 00:24:04,750 and a sense of purpose to their work. 344 00:24:13,042 --> 00:24:14,958 So the curtain rises on Canada. 345 00:24:17,250 --> 00:24:18,292 Down! 346 00:24:23,500 --> 00:24:24,542 Swines! 347 00:24:24,583 --> 00:24:25,833 Filthy swine devils! 348 00:24:25,875 --> 00:24:26,875 Jahner! 349 00:24:30,458 --> 00:24:34,333 49th Parallel tells the story of six fugitive Nazis 350 00:24:34,500 --> 00:24:36,167 making their way across Canada. 351 00:24:37,417 --> 00:24:40,958 Every British film now had a specific propaganda aim. 352 00:24:41,458 --> 00:24:43,000 And the intention here 353 00:24:43,167 --> 00:24:45,583 was to urge America into the war. 354 00:24:45,625 --> 00:24:46,958 Run, Les! Run! 355 00:24:47,125 --> 00:24:51,500 By bringing the horrors of the Nazi threat right onto America's doorstep. 356 00:24:57,542 --> 00:24:59,792 It was a big idea for an epic picture. 357 00:25:00,500 --> 00:25:03,625 And in production terms it was a huge enterprise. 358 00:25:06,417 --> 00:25:08,917 This brought out some of the differences between the two men. 359 00:25:09,667 --> 00:25:12,417 Emeric was the genius of story and structure, 360 00:25:12,917 --> 00:25:15,708 while Michael was the dynamo and the man of action. 361 00:25:15,917 --> 00:25:18,542 Leading his crew to locations all over Canada. 362 00:25:19,667 --> 00:25:22,292 I was moving against the seasons all the time. 363 00:25:22,333 --> 00:25:25,583 Emeric was writing the script back home in London 364 00:25:25,792 --> 00:25:28,125 and I was shooting a lot of exteriors like this 365 00:25:28,250 --> 00:25:30,833 before the autumn came down. 366 00:25:32,917 --> 00:25:37,250 In one episode, the Nazi seek shelter among a group of fellow Germans. 367 00:25:37,708 --> 00:25:40,208 A religious community of Hutterites. 368 00:25:40,250 --> 00:25:41,875 Germans! 369 00:25:42,625 --> 00:25:43,875 Brothers! 370 00:25:45,250 --> 00:25:49,625 I asked you to join with me in paying homage to our glorious Führer . 371 00:25:50,750 --> 00:25:51,833 Heil Hitler! 372 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:53,292 Heil Hitler! 373 00:25:54,250 --> 00:25:56,667 Now this film insists on making a distinction 374 00:25:56,708 --> 00:25:59,250 between being a Nazi and being a German. 375 00:26:00,083 --> 00:26:01,583 This was very important to Emeric, 376 00:26:01,625 --> 00:26:04,083 who had spent so many happy years in Germany 377 00:26:04,250 --> 00:26:06,042 and had so many German friends. 378 00:26:08,875 --> 00:26:11,708 We are not your brothers. 379 00:26:12,083 --> 00:26:15,958 Our children grew up against new backgrounds, new horizons. 380 00:26:16,542 --> 00:26:18,958 And they are free! 381 00:26:20,042 --> 00:26:23,125 Free to grow up as children, 382 00:26:23,333 --> 00:26:27,958 free to run, to laugh without being forced into uniforms. 383 00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:33,458 Without being forced to march up and down the streets singing battle songs! 384 00:26:34,542 --> 00:26:37,417 So here is Emeric making propaganda for the British. 385 00:26:37,917 --> 00:26:41,500 But instead of simplifying everything like propaganda usually does. 386 00:26:41,958 --> 00:26:44,625 He's always seeking to complicate our sympathies. 387 00:26:44,958 --> 00:26:46,458 You're Nazis aren't you? 388 00:26:47,833 --> 00:26:48,833 Aren't you? 389 00:26:48,958 --> 00:26:50,833 I should tell the police about you. 390 00:26:51,542 --> 00:26:53,625 Little girls should be seen and not heard. 391 00:26:53,708 --> 00:26:55,542 - That'll do. - What's the matter with you? 392 00:26:55,958 --> 00:26:57,000 That'll do. 393 00:26:57,042 --> 00:26:58,125 Vogel! 394 00:26:59,125 --> 00:27:00,208 Come along, Anna. 395 00:27:00,708 --> 00:27:01,833 I'll take you home. 396 00:27:02,625 --> 00:27:04,292 Herr Leutnant , we can't let them go. 397 00:27:04,375 --> 00:27:06,042 I'd like to see what you're going to do about it. 398 00:27:06,125 --> 00:27:07,750 - Vogel! - Yes, Herr Leutnant ? 399 00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:09,250 Have you forgotten who you are? 400 00:27:10,708 --> 00:27:12,458 I'll take her home, Herr Leutnant . 401 00:27:15,208 --> 00:27:18,500 Emeric even makes us feel deeply for one of the Nazis, 402 00:27:18,625 --> 00:27:21,958 a baker when he starts to rebel against his comrades. 403 00:27:22,750 --> 00:27:24,083 Engine Room Artificer Vogel. 404 00:27:28,583 --> 00:27:29,667 You're under arrest. 405 00:27:35,625 --> 00:27:38,375 You're accused of desertion and treachery to the Third Reich. 406 00:27:39,208 --> 00:27:40,917 In the absence of a properly constituted court, 407 00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:42,667 I assume authority as your superior officer 408 00:27:42,708 --> 00:27:43,750 and sentence you to death. 409 00:27:44,667 --> 00:27:45,667 Have you anything to say? 410 00:27:53,042 --> 00:27:56,417 The sentence will be carried out immediately in the name of the Führer . 411 00:28:00,417 --> 00:28:01,500 49TH PARALLEL IS WAR'S BEST FILM 412 00:28:01,542 --> 00:28:04,500 49th Parallel ended up a big commercial hit. 413 00:28:05,708 --> 00:28:09,042 And it won Emeric an Oscar too, for best original story. 414 00:28:09,792 --> 00:28:11,792 Riding high on this success 415 00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,375 the partners now decided to form their own production company, 416 00:28:15,667 --> 00:28:16,708 The Archers. 417 00:28:18,500 --> 00:28:21,583 Well as far as possible, we tried to share everything. 418 00:28:21,875 --> 00:28:25,250 Of course, directing on the floor that was entirely my job. 419 00:28:25,292 --> 00:28:28,500 But as far as we could, we shared every decision, didn't we? 420 00:28:28,833 --> 00:28:29,833 Yes. 421 00:28:29,875 --> 00:28:32,458 Do you have anything to add to that, Mr Pressburger? That can't be-- 422 00:28:32,500 --> 00:28:33,792 Well, I don't think so. 423 00:28:34,042 --> 00:28:39,750 On the whole, as a simple answer, I would say that Michael directed 424 00:28:40,792 --> 00:28:41,958 on his own. 425 00:28:42,083 --> 00:28:44,833 And I was more the writer. 426 00:28:45,375 --> 00:28:47,292 - And we produce together. - Yes. 427 00:28:47,708 --> 00:28:50,625 The pair signed a production deal with the Rank Organization. 428 00:28:50,750 --> 00:28:52,250 J. ARTHUR RANK PRESENTS 429 00:28:52,292 --> 00:28:54,667 Which gave them the one thing that they wanted most. 430 00:28:55,792 --> 00:28:58,667 The freedom to control their own work. 431 00:29:00,083 --> 00:29:03,500 Now, for me, one of the most exciting things about The Archers 432 00:29:03,542 --> 00:29:08,458 is that they were like experimental filmmakers working within the system. 433 00:29:08,750 --> 00:29:11,708 And it was Rank who created the conditions for that. 434 00:29:15,792 --> 00:29:17,750 By now was 1942 435 00:29:18,500 --> 00:29:20,375 and the worst of the Blitz was over. 436 00:29:21,333 --> 00:29:24,167 But Britain was still faring badly in the war. 437 00:29:24,792 --> 00:29:26,500 And it was at this delicate moment 438 00:29:26,792 --> 00:29:29,583 that Michael and Emeric decided to make a film 439 00:29:29,917 --> 00:29:33,833 satirizing old-fashioned ideas within the British military. 440 00:29:37,542 --> 00:29:41,458 As you would expect, they met a lot of official opposition. 441 00:29:41,708 --> 00:29:45,500 Winston Churchill himself was quite hostile to the idea. 442 00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,250 "I'm not prepared to allow propaganda detrimental to the morale of the army. 443 00:29:50,667 --> 00:29:52,167 Who are the people behind it?" 444 00:29:52,667 --> 00:29:55,167 Churchill, such a wonderful leader, 445 00:29:55,250 --> 00:29:57,583 but he just wasn't a good film critic. 446 00:29:59,458 --> 00:30:01,833 It says a lot about Powell and Pressburger's confidence 447 00:30:01,875 --> 00:30:04,583 and attitude to authority that they went ahead 448 00:30:04,958 --> 00:30:06,292 and they made the picture anyway. 449 00:30:06,625 --> 00:30:08,833 This meant they would never get their knighthoods, of course, 450 00:30:08,917 --> 00:30:11,750 but Britain was still a democracy 451 00:30:11,958 --> 00:30:14,750 and no one actually prevented them from making the picture. 452 00:30:16,125 --> 00:30:20,417 The central figure of the film's a British officer called Clive Candy. 453 00:30:21,125 --> 00:30:24,125 He was inspired by the cartoon character of Colonel Blimp. 454 00:30:27,417 --> 00:30:30,792 You're an extremely impudent young officer. 455 00:30:31,208 --> 00:30:36,333 But let me tell you that in 40 years time, you'll be an old gentleman too. 456 00:30:36,750 --> 00:30:38,583 But over the course of two hours, 457 00:30:38,750 --> 00:30:42,250 this two-dimensional caricature will be transformed 458 00:30:42,417 --> 00:30:44,958 into a rich and complex character. 459 00:30:45,125 --> 00:30:46,125 What's that? 460 00:30:46,583 --> 00:30:48,500 - VC, sir. - Where did you get it? 461 00:30:48,792 --> 00:30:50,333 South Africa. Jordaan Siding. 462 00:30:51,333 --> 00:30:52,333 You're Candy! 463 00:30:52,417 --> 00:30:53,542 "Sugar" Candy. 464 00:30:53,625 --> 00:30:54,625 Yes, Sir. 465 00:30:55,292 --> 00:30:59,292 The film transports us back 40 years to 1902 466 00:30:59,708 --> 00:31:02,000 when Candy was a hot-tempered young officer. 467 00:31:06,917 --> 00:31:09,375 On a visit to Berlin, he succeeds in insulting 468 00:31:09,417 --> 00:31:12,667 the whole of the German Imperial army. 469 00:31:12,708 --> 00:31:15,875 And as a consequence, he must fight a duel. 470 00:31:15,958 --> 00:31:17,000 Duel? 471 00:31:20,625 --> 00:31:23,667 The duel is one of my favorite Powell and Pressburger scenes. 472 00:31:23,750 --> 00:31:25,167 I wish I'd brought my uniform. 473 00:31:25,500 --> 00:31:29,333 Simply for the unique and unexpected way that they present it. 474 00:31:29,375 --> 00:31:30,458 Would you undo your shirt? 475 00:31:30,750 --> 00:31:31,750 Thank you. 476 00:31:31,833 --> 00:31:35,375 More as a matter of etiquette than a matter of combat. 477 00:31:35,417 --> 00:31:38,167 Do you want to roll up your sleeve or will you rip it off? 478 00:31:38,458 --> 00:31:39,458 What's better? 479 00:31:39,500 --> 00:31:41,500 I am not permitted to give advice. 480 00:31:41,667 --> 00:31:42,708 I think I'll rip it. 481 00:31:42,750 --> 00:31:43,958 It is definitely better. 482 00:31:44,042 --> 00:31:45,250 Doctor your scissors, please. 483 00:31:45,333 --> 00:31:48,208 I see here that paragraph 133 says, 484 00:31:48,667 --> 00:31:52,208 "A few hours previous to the duel it is advisable to take a bath." 485 00:31:52,417 --> 00:31:54,708 Only the principles, not the seconds. 486 00:32:02,333 --> 00:32:04,875 The scene also represents the first encounter 487 00:32:05,167 --> 00:32:07,792 between the two central characters of the story, 488 00:32:08,750 --> 00:32:12,792 Clive Candy and Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff. 489 00:32:13,875 --> 00:32:15,250 They have never met before 490 00:32:15,875 --> 00:32:18,667 but they must now do battle on a point of honor. 491 00:32:18,833 --> 00:32:20,708 [Soldier speaks in German] 492 00:32:20,750 --> 00:32:22,625 Into fighting position, please. 493 00:32:26,167 --> 00:32:27,208 Afterwards 494 00:32:27,750 --> 00:32:29,708 they will become friends for life. 495 00:32:33,833 --> 00:32:34,833 Fertig? 496 00:32:36,833 --> 00:32:37,875 Ready? 497 00:32:38,833 --> 00:32:39,875 Los! 498 00:32:49,500 --> 00:32:51,167 Just as the duel begins, 499 00:32:52,083 --> 00:32:56,458 Michael has the audacity to start pulling the camera back and up. 500 00:32:57,458 --> 00:33:00,417 It's an act of terrific bravado. 501 00:33:00,458 --> 00:33:02,292 After all this preparation 502 00:33:02,917 --> 00:33:05,875 to retreat from showing the actual fight. 503 00:33:09,167 --> 00:33:12,375 Only a very bold film director would make that choice. 504 00:33:12,708 --> 00:33:15,500 But for Michael, the fight itself is irrelevant. 505 00:33:16,667 --> 00:33:18,917 What matters is the meeting between the two men 506 00:33:19,333 --> 00:33:21,250 and the relationship that comes out of it. 507 00:33:22,542 --> 00:33:24,875 This had a direct influence on the way that I showed 508 00:33:24,917 --> 00:33:27,167 very little of the big championship fight 509 00:33:27,208 --> 00:33:28,958 in my movie Raging Bull. 510 00:33:29,583 --> 00:33:32,917 The long Steadicam shot of Jake LaMotta's journey to the ring 511 00:33:32,958 --> 00:33:35,167 comes straight from the duel scene in Blimp. 512 00:34:02,500 --> 00:34:06,458 The important thing here is the destructive road 513 00:34:06,833 --> 00:34:08,875 that Jake took to get to the fight 514 00:34:09,875 --> 00:34:11,375 rather than the fight itself. 515 00:34:14,250 --> 00:34:16,250 - Kretschmar-Schuldorff. - Yes I know. 516 00:34:16,292 --> 00:34:18,625 After the duel, Clive and Theo recover 517 00:34:18,667 --> 00:34:20,958 from their wounds in the same nursing home. 518 00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:21,958 I'm very glad you've come. 519 00:34:22,042 --> 00:34:24,208 Where they both fall in love with the same woman. 520 00:34:25,250 --> 00:34:26,625 Stop mooning about. 521 00:34:26,917 --> 00:34:29,667 - I'm not mooning about! - Keep your hair on. 522 00:34:30,208 --> 00:34:33,000 I say, old girl, what's up? 523 00:34:33,250 --> 00:34:35,042 Edith? I say, what's the matter? 524 00:34:35,667 --> 00:34:40,458 I love your Miss Hunter. 525 00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:48,042 You're cuckoo. 526 00:34:48,500 --> 00:34:49,667 You cuckoo 527 00:34:50,333 --> 00:34:52,208 because Miss Hunter 528 00:34:53,458 --> 00:34:54,542 loves me. 529 00:34:56,542 --> 00:34:59,042 Clive turns out to be deeply romantic 530 00:34:59,375 --> 00:35:01,208 and hopelessly inhibited. 531 00:35:01,833 --> 00:35:02,875 A toast. 532 00:35:03,208 --> 00:35:06,875 Here's to the happiness of my fiance who was never my fiance. 533 00:35:07,292 --> 00:35:10,708 And here's to the man who tried to kill me before he was introduced to me 534 00:35:14,083 --> 00:35:17,625 - May I kiss the bride? - Why ask? I did not ask. 535 00:35:21,292 --> 00:35:23,875 - Goodbye, Clive. - Goodbye, Edith, old girl. 536 00:35:25,417 --> 00:35:28,792 He doesn't even realize until too late that 537 00:35:29,042 --> 00:35:30,167 he is in love. 538 00:35:31,583 --> 00:35:33,625 I hope we'll meet again sometime. 539 00:35:33,917 --> 00:35:35,083 I'm sure we shall. 540 00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,167 And suddenly he finds that his heart is broken. 541 00:35:43,875 --> 00:35:44,708 LION, EAST AFRICA, 1903 542 00:35:46,750 --> 00:35:47,792 WARTHOG, SUDAN, 1904 543 00:35:49,667 --> 00:35:50,542 RHINOCEROS, EAST AFRICA, 1905 544 00:35:50,875 --> 00:35:54,750 Many, many years of Candy's life are simply written off 545 00:35:55,125 --> 00:35:57,792 because they are years without love. 546 00:36:00,917 --> 00:36:03,250 It is brutal, funny, 547 00:36:04,333 --> 00:36:05,458 and devastating. 548 00:36:28,250 --> 00:36:31,042 HUN, FLANDERS, 1918 549 00:36:31,083 --> 00:36:32,458 During the First World War 550 00:36:32,833 --> 00:36:35,792 Candy finds another woman who is the spitting image 551 00:36:35,833 --> 00:36:37,292 of the Edith he has lost. 552 00:36:37,375 --> 00:36:38,375 Nurse? 553 00:36:38,500 --> 00:36:41,083 Do you know the name of the girl sitting at the end of that table? 554 00:36:41,125 --> 00:36:42,167 Come on, Wynne. 555 00:36:50,958 --> 00:36:52,000 He marries her, 556 00:36:52,458 --> 00:36:56,375 and for a while achieves a fragile happiness. 557 00:37:02,708 --> 00:37:03,708 Darling? 558 00:37:04,958 --> 00:37:06,000 Don't hum. 559 00:37:07,917 --> 00:37:08,958 Was I humming? 560 00:37:10,958 --> 00:37:12,458 It's a little habit you've got. 561 00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:14,542 There's something important here. 562 00:37:15,083 --> 00:37:16,792 Candy's professional life 563 00:37:16,875 --> 00:37:19,792 is mostly treated satirically and ironically. 564 00:37:19,958 --> 00:37:21,417 What'll I do if I don't hum? 565 00:37:24,083 --> 00:37:25,875 But his emotional life 566 00:37:26,125 --> 00:37:29,958 is always rendered with sincerity and tenderness. 567 00:37:47,500 --> 00:37:49,958 Perhaps the most audacious thing of all 568 00:37:50,042 --> 00:37:54,250 is the way that every important woman in Candy's life 569 00:37:55,042 --> 00:37:58,042 is played by the same actress Deborah Kerr. 570 00:37:59,042 --> 00:38:01,292 She is his first love, Edith. 571 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:03,792 Then his wife Barbara. 572 00:38:04,625 --> 00:38:07,750 And then later his young driver in World War II. 573 00:38:07,833 --> 00:38:09,667 Mind if we try and beat the lights, sir? 574 00:38:09,708 --> 00:38:12,167 This radical casting idea came from Emeric. 575 00:38:12,208 --> 00:38:13,625 Come on, don't be all night. 576 00:38:13,708 --> 00:38:17,708 And it fills the film with a constant sense of longing and loss. 577 00:38:19,875 --> 00:38:23,375 And Deborah Kerr was only 20 years old when she set to work on this film, 578 00:38:23,708 --> 00:38:27,000 but she proved herself already a master of her art. 579 00:38:29,375 --> 00:38:30,875 And Powell and Pressburger 580 00:38:31,583 --> 00:38:33,667 succeeded in what they most loved to do. 581 00:38:34,833 --> 00:38:37,375 Take a big risk and bring it off. 582 00:38:40,250 --> 00:38:45,625 I was certainly influenced by Blimp when I came to make The Age of Innocence, 583 00:38:45,875 --> 00:38:48,875 I'll write to you as soon as I'm settled and let you know where I am. 584 00:38:48,917 --> 00:38:50,208 Oh, yes, that would be lovely. 585 00:38:50,625 --> 00:38:52,375 Well, I'll see you very soon in Paris. 586 00:38:53,125 --> 00:38:54,958 Oh, if you and May could come. 587 00:38:56,875 --> 00:38:59,875 Because I was drawn into that film by the love story. 588 00:39:01,708 --> 00:39:05,375 An impossible love between two people who aren't supposed to fall in love. 589 00:39:05,458 --> 00:39:06,708 Good night, Newland. 590 00:39:06,958 --> 00:39:08,833 Good night, Sillerton. Good night, Larry. 591 00:39:10,250 --> 00:39:11,667 And it lasts for years. 592 00:39:13,583 --> 00:39:17,333 I believed it was the same frustrated desire 593 00:39:17,750 --> 00:39:19,125 tinged with regret 594 00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:21,750 that I like so much in Blimp. 595 00:39:26,500 --> 00:39:28,083 I think that's what attracted me. 596 00:39:28,542 --> 00:39:31,042 The fact that emotion is repressed 597 00:39:31,708 --> 00:39:33,458 and that reserve is a must. 598 00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,083 I was in love with her. Your wife. 599 00:39:40,542 --> 00:39:41,958 She never told me. 600 00:39:42,167 --> 00:39:43,333 She never knew. 601 00:39:45,208 --> 00:39:47,333 But I seem to remem-- 602 00:39:47,583 --> 00:39:50,958 Oh, Clive, that last day in Berlin, when I told you 603 00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:52,583 you seemed genuinely happy. 604 00:39:52,667 --> 00:39:54,708 Dash it, I didn't know then. 605 00:39:55,292 --> 00:39:57,708 But on the train, I started to miss her. 606 00:39:58,333 --> 00:39:59,500 On the boat, it was worse. 607 00:39:59,583 --> 00:40:02,625 By the time I got back to London, well, I'd got it properly. 608 00:40:03,125 --> 00:40:05,292 My Aunt Margaret got onto the scent straight away. 609 00:40:05,333 --> 00:40:07,417 Women have a nose for these sort of things. 610 00:40:08,333 --> 00:40:11,375 You may say that she was my ideal. 611 00:40:13,250 --> 00:40:14,250 Sir? 612 00:40:16,458 --> 00:40:18,875 Did you feel sympathetic to Blimp as a character? 613 00:40:19,375 --> 00:40:21,625 Oh, yes, I identified completely with him. 614 00:40:22,125 --> 00:40:24,833 - Lots of things are exactly like me. - Such as? 615 00:40:25,292 --> 00:40:26,875 Couldn't be more English. 616 00:40:28,333 --> 00:40:29,458 I was sentimental. 617 00:40:30,417 --> 00:40:31,417 And... 618 00:40:33,417 --> 00:40:34,708 love women and dogs. 619 00:40:35,125 --> 00:40:39,208 I'd always felt enormously sympathetic with that kind of man. 620 00:40:39,667 --> 00:40:43,208 Honorable, puzzled, innocent. 621 00:40:43,917 --> 00:40:46,083 I see myself very much like that. 622 00:40:47,917 --> 00:40:52,708 Blimp is Powell and Pressburger's first really profound and personal film. 623 00:40:53,375 --> 00:40:54,375 And for me 624 00:40:54,792 --> 00:40:56,042 their first masterpiece. 625 00:40:57,708 --> 00:41:01,083 I've watched it so many times that it's become part of my life. 626 00:41:01,333 --> 00:41:02,667 And the longer I live 627 00:41:03,958 --> 00:41:06,667 the stronger grows my sense of what the characters are feeling. 628 00:41:08,167 --> 00:41:12,167 It's the film that says the most to me about growing up, 629 00:41:13,125 --> 00:41:14,125 growing old 630 00:41:14,583 --> 00:41:17,667 and eventually, having to let go. 631 00:41:25,667 --> 00:41:28,542 The Archer's next work, A Canterbury Tale 632 00:41:29,167 --> 00:41:32,125 begins like a classic 'Merry England' film. 633 00:41:36,375 --> 00:41:39,000 With Chaucer's pilgrims on the road to Canterbury. 634 00:41:41,792 --> 00:41:42,917 But then... 635 00:41:43,625 --> 00:41:44,875 a famous transition. 636 00:41:47,333 --> 00:41:50,792 The medieval falcon turns into a modern Spitfire. 637 00:41:51,667 --> 00:41:53,292 The film that we are about to see 638 00:41:53,375 --> 00:41:57,042 suggests that a connection to our history is crucial 639 00:41:57,417 --> 00:41:59,458 to our spiritual wellbeing. 640 00:42:02,125 --> 00:42:05,583 One of the propaganda tasks at the time was to ask, 641 00:42:05,875 --> 00:42:07,208 what are we fighting for? 642 00:42:09,708 --> 00:42:13,708 And Powell and Pressburger now sought their answers to that question 643 00:42:13,958 --> 00:42:17,792 in the history and traditions of the English countryside. 644 00:42:18,958 --> 00:42:21,958 Why don't you keep your beastly carriers off the Pilgrims Road? 645 00:42:22,750 --> 00:42:24,542 Michael loved his native Kent. 646 00:42:24,792 --> 00:42:27,083 He loved the people and culture of England. 647 00:42:27,917 --> 00:42:30,500 And in this film, he wanted to express all that. 648 00:42:30,625 --> 00:42:32,083 Eight o'clock, Bob. 649 00:42:37,167 --> 00:42:40,042 He had a specially deep feelings for Canterbury Cathedral. 650 00:42:40,958 --> 00:42:44,750 That's where he had sung as a boy in the King's School Choir. 651 00:42:45,542 --> 00:42:48,000 From the bend, at the eastern edge of the hill, 652 00:42:48,750 --> 00:42:51,000 pilgrims saw Canterbury for the first time. 653 00:42:51,167 --> 00:42:52,167 You've seen it? 654 00:42:52,708 --> 00:42:53,708 Yes. 655 00:42:55,375 --> 00:42:56,583 With a friend of mine. 656 00:42:56,875 --> 00:42:58,042 A boy or a girl? 657 00:42:58,542 --> 00:42:59,542 Boy. 658 00:42:59,667 --> 00:43:01,083 I hope he writes to you. 659 00:43:03,833 --> 00:43:04,833 No, he doesn't. 660 00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:07,708 Maybe the mail was lost by enemy action. 661 00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:10,167 No, Bob. 662 00:43:11,125 --> 00:43:12,125 As it happens, 663 00:43:12,792 --> 00:43:14,458 he was lost by enemy action. 664 00:43:15,708 --> 00:43:16,708 He was a pilot. 665 00:43:17,792 --> 00:43:18,792 Shot down? 666 00:43:19,500 --> 00:43:20,500 Yes. 667 00:43:20,792 --> 00:43:21,792 I'm sorry. 668 00:43:26,917 --> 00:43:29,958 The central characters of the film are, without knowing it, 669 00:43:30,625 --> 00:43:31,958 modern pilgrims. 670 00:43:32,542 --> 00:43:34,500 Each on their own journey to Canterbury. 671 00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:37,417 They're lost souls, 672 00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,375 all in some way adrift and bereft. 673 00:43:41,667 --> 00:43:45,375 All in need of a blessing to heal and restore them. 674 00:43:47,417 --> 00:43:48,417 And here 675 00:43:48,542 --> 00:43:52,417 as the Land Girl Alison walks in the Kent countryside 676 00:43:53,208 --> 00:43:55,000 the place starts to speak to her. 677 00:43:57,375 --> 00:44:00,583 She hears in the landscape, the voices and the music 678 00:44:00,917 --> 00:44:02,125 of the old pilgrims. 679 00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:04,167 Her ancestors. 680 00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,208 If you stop, listen, 681 00:44:21,292 --> 00:44:22,292 pay attention, 682 00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:24,750 the past will speak to you. 683 00:44:25,917 --> 00:44:27,542 And the voices of the past 684 00:44:27,917 --> 00:44:31,125 will help you to make sense of your life in the present. 685 00:44:32,375 --> 00:44:33,500 Glorious, isn't it? 686 00:44:38,667 --> 00:44:39,875 Is anybody there? 687 00:44:40,458 --> 00:44:42,208 Michael and Emeric are always trying 688 00:44:42,292 --> 00:44:46,125 to set traps to capture magic, as Emeric puts it. 689 00:44:46,792 --> 00:44:50,750 They wanna go beyond the representation of everyday experiences 690 00:44:50,792 --> 00:44:55,375 and find ways to communicate what is deep and mysterious in our lives. 691 00:44:57,375 --> 00:45:01,917 There's a mysticism here that's quite new in Powell and Pressburger's work. 692 00:45:01,958 --> 00:45:04,333 There are higher courts than the local bench of magistrates. 693 00:45:06,208 --> 00:45:07,333 With a light touch 694 00:45:07,833 --> 00:45:10,583 they seek to conjure up the world of the spirit. 695 00:45:11,625 --> 00:45:14,625 Pilgrims for Canterbury all out and get your blessings. 696 00:45:14,667 --> 00:45:16,125 Rum sort of pilgrimage for you. 697 00:45:16,833 --> 00:45:19,958 Pilgrimage can be either to receive a blessing 698 00:45:20,458 --> 00:45:21,583 or to do penance. 699 00:45:21,833 --> 00:45:22,833 I don't need either. 700 00:45:23,292 --> 00:45:24,542 Perhaps you are an instrument. 701 00:45:24,833 --> 00:45:26,083 Do I get a flaming sword? 702 00:45:27,500 --> 00:45:28,792 Nothing would surprise me. 703 00:45:31,917 --> 00:45:34,083 I'll believe that when I see a halo around my head. 704 00:45:44,208 --> 00:45:46,417 You get a very good view of the cathedral now. 705 00:46:13,208 --> 00:46:14,792 For all its strangeness, 706 00:46:15,667 --> 00:46:19,542 this is the most humble of the famous Archers films. 707 00:46:19,583 --> 00:46:21,375 The most restrained and earnest, 708 00:46:21,917 --> 00:46:25,000 and the one most concerned with ordinary lives. 709 00:46:31,042 --> 00:46:33,458 The central characters are in the same condition 710 00:46:33,542 --> 00:46:36,208 that most of the audience would have been in 1944. 711 00:46:37,042 --> 00:46:38,750 Separated from their loved ones. 712 00:46:40,042 --> 00:46:42,042 Dutifully putting up a brave front. 713 00:46:42,958 --> 00:46:44,167 But quietly, 714 00:46:45,042 --> 00:46:47,708 full of fear, loneliness and grief. 715 00:46:50,583 --> 00:46:53,167 One thing that the film very much wants to do 716 00:46:53,375 --> 00:46:56,500 is offer consolation to the suffering. 717 00:46:57,208 --> 00:46:59,333 And just when Alison is in despair, 718 00:47:00,125 --> 00:47:02,500 she gets the news that her fiance's father 719 00:47:02,583 --> 00:47:04,583 is in Canterbury looking for her. 720 00:47:04,625 --> 00:47:07,000 For over two weeks now, he's waited for you here 721 00:47:07,042 --> 00:47:08,250 in Canterbury. 722 00:47:11,292 --> 00:47:12,292 Why? 723 00:47:12,333 --> 00:47:16,792 Because he has news, Miss Allison, official news about Mr Geoffrey. 724 00:47:16,917 --> 00:47:18,083 He's in Gibraltar. 725 00:47:21,042 --> 00:47:22,042 Miss Alison. 726 00:47:31,875 --> 00:47:34,542 This is a film that says that miracles do happen. 727 00:47:35,750 --> 00:47:37,542 I must open the windows. 728 00:47:39,125 --> 00:47:40,750 And at the end of your pilgrimage, 729 00:47:42,250 --> 00:47:44,625 you may indeed receive a blessing. 730 00:48:02,375 --> 00:48:06,500 The film finishes with a whole regiment of troops marching into the cathedral. 731 00:48:07,417 --> 00:48:09,000 They're about to go overseas 732 00:48:09,042 --> 00:48:11,958 and we don't know how many of them will come back. 733 00:48:18,250 --> 00:48:19,625 Here, perhaps 734 00:48:20,042 --> 00:48:22,083 Canterbury Cathedral represents 735 00:48:22,333 --> 00:48:26,208 embattled Britain herself as a place worth protecting. 736 00:48:26,542 --> 00:48:28,583 A place worth fighting for. 737 00:48:42,250 --> 00:48:45,917 Powell and Pressburger are preachers as much as propagandists in this film. 738 00:48:46,833 --> 00:48:49,583 The result was their first flop. 739 00:48:50,125 --> 00:48:53,292 The film is just too strange and elusive for a mass audience. 740 00:49:01,042 --> 00:49:03,500 But the partners were unshaken by this setback. 741 00:49:03,750 --> 00:49:06,000 There was a period of profound trust between them 742 00:49:06,083 --> 00:49:08,667 and they knew exactly where they were going next. 743 00:49:09,667 --> 00:49:13,250 When Joan was only one year old, she already knew where she was going. 744 00:49:13,458 --> 00:49:15,375 Going right, left. 745 00:49:15,792 --> 00:49:17,167 No, straight on. 746 00:49:19,125 --> 00:49:22,000 With I Know Where I'm Going we know right away 747 00:49:22,042 --> 00:49:23,667 that we're going to enjoy ourselves. 748 00:49:24,917 --> 00:49:27,792 By now it was clear that the Allies were going to win the war 749 00:49:27,833 --> 00:49:31,042 and Michael and Emeric were able to relax a little. 750 00:49:31,083 --> 00:49:33,250 Allowing their sense of humor to bloom. 751 00:49:33,458 --> 00:49:34,875 She's 25 now. 752 00:49:35,042 --> 00:49:37,125 And in one thing, she's never changed, 753 00:49:37,542 --> 00:49:39,375 she still knows where she's going. 754 00:49:39,583 --> 00:49:40,958 Good evening, Miss Webster. 755 00:49:41,750 --> 00:49:42,917 Good evening, Leon. 756 00:49:45,375 --> 00:49:46,417 Hello, darling. 757 00:49:46,792 --> 00:49:48,708 We're introduced to a new kind of character 758 00:49:48,750 --> 00:49:50,958 in the shape of Joan Webster 759 00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:52,083 Daddy? 760 00:49:52,208 --> 00:49:53,292 I'm going to be married. 761 00:49:53,917 --> 00:49:54,917 What? 762 00:49:55,167 --> 00:49:56,958 - Your table, Miss Webster. - Thank you, Fred. 763 00:50:00,792 --> 00:50:02,792 Let's go in, darling. Bring a drink. 764 00:50:04,375 --> 00:50:07,583 It's the first Archers film to place a woman front and center 765 00:50:07,833 --> 00:50:12,125 and she is perhaps not a million miles away from Wendy Green, 766 00:50:12,417 --> 00:50:16,333 the woman who Emeric had avidly courted and recently married. 767 00:50:17,042 --> 00:50:19,375 Wendy, it seems was strong-willed, 768 00:50:19,458 --> 00:50:22,125 sophisticated and materialistic. 769 00:50:22,292 --> 00:50:25,208 Charged to your account madam, of course. 770 00:50:27,042 --> 00:50:30,583 Perhaps that's why the script seemed to flow so easily for Emeric. 771 00:50:30,833 --> 00:50:33,500 He drafted the whole thing out in less than a week. 772 00:50:33,542 --> 00:50:35,167 Lady Bellinger's car! 773 00:50:35,500 --> 00:50:38,042 Joans story begins with a journey north. 774 00:50:43,333 --> 00:50:45,958 You can't marry Consolidated Chemical Industries. 775 00:50:46,500 --> 00:50:47,833 Can't I? 776 00:50:48,833 --> 00:50:51,292 She's on her way to a small Scottish island 777 00:50:51,333 --> 00:50:54,083 where she is due to wed Sir Robert Bellinger, 778 00:50:54,375 --> 00:50:58,208 the wealthy head of Consolidated Chemical Industries. 779 00:51:03,125 --> 00:51:04,875 Do you, Joan Webster 780 00:51:05,333 --> 00:51:07,917 take Consolidated Chemical Industries 781 00:51:07,958 --> 00:51:10,083 to be your lawful wedded husband? 782 00:51:10,167 --> 00:51:12,417 - I do. - Glasgow Central! 783 00:51:12,625 --> 00:51:13,917 Oh! Yes? 784 00:51:13,958 --> 00:51:16,917 There's a gentleman to meet you. And the stationmaster's with him. 785 00:51:18,208 --> 00:51:20,167 You'll need all your time to get to Buchanan Street. 786 00:51:20,208 --> 00:51:22,083 Now, The Archers are really having fun here. 787 00:51:22,833 --> 00:51:23,875 Watch that top hat. 788 00:51:33,083 --> 00:51:37,208 This journey north was perhaps a gift that Emeric gave to Michael 789 00:51:37,250 --> 00:51:41,000 because it was a journey that Michael loved to make himself. 790 00:51:41,500 --> 00:51:44,208 Scotland was his favorite place to be in the world. 791 00:51:44,250 --> 00:51:46,125 And whenever he finished shooting a film, 792 00:51:46,583 --> 00:51:49,750 he would refresh himself by going on hiking trips there. 793 00:51:52,792 --> 00:51:54,458 Hear ye! 794 00:51:54,625 --> 00:51:55,750 For Joan Webster, 795 00:51:56,042 --> 00:51:59,417 the Western Isles turn out to be a challenging proposition. 796 00:51:59,667 --> 00:52:00,833 Bad luck, no crossing today. 797 00:52:01,167 --> 00:52:04,250 She'll spend much of the film trying to get a boat to the island 798 00:52:04,292 --> 00:52:05,625 where her fiance is waiting. 799 00:52:05,708 --> 00:52:08,083 Would you like to wait up at the house? I know the people. 800 00:52:08,125 --> 00:52:09,250 Thank you. 801 00:52:09,292 --> 00:52:11,208 But it's been arranged for the boat to meet me here 802 00:52:11,250 --> 00:52:12,750 and I better be here to meet it. 803 00:52:14,208 --> 00:52:15,208 Good. 804 00:52:19,542 --> 00:52:22,125 If my boat doesn't come, will you take me? 805 00:52:22,417 --> 00:52:24,125 No, I will not, m'lady. 806 00:52:24,958 --> 00:52:28,917 In just three or four intensely atmospheric shots 807 00:52:29,667 --> 00:52:34,292 we get a pungent sense of how alien the place is to her. 808 00:52:34,333 --> 00:52:36,958 You'll see a wee gate, up the brae. 809 00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:41,625 Joan must accept the hospitality of the locals until the weather improves. 810 00:52:42,542 --> 00:52:47,292 And they turn out to be a bunch of eccentric and independent people 811 00:52:47,500 --> 00:52:51,458 whose outlook on life is very different from her own. 812 00:52:51,542 --> 00:52:52,833 I was just going down to get you. 813 00:52:52,875 --> 00:52:55,083 Come on in, we've lit the fire. You met the Colonel I see. 814 00:52:55,125 --> 00:52:57,750 I've had that exceptional pleasure. My name's Barnstable. 815 00:52:57,833 --> 00:52:59,375 Colonel Barnstable, the greatest hawk trainer-- 816 00:52:59,417 --> 00:53:01,750 Falconer, my dear Torquil! 817 00:53:01,792 --> 00:53:03,917 The greatest falconer in the Western Isles. 818 00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:05,500 In the world, old boy. 819 00:53:06,458 --> 00:53:08,542 Although it's a comedy and romance, 820 00:53:08,667 --> 00:53:10,542 it's also a film about values. 821 00:53:10,917 --> 00:53:14,708 And these feisty characters stand for all sorts of qualities 822 00:53:14,833 --> 00:53:17,000 that Michael and Emeric liked and believed in. 823 00:53:18,375 --> 00:53:21,000 - Catriona! - There's the dear girl now. 824 00:53:21,333 --> 00:53:24,083 Courage, kindness and generosity, 825 00:53:24,125 --> 00:53:26,125 warmth and good fellowship. 826 00:53:26,167 --> 00:53:27,458 Torquil! 827 00:53:28,167 --> 00:53:30,792 [They speak Gaelic] 828 00:53:30,833 --> 00:53:32,583 Mrs Potts! 829 00:53:33,167 --> 00:53:36,667 The character who most fully embodies all of these qualities 830 00:53:36,958 --> 00:53:37,958 is Torquil. 831 00:53:38,292 --> 00:53:40,083 He's a naval officer on leave. 832 00:53:40,500 --> 00:53:41,958 Have you got a match or a lighter? 833 00:53:44,667 --> 00:53:45,667 Thanks. 834 00:53:46,083 --> 00:53:50,125 He clearly represents a terrible threat to Joan's marriage plans. 835 00:53:50,208 --> 00:53:52,208 And the question of the film becomes, 836 00:53:52,667 --> 00:53:53,833 can she resist him? 837 00:53:55,625 --> 00:53:56,667 Thank you. 838 00:53:57,250 --> 00:54:00,917 What stands in Torquil's way, of course, is Sir Robert Bellinger. 839 00:54:01,333 --> 00:54:03,333 Hello, my dear. Robert speaking. 840 00:54:03,375 --> 00:54:05,375 Cartier delivered the ring, I hope. 841 00:54:05,667 --> 00:54:08,750 Of course, Robert, everything was lovely. 842 00:54:08,792 --> 00:54:11,625 Now, listen, Joan, write down a telephone number. Are you ready? 843 00:54:11,958 --> 00:54:13,417 2-36. You got it? 844 00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:17,250 It's the Robinson's number. They've rented the castle at Sorn. 845 00:54:17,542 --> 00:54:20,958 They're the only people worthwhile knowing around here. Over. 846 00:54:21,625 --> 00:54:23,250 And when we meet his friends, 847 00:54:23,583 --> 00:54:26,000 the Robinsons, they are superior 848 00:54:26,167 --> 00:54:28,667 and sensitive and self-regarding. 849 00:54:28,833 --> 00:54:29,958 Let's have a look at you. 850 00:54:31,583 --> 00:54:33,542 Oh yes, you pass. 851 00:54:33,833 --> 00:54:36,458 You're going to marry Sir Robert Bellinger, aren't you? 852 00:54:36,500 --> 00:54:37,792 Yes. Do you mind? 853 00:54:37,833 --> 00:54:38,833 I don't mind. 854 00:54:40,250 --> 00:54:41,542 He's rich, isn't he? 855 00:54:41,583 --> 00:54:43,958 Well, I haven't counted his money. 856 00:54:44,042 --> 00:54:45,042 Are you rich? 857 00:54:46,208 --> 00:54:47,292 No. 858 00:54:49,833 --> 00:54:53,250 Coming after A Canterbury Tale Emeric called this film 859 00:54:53,458 --> 00:54:57,708 the second episode in The Archer's crusade against materialism. 860 00:54:58,083 --> 00:55:00,250 People around here are very poor, I suppose. 861 00:55:00,292 --> 00:55:02,958 - Not poor. They just haven't got money. - It's the same thing. 862 00:55:03,042 --> 00:55:04,625 Oh, no, something quite different. 863 00:55:10,292 --> 00:55:11,333 Better? 864 00:55:17,958 --> 00:55:20,250 The longer that Joan spends with Torquil 865 00:55:20,625 --> 00:55:23,875 the more she falls under the spell of this man and his world. 866 00:55:24,208 --> 00:55:25,250 Careful. 867 00:55:32,417 --> 00:55:35,458 That's a fine song. Nut Brown Maiden. Do you know it? 868 00:55:36,583 --> 00:55:37,583 Tune up, my boys! 869 00:55:37,750 --> 00:55:39,250 My favorite part is where Torquil 870 00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:41,750 recites the words of a song. 871 00:55:41,792 --> 00:55:44,083 "Ho ro my nut-brown maiden, 872 00:55:44,583 --> 00:55:46,250 Hee ree my nut-brown maiden, 873 00:55:46,958 --> 00:55:49,750 Ho ro ro ro maiden, 874 00:55:50,083 --> 00:55:51,500 You're the maid for me." 875 00:56:03,083 --> 00:56:05,667 Now, this is a film that you show to someone you care about 876 00:56:05,875 --> 00:56:10,000 as a way of possibly trying to say something that you can't put into words. 877 00:56:10,417 --> 00:56:12,375 Share the experience so to speak. 878 00:56:12,708 --> 00:56:15,708 And I know I'm not the only person to have done that. 879 00:56:17,042 --> 00:56:18,667 It's a film that seems to 880 00:56:19,208 --> 00:56:22,292 cast a spell over many romantic relationships. 881 00:56:22,458 --> 00:56:25,208 Is it not enough that you've been told that you cannot sail today? 882 00:56:25,250 --> 00:56:27,375 Do you think you know better than folk who have lived here all their lives? 883 00:56:27,458 --> 00:56:29,958 Ruairidh said it was going down. Kenny said so too. 884 00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:32,583 What do you expect Kenny to say? You bought him, did you not? 885 00:56:32,625 --> 00:56:33,958 There's no need to shout at me! 886 00:56:34,000 --> 00:56:36,333 Oh, go ahead, then! 887 00:56:37,042 --> 00:56:38,375 And drown yourself! 888 00:56:39,625 --> 00:56:41,500 She's running away from you. 889 00:56:44,583 --> 00:56:46,083 Say that again. 890 00:56:53,500 --> 00:56:57,708 In the end, we find Joan and Torquil together in a small boat. 891 00:56:57,792 --> 00:56:59,917 Get down under the hood and hang on! 892 00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:08,208 Oh! My dress! 893 00:57:11,917 --> 00:57:13,792 Don't mess about! Bail! 894 00:57:15,083 --> 00:57:17,708 The motor has gone, the weather is evil 895 00:57:18,208 --> 00:57:22,083 and they're heading towards a terrible whirlpool, Corryvreckan. 896 00:57:23,583 --> 00:57:26,000 This is a film about love as a force of nature 897 00:57:26,083 --> 00:57:28,583 that can knock your life completely off course. 898 00:57:29,792 --> 00:57:33,333 And Joan's fate seems to lie, not just in the hands of Torquil 899 00:57:34,250 --> 00:57:36,208 but in the hands of the nature gods. 900 00:57:49,875 --> 00:57:52,875 The film has something which is rather unusual for The Archers, 901 00:57:53,625 --> 00:57:55,375 a conventional happy ending. 902 00:57:56,458 --> 00:57:59,542 But this romance is a truly enchanted creation. 903 00:58:00,625 --> 00:58:04,250 In my view, it's one of the most beautiful love stories ever made. 904 00:58:05,625 --> 00:58:06,667 Hoy! 905 00:58:06,792 --> 00:58:07,958 Hoy! 906 00:58:09,917 --> 00:58:12,958 It is also a mystical poem on the natural world. 907 00:58:13,333 --> 00:58:15,875 And a sermon on correct values. 908 00:58:19,792 --> 00:58:22,125 By now, the whole country was starting to think about 909 00:58:22,167 --> 00:58:24,375 what kind of place Britain should become 910 00:58:24,417 --> 00:58:26,167 once the hostilities were over. 911 00:58:27,458 --> 00:58:31,750 And Michael and Emeric used this film to offer the idealistic proposal 912 00:58:32,042 --> 00:58:33,375 that it might become a nation 913 00:58:33,583 --> 00:58:35,917 that values people according to their character 914 00:58:36,583 --> 00:58:37,708 rather than their money. 915 00:58:38,542 --> 00:58:39,875 MINISTRY OF INFORMATION 916 00:58:39,917 --> 00:58:41,333 FILM DIVISION, THEATRE 917 00:58:41,375 --> 00:58:44,083 The themes of all The Archers films during the war years 918 00:58:44,125 --> 00:58:46,875 had to be agreed with the Ministry of Information. 919 00:58:47,792 --> 00:58:50,750 Well, the Ministry of Information had a films division. 920 00:58:50,958 --> 00:58:52,417 Jack Beddington was the head of it. 921 00:58:52,500 --> 00:58:56,833 And no film could be made during the wartime without their approval. 922 00:58:56,875 --> 00:58:59,750 And Jack Beddington asked us to come and meet him 923 00:59:00,083 --> 00:59:01,333 and said, 924 00:59:01,708 --> 00:59:03,042 while we were losing the war, 925 00:59:03,125 --> 00:59:06,708 our relations with the Americans were very good, 926 00:59:06,917 --> 00:59:09,167 but now we're winning the war they're not so good. 927 00:59:11,208 --> 00:59:16,250 So he said, would you two consider writing an original film and making 928 00:59:16,292 --> 00:59:20,542 an original film about Anglo-American relations, to improve them? 929 00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:24,625 The Archer's response is not a combat film 930 00:59:24,958 --> 00:59:26,958 but a poetic fantasy. 931 00:59:27,417 --> 00:59:29,708 You seem like a nice girl. I can't give you my position. 932 00:59:29,750 --> 00:59:31,500 Instruments gone, crew gone too. 933 00:59:31,542 --> 00:59:34,042 All except Bob, here, my sparks, he's dead. 934 00:59:34,125 --> 00:59:35,542 The rest bailed out on my orders. 935 00:59:35,583 --> 00:59:37,292 Time 0335, you get that? 936 00:59:37,333 --> 00:59:40,958 In the first scene we meet Peter, played by David Niven. 937 00:59:41,292 --> 00:59:44,042 We've had it. And I'd rather jump than fry. 938 00:59:44,375 --> 00:59:46,125 After the first 1000 feet what's the difference? 939 00:59:46,208 --> 00:59:47,667 I shan't know anything anyway, 940 00:59:48,417 --> 00:59:50,000 I say, I hope I haven't frightened you. 941 00:59:51,667 --> 00:59:54,125 - No, I'm not frightened. - Good girl. 942 00:59:54,333 --> 00:59:59,208 From the cockpit of his doomed plane he speaks to June, played by Kim Hunter. 943 00:59:59,458 --> 01:00:01,750 Are you in love with anybody? No, no, don't answer that. 944 01:00:02,250 --> 01:00:03,917 I could love a man like you, Peter. 945 01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:06,333 I love you, June, you're life and I'm leaving you. 946 01:00:06,583 --> 01:00:08,500 Peter is hurtling towards death 947 01:00:08,583 --> 01:00:10,750 and falling in love, at the same time. 948 01:00:10,833 --> 01:00:12,833 I'm signing off now, June. Goodbye. 949 01:00:12,917 --> 01:00:13,917 Goodbye, June. 950 01:00:13,958 --> 01:00:16,708 Hello, G for George. Hello G-George. 951 01:00:16,958 --> 01:00:18,333 Hello G-George? 952 01:00:18,833 --> 01:00:19,833 Hel-- 953 01:00:24,792 --> 01:00:26,792 So long, Bob, I'll see you in a minute. 954 01:00:26,833 --> 01:00:29,833 You know what we wear by now. Proper wings! 955 01:00:30,708 --> 01:00:32,583 This is an emphatic expression 956 01:00:32,792 --> 01:00:37,833 of why Powell and Pressburger were not documentary filmmakers. 957 01:00:40,417 --> 01:00:43,583 They wanted to achieve the kind of heightened intensity 958 01:00:43,917 --> 01:00:46,500 that is only possible through artifice. 959 01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:54,167 Peter washes up on a deserted shore with no idea where he is. 960 01:00:56,917 --> 01:01:00,333 He miraculously meets June cycling along the beach. 961 01:01:00,750 --> 01:01:01,792 Hello. 962 01:01:02,333 --> 01:01:03,875 Hello yourself. What's wrong? 963 01:01:04,292 --> 01:01:08,208 And the couple are instantly certain of their love for each other. 964 01:01:08,375 --> 01:01:09,417 You're June. 965 01:01:17,167 --> 01:01:18,250 You're Peter. 966 01:01:22,208 --> 01:01:26,042 The trouble is that according to divine calculations, 967 01:01:26,083 --> 01:01:27,333 Peter ought to be dead. 968 01:01:28,083 --> 01:01:31,167 91,716 invoiced 969 01:01:31,458 --> 01:01:35,042 91,715 checked in. 970 01:01:35,333 --> 01:01:37,500 - Conductor 71? - Madame , 971 01:01:37,625 --> 01:01:39,000 it could have happened to anybody. 972 01:01:39,042 --> 01:01:40,083 How did it happen? 973 01:01:40,167 --> 01:01:43,292 Everything was calculated except for this accursed fog. 974 01:01:43,333 --> 01:01:47,208 The pilot jumped, he got lost in the fog, I missed him. 975 01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:52,250 The heavenly conductor is now ordered to go back to Earth, 976 01:01:52,292 --> 01:01:55,625 find Peter and rectify his mistake. 977 01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:59,125 By the way, Monsieur , when you see Peter, would you give him a message for me? 978 01:01:59,167 --> 01:02:02,417 - Avec plaisir. - Just say, “What ho.” 979 01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:04,042 Bon. 980 01:02:17,875 --> 01:02:22,542 One is starved for Technicolor up there. 981 01:02:26,083 --> 01:02:29,125 What a night for love. 982 01:02:33,625 --> 01:02:37,792 The idea of the two worlds was Emeric's most audacious concept yet. 983 01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:40,542 And he made a bold decision about color too 984 01:02:40,958 --> 01:02:45,667 when he decided that the other world should be a rather dry, bureaucratic, 985 01:02:46,208 --> 01:02:47,792 monochrome sort of place. 986 01:02:48,125 --> 01:02:50,500 Whereas this world is the colorful one. 987 01:02:51,792 --> 01:02:55,125 The home of fire and passion, beauty, and poetry. 988 01:02:55,750 --> 01:02:59,417 Peter's problem is that he's not sure which world he belongs in anymore. 989 01:02:59,542 --> 01:03:03,125 Will he be allowed to live out his love for June here on Earth 990 01:03:03,500 --> 01:03:05,750 or will he have to move on to the other world. 991 01:03:06,333 --> 01:03:07,333 In short, 992 01:03:08,125 --> 01:03:09,583 does he belong among the living, 993 01:03:10,625 --> 01:03:11,708 or the dead? 994 01:03:13,208 --> 01:03:15,958 He's having a series of highly organized hallucinations 995 01:03:16,250 --> 01:03:18,958 comparable to an experience of actual life. 996 01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:22,250 A combination of vision of hearing and of idea. 997 01:03:22,542 --> 01:03:25,500 The film marked a big moment for Powell Pressburger 998 01:03:25,542 --> 01:03:29,333 because this is where they threw off entirely the shackles of realism 999 01:03:30,625 --> 01:03:33,083 and happily embraced surrealism. 1000 01:03:57,250 --> 01:03:58,542 Doc, he's here! June! 1001 01:04:00,333 --> 01:04:03,042 Michael, always loved the idea of the film director 1002 01:04:03,125 --> 01:04:05,458 as a magician with a box of tricks. 1003 01:04:06,208 --> 01:04:07,208 Doc? 1004 01:04:10,667 --> 01:04:13,542 Reveling in old-style effects and illusions 1005 01:04:13,875 --> 01:04:17,042 It's as though he's remembering his youth in silent movies, 1006 01:04:17,208 --> 01:04:20,458 working with Rex Ingram at the Victorine studios. 1007 01:04:26,042 --> 01:04:29,750 The Rex Ingram influence gave the film its scale too, 1008 01:04:30,667 --> 01:04:33,167 making it ambitious as well as adventurous. 1009 01:04:33,583 --> 01:04:34,667 Come back! 1010 01:04:35,792 --> 01:04:38,500 Peter! Peter! Come back! 1011 01:04:39,625 --> 01:04:43,792 The film needed marvels of set design and cinematography in order to succeed. 1012 01:04:44,708 --> 01:04:48,000 But by now, The Archers had evolved into a big family 1013 01:04:48,042 --> 01:04:50,292 of highly skilled technicians. 1014 01:04:51,333 --> 01:04:55,500 One of the most important members of the team was art director Alfred Junger, 1015 01:04:55,917 --> 01:04:57,375 a design wizard 1016 01:04:57,417 --> 01:05:01,500 who also had the practical skills of an engineer or an architect. 1017 01:05:17,667 --> 01:05:22,292 We had the greatest film art director that I think has ever lived. 1018 01:05:22,708 --> 01:05:27,792 He goes back, you see, to the early days of Fritz Lang and Metropolis 1019 01:05:27,917 --> 01:05:31,792 and when we asked him to do things like the moving stairway 1020 01:05:31,875 --> 01:05:34,250 that all had to be worked out in perspective 1021 01:05:34,292 --> 01:05:36,417 and shot practically all the same day. 1022 01:05:36,708 --> 01:05:39,333 Because end of the war, we didn't have enough steel 1023 01:05:39,375 --> 01:05:41,292 and we didn't have enough electric power 1024 01:05:41,333 --> 01:05:43,667 to work that staircase all the time. 1025 01:05:43,833 --> 01:05:47,792 So all the shots up the staircase or shots down the staircase, 1026 01:05:47,833 --> 01:05:50,458 were all worked out in perspective on the drawing board. 1027 01:05:51,125 --> 01:05:54,542 I think it's a very important point with all these people 1028 01:05:54,583 --> 01:05:57,875 they are all, not only marvelous technicians, 1029 01:05:58,125 --> 01:05:59,458 but they are all people 1030 01:06:00,667 --> 01:06:02,750 who loved solving problems. 1031 01:06:04,792 --> 01:06:05,917 And we loved setting them! 1032 01:06:06,042 --> 01:06:07,500 There are a great number of, 1033 01:06:07,792 --> 01:06:12,000 there are a great number of people who are very happy when there are no problems, 1034 01:06:12,333 --> 01:06:15,708 but there are some who adore problems. 1035 01:06:15,750 --> 01:06:18,917 And we had this big team around us by now, you know 1036 01:06:19,500 --> 01:06:22,500 who just came saying, "What's the problem?" 1037 01:06:23,417 --> 01:06:25,792 How do you work with actors, Mr Powell, on the set? 1038 01:06:25,958 --> 01:06:29,167 I just start the day saying I've been thinking about this sequence, 1039 01:06:29,208 --> 01:06:30,458 I suggest we do this, 1040 01:06:30,750 --> 01:06:32,000 what do you think? 1041 01:06:32,042 --> 01:06:34,292 And they usually say they want to do something different. 1042 01:06:35,125 --> 01:06:36,417 So then we argue. 1043 01:06:37,458 --> 01:06:38,708 Not for long. 1044 01:06:39,417 --> 01:06:42,417 David Niven, just heaven to work with. 1045 01:06:43,042 --> 01:06:47,458 And very punctilious. David always leaves at 10 to 6, exactly. 1046 01:06:48,292 --> 01:06:49,875 Even if you're in the middle of a shot 1047 01:06:50,042 --> 01:06:52,750 comes up and says, "Sorry, old man, gotta go, you know!" 1048 01:06:52,875 --> 01:06:54,750 - And he's gone! - Oh really? 1049 01:07:04,125 --> 01:07:08,208 It was Michael who decided that everything that Peter experiences 1050 01:07:08,250 --> 01:07:11,375 must be based on solid medical evidence. 1051 01:07:13,417 --> 01:07:19,000 And all the visual fireworks of the film are underpinned by a very serious purpose. 1052 01:07:20,042 --> 01:07:24,542 They are means by which Michael can take his camera inside a tormented psyche 1053 01:07:24,667 --> 01:07:25,750 and tell a story 1054 01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:28,833 about the mental damage done by war. 1055 01:07:43,000 --> 01:07:45,500 He's haunted by these visions of the dead 1056 01:07:45,583 --> 01:07:49,208 flowing into the other world in an unending stream 1057 01:07:53,083 --> 01:07:56,000 and he's uncertain how he himself was spared. 1058 01:07:58,167 --> 01:08:01,083 These days, we might call it survivor's guilt. 1059 01:08:04,208 --> 01:08:05,833 This was a time right after the war 1060 01:08:05,875 --> 01:08:09,792 when the primary trend in movies was the emergence of film noir. 1061 01:08:10,833 --> 01:08:12,667 Bitter cynical movies, usually, 1062 01:08:13,042 --> 01:08:16,000 where the characters are doomed from the start. 1063 01:08:16,833 --> 01:08:18,417 Peter. Peter! 1064 01:08:19,458 --> 01:08:22,417 Powell and Pressburger went against the grain of all of that. 1065 01:08:27,208 --> 01:08:31,167 In all their major pictures of the war years, they seek to offer help, 1066 01:08:32,167 --> 01:08:35,625 consolation, and the possibility of renewal. 1067 01:08:38,167 --> 01:08:42,625 In A Matter of Life and Death what they offer is a vision of love. 1068 01:08:48,417 --> 01:08:49,542 Permit me. 1069 01:08:50,375 --> 01:08:55,792 The hard won triumph of love, surviving all and conquering all. 1070 01:08:58,667 --> 01:09:01,333 That's it, the only real bit of evidence we have. 1071 01:09:02,583 --> 01:09:05,667 Quick. We must not keep the court waiting. 1072 01:09:06,708 --> 01:09:09,250 One of the film's most beautiful conceits 1073 01:09:09,542 --> 01:09:12,500 is that despite the epic scale of the imagery, 1074 01:09:12,667 --> 01:09:15,417 the proof of love is the tiniest thing. 1075 01:09:15,875 --> 01:09:19,042 A single tear gathered on a rose. 1076 01:09:27,250 --> 01:09:28,375 Goodbye, darling. 1077 01:09:30,625 --> 01:09:32,750 And June provides a second proof 1078 01:09:33,125 --> 01:09:36,458 when she willingly takes Peter's place on the stairway to heaven 1079 01:09:37,458 --> 01:09:41,167 showing that she's prepared to give up her life for his. 1080 01:09:46,000 --> 01:09:48,125 In this moment of self sacrifice 1081 01:09:48,167 --> 01:09:50,375 the moral of the film is bluntly stated. 1082 01:09:53,583 --> 01:09:57,292 Yes, Mr Farlan, nothing is stronger than the law in the universe, 1083 01:09:57,333 --> 01:10:00,208 but on Earth, nothing is stronger than love. 1084 01:10:07,250 --> 01:10:10,125 We cling together in the face of power 1085 01:10:11,042 --> 01:10:12,250 and in the face of death. 1086 01:10:13,500 --> 01:10:17,000 The single tear on the rose weighs more heavy 1087 01:10:17,625 --> 01:10:19,042 than the battalions of heaven. 1088 01:10:26,917 --> 01:10:30,458 Outside the Empire, thousands of Londoners crowding the approaches 1089 01:10:30,542 --> 01:10:32,750 to see the Royal Family and also the many film stars 1090 01:10:32,792 --> 01:10:36,167 and notabilities attending the Royal Command Film Performance. 1091 01:10:37,042 --> 01:10:40,375 A Matter of Life and Death represents Powell and Pressburger 1092 01:10:40,417 --> 01:10:41,958 at the peak of their powers. 1093 01:10:42,125 --> 01:10:45,958 And it was chosen for the first-ever Royal Film Performance. 1094 01:10:46,250 --> 01:10:49,708 So great was the throng that the arrival of the Royal Family was delayed. 1095 01:10:49,792 --> 01:10:52,042 And when they did reach their objective, there was barely room 1096 01:10:52,083 --> 01:10:54,500 for them to make their way through the crowd into the cinema. 1097 01:11:06,250 --> 01:11:09,417 The Archers were on top of the world but it was 1946 now 1098 01:11:09,708 --> 01:11:12,667 and there was suddenly no war effort to serve anymore. 1099 01:11:15,333 --> 01:11:18,083 Emeric no longer had the impetus which had driven him on 1100 01:11:18,167 --> 01:11:20,292 to write one original story after another. 1101 01:11:21,125 --> 01:11:23,458 And this left The Archers with a big dilemma. 1102 01:11:24,250 --> 01:11:26,750 What sort of films should they now be making? 1103 01:11:27,292 --> 01:11:31,375 We suddenly felt now we have made several of our films 1104 01:11:33,500 --> 01:11:35,875 isn't there the time now 1105 01:11:37,083 --> 01:11:42,292 to make a film which has absolutely nothing to do with war? 1106 01:11:53,333 --> 01:11:58,292 Black Narcissus marked a whole new direction in Powell Pressburger's work. 1107 01:11:58,667 --> 01:12:01,500 It was their first non-original story 1108 01:12:01,958 --> 01:12:04,250 and it was a post-war escape 1109 01:12:04,958 --> 01:12:07,792 into a different and a distant world. 1110 01:12:16,708 --> 01:12:20,375 Rumer Godden's novel depicts the trials and tribulations 1111 01:12:20,708 --> 01:12:22,625 of a small group of nuns trying 1112 01:12:22,667 --> 01:12:25,333 to establish a convent in the Himalayas. 1113 01:12:30,417 --> 01:12:33,625 The atmosphere seems to agitate the senses 1114 01:12:33,958 --> 01:12:36,125 and the nuns find themselves troubled 1115 01:12:36,375 --> 01:12:39,875 by dangerous temptations and simmering conflicts. 1116 01:12:42,667 --> 01:12:47,292 I found myself in the Himalayas making a film about nuns. 1117 01:12:47,625 --> 01:12:51,833 And our mountains were painted on glass. 1118 01:12:56,125 --> 01:12:58,333 Since the whole film is set in India 1119 01:12:58,417 --> 01:13:02,000 It was a startlingly bold decision when Michael decided 1120 01:13:02,042 --> 01:13:03,708 to shoot everything in England, 1121 01:13:04,625 --> 01:13:08,708 using ingenious sets, trick shots, match shots 1122 01:13:09,125 --> 01:13:11,375 all to recreate the Himalayan setting. 1123 01:13:20,292 --> 01:13:22,833 Partly this was a practical choice 1124 01:13:22,958 --> 01:13:27,792 because everything to do with filmmaking was so much less mobile, in those days. 1125 01:13:28,792 --> 01:13:31,750 Everything had to be fully visualized in advance 1126 01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:35,250 and very little could be spontaneous or improvised. 1127 01:13:40,083 --> 01:13:42,750 Black Narcissus made a virtue of this 1128 01:13:43,083 --> 01:13:46,167 by making each shot into a production in itself. 1129 01:13:47,000 --> 01:13:50,458 A painterly composition in which every aspect of the image 1130 01:13:50,583 --> 01:13:52,583 is meticulously controlled. 1131 01:13:55,500 --> 01:13:59,208 This is truly a cinema of beautifully wrought imagemaking. 1132 01:14:00,625 --> 01:14:04,208 And it gives the film the vividness and the intensity 1133 01:14:04,292 --> 01:14:05,875 of an hallucination. 1134 01:14:10,833 --> 01:14:12,625 The cameraman was Jack Cardiff. 1135 01:14:13,333 --> 01:14:15,792 And here he consciously drew on the example 1136 01:14:15,833 --> 01:14:18,083 of artists like Rembrandt and Vermeer. 1137 01:14:19,125 --> 01:14:22,958 There's something special about his very English sense of Technicolor too. 1138 01:14:23,250 --> 01:14:25,875 The nuns were very deliberately dressed in white, 1139 01:14:26,167 --> 01:14:31,958 or off white robes, then surrounded by cool tones of stone, and green and blue. 1140 01:14:32,292 --> 01:14:34,792 So that when you see a hot color like red, 1141 01:14:35,542 --> 01:14:36,917 it really jumps out at you. 1142 01:14:37,875 --> 01:14:42,333 I still remember the first time I saw the film in a nitrate color print. 1143 01:14:45,250 --> 01:14:48,333 When the rhododendrons exploded onto the screen it was almost 1144 01:14:48,625 --> 01:14:49,958 a physical shock. 1145 01:14:53,292 --> 01:14:55,292 I'm not sure if I know another film 1146 01:14:55,667 --> 01:14:57,750 where the color contributes so much 1147 01:14:57,833 --> 01:14:59,958 to the story and the emotion of a picture. 1148 01:15:01,667 --> 01:15:04,625 Now, right at the center of all the elaborate design 1149 01:15:04,792 --> 01:15:06,208 is human faces. 1150 01:15:06,708 --> 01:15:11,125 In particular, the face of Deborah Kerr who plays Sister Clodagh. 1151 01:15:12,250 --> 01:15:16,625 And standing in contrast and in opposition to Sister Clodagh 1152 01:15:17,000 --> 01:15:20,083 is Sister Ruth played by Kathleen Byron. 1153 01:15:22,042 --> 01:15:24,958 David Farrar is the unsettling presence who... 1154 01:15:25,000 --> 01:15:25,917 Thank you. 1155 01:15:25,958 --> 01:15:29,417 Stirs up a feverish rivalry between the two women. 1156 01:15:30,417 --> 01:15:32,750 I've noticed you're very pleased to see him yourself. 1157 01:15:37,125 --> 01:15:40,208 If that was in your mind, it's better said I think you're out of your senses. 1158 01:15:42,375 --> 01:15:44,042 In a bold move for those times, 1159 01:15:44,292 --> 01:15:47,208 Ferrar is presented very much from the women's point of view 1160 01:15:47,250 --> 01:15:48,875 as a male sex object. 1161 01:15:49,958 --> 01:15:54,250 The result is a classic struggle between flesh and the spirit. 1162 01:16:01,000 --> 01:16:02,417 You can't order me about 1163 01:16:02,458 --> 01:16:04,542 you have nothing to do with me anymore. 1164 01:16:06,250 --> 01:16:09,750 When Sister Ruth puts on a red dress and red lipstick, 1165 01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:11,625 it's both a brazen act 1166 01:16:12,500 --> 01:16:14,625 and a visual shock. 1167 01:16:16,250 --> 01:16:19,167 Sex erupts into the story through the use of color. 1168 01:16:24,625 --> 01:16:28,292 These images were regarded as shockingly erotic in the 1940s, 1169 01:16:29,833 --> 01:16:33,125 when my friends and I first saw the film, it was on TV. 1170 01:16:33,167 --> 01:16:34,667 We saw it in black and white 1171 01:16:34,958 --> 01:16:37,542 in a version that had been censored by the Catholic Church, 1172 01:16:37,833 --> 01:16:39,333 but we were still kind of taken 1173 01:16:39,667 --> 01:16:42,667 and kind of amazed by the psychosexual energy of the film 1174 01:16:42,708 --> 01:16:46,917 that was inherent in the images that we were allowed to see. 1175 01:17:00,917 --> 01:17:03,625 - Ayah, wake up! - Oh, what is it? What is it? 1176 01:17:04,333 --> 01:17:05,500 It's Sister Ruth! 1177 01:17:05,542 --> 01:17:07,167 Stop her! She's gone mad! 1178 01:17:07,417 --> 01:17:08,750 Go and talk to Sister Clodagh. 1179 01:17:09,042 --> 01:17:11,083 She brought you here. She can get you back again. 1180 01:17:11,500 --> 01:17:12,792 Sister Clodagh, Sister Clodagh! 1181 01:17:12,833 --> 01:17:15,458 - You know what she says about you? - Whatever she said, it was true. 1182 01:17:15,500 --> 01:17:18,417 - You say that because you love her! - I don't love anyone! 1183 01:17:19,083 --> 01:17:21,417 Clodagh... 1184 01:17:21,500 --> 01:17:23,667 At the climax of Ruth's madness, 1185 01:17:23,708 --> 01:17:27,833 she faints, she blacks out and the whole screen is flooded with red. 1186 01:17:28,958 --> 01:17:33,042 It's a terrific way of putting into images the intensity of her passion. 1187 01:17:33,208 --> 01:17:34,875 Red, burning desire. 1188 01:17:40,875 --> 01:17:43,875 More than any of Powell Pressburger's previous films, 1189 01:17:43,917 --> 01:17:47,750 this one was an expressionistic exercise in high style. 1190 01:17:52,292 --> 01:17:55,250 And the sequence which most interested Michael 1191 01:17:55,542 --> 01:17:58,750 was a ten minute experiment in what he called 1192 01:17:59,083 --> 01:18:00,625 "composed film." 1193 01:18:03,500 --> 01:18:07,125 It's a carefully choreographed sequence of pure action, 1194 01:18:07,625 --> 01:18:10,375 no dialogue at all for the whole ten minutes. 1195 01:18:34,500 --> 01:18:36,958 The idea was that music would take the lead 1196 01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:38,875 dictating the character's movements, 1197 01:18:38,917 --> 01:18:42,750 expressing their thoughts and feelings more vividly than words ever could. 1198 01:18:54,292 --> 01:18:56,000 The music was written first 1199 01:18:56,458 --> 01:18:58,250 and then the sequence was shot 1200 01:18:58,500 --> 01:18:59,750 step by step 1201 01:19:00,417 --> 01:19:01,542 so that each shot 1202 01:19:02,167 --> 01:19:04,042 fitted the music, exactly. 1203 01:19:06,500 --> 01:19:10,042 Everything fits together into a single organic whole. 1204 01:19:11,125 --> 01:19:13,208 It turns the melodrama into opera. 1205 01:19:29,000 --> 01:19:31,417 It worked, it worked! 1206 01:19:31,917 --> 01:19:33,667 I could hardly believe my eyes. 1207 01:19:34,250 --> 01:19:37,542 Filmmaking was never the same for me again after that. 1208 01:19:37,875 --> 01:19:40,750 And when Red Shoes came up the year following, 1209 01:19:40,917 --> 01:19:44,125 we worked out the whole ballet to be a composed film. 1210 01:19:46,958 --> 01:19:51,750 The Red Shoes is a story of a girl torn between art and love. 1211 01:19:53,167 --> 01:19:55,750 Vicky Page is an ambitious young ballerina 1212 01:19:55,792 --> 01:19:59,542 who's taken up by the great impresario Lermontov. 1213 01:20:00,458 --> 01:20:04,208 But when she falls in love with the composer Julian Craster 1214 01:20:04,292 --> 01:20:05,917 her life gets ripped in two. 1215 01:20:07,208 --> 01:20:09,167 This was a project with a long history. 1216 01:20:09,958 --> 01:20:14,333 Emeric had first written a script for a ballet film back in the 1930s. 1217 01:20:14,958 --> 01:20:18,250 But the main thing that Michael was looking for now in his script 1218 01:20:18,708 --> 01:20:20,917 was opportunities to experiment. 1219 01:20:24,000 --> 01:20:27,292 His first radical decision was that he would only do the film 1220 01:20:27,333 --> 01:20:32,292 if Vicky Page was played by a real ballerina rather than an actress. 1221 01:20:33,000 --> 01:20:35,417 It was a tall order to find a great dancer 1222 01:20:35,500 --> 01:20:38,458 who could also act well enough to carry a big movie. 1223 01:20:47,208 --> 01:20:51,000 But he eventually found everything that he wanted in Moira Shearer. 1224 01:20:53,000 --> 01:20:55,500 The only trouble was that she didn't want to do the film, 1225 01:20:55,833 --> 01:20:58,250 and it took about a year to convince her. 1226 01:20:58,875 --> 01:21:01,958 She was very much a part of the ballet culture of her time. 1227 01:21:02,000 --> 01:21:04,000 And she always thought that dancing 1228 01:21:04,542 --> 01:21:07,292 was a much higher art than making movies. 1229 01:21:12,458 --> 01:21:13,500 Good luck! 1230 01:21:13,792 --> 01:21:14,792 Good luck. 1231 01:21:15,125 --> 01:21:19,000 The bravest idea of the film was to place at the heart of it, 1232 01:21:19,917 --> 01:21:21,167 an original ballet. 1233 01:21:21,792 --> 01:21:22,833 All right, Ivan. 1234 01:21:24,042 --> 01:21:25,250 Time to go down, Craster. 1235 01:21:25,292 --> 01:21:27,125 - Good luck, Mr Craster. - Thank you, Mr Lermontov. 1236 01:21:27,167 --> 01:21:28,417 - Nervous? - No. 1237 01:21:28,500 --> 01:21:29,542 Come on! 1238 01:21:30,708 --> 01:21:33,375 Stopping the story of a movie for over 15 minutes 1239 01:21:33,458 --> 01:21:35,583 to present a full length ballet? 1240 01:21:35,958 --> 01:21:37,958 This was a huge risk they were taking. 1241 01:21:40,292 --> 01:21:42,375 Nobody had ever done such a thing before 1242 01:21:42,417 --> 01:21:46,000 and no one had any idea how audiences were going to react. 1243 01:21:51,167 --> 01:21:55,500 The Ballet of The Red Shoes is based on a Hans Andersen fairytale 1244 01:21:55,583 --> 01:21:57,667 about a girl who is mad to dance. 1245 01:21:59,583 --> 01:22:03,167 The magical red shoes allow her to fulfill her dreams. 1246 01:22:03,875 --> 01:22:06,042 But when she wants to stop dancing, 1247 01:22:06,333 --> 01:22:07,625 the shoes won't let her. 1248 01:22:14,917 --> 01:22:19,375 This ballet was the part of the film that excited Michael most of all. 1249 01:22:21,708 --> 01:22:24,042 Released from the constraints of dialogue 1250 01:22:24,208 --> 01:22:26,625 he could really go to town with experimentation, 1251 01:22:26,958 --> 01:22:30,250 working freely with music, light, images, 1252 01:22:30,458 --> 01:22:32,042 movement, energy. 1253 01:22:34,708 --> 01:22:36,667 The most radical part of his conception 1254 01:22:36,708 --> 01:22:38,958 was to represent the ballet, 1255 01:22:39,208 --> 01:22:41,083 not as a theater audience would see it, 1256 01:22:41,333 --> 01:22:44,792 but as the dancer would experience it inside her head. 1257 01:22:48,167 --> 01:22:51,792 Michael used the body and the physicality of the dancer 1258 01:22:51,917 --> 01:22:54,083 to express the inner life of the dancer. 1259 01:22:57,375 --> 01:23:02,125 He used physical action to represent psychological pain. 1260 01:23:03,750 --> 01:23:05,500 And that subjective approach 1261 01:23:06,417 --> 01:23:08,000 had a very big influence on 1262 01:23:08,125 --> 01:23:11,167 what I did with the boxing scenes in Raging Bull . 1263 01:23:14,042 --> 01:23:16,333 When I watched De Niro doing his moves, 1264 01:23:16,375 --> 01:23:19,292 I saw that it was dance, it was choreography. 1265 01:23:20,500 --> 01:23:24,292 I also realized that I should stay in the ring as much as possible. 1266 01:23:24,375 --> 01:23:26,792 And stay inside the fighter's head. 1267 01:23:27,292 --> 01:23:29,333 See and hear it from his point of view. 1268 01:23:29,417 --> 01:23:32,750 ...a right to the jaw, a hard left-hand to the body thrown by LaMotta. 1269 01:23:33,583 --> 01:23:34,917 Round eight and it's anybody's... 1270 01:23:35,000 --> 01:23:37,833 That way you get the impression of the fight, 1271 01:23:39,000 --> 01:23:41,833 the battle, the struggle, the suffering. 1272 01:23:43,500 --> 01:23:46,083 But you're also free to do whatever you want visually, 1273 01:23:46,292 --> 01:23:48,167 to communicate what Jake is feeling. 1274 01:23:48,208 --> 01:23:51,083 A hard left hand to the body, Robinson is driven out of the ring... 1275 01:23:51,667 --> 01:23:53,792 How he perceives things in the ring. 1276 01:23:55,000 --> 01:23:56,625 Which makes it very personal. 1277 01:24:08,542 --> 01:24:10,708 LaMotta has taken charge of the fight, 1278 01:24:10,750 --> 01:24:13,750 the undefeated Sugar Ray, his winning ways are in jeopardy. 1279 01:24:13,792 --> 01:24:15,000 LaMotta coming at him again. 1280 01:24:15,292 --> 01:24:16,875 LaMotta, feigning left hand... 1281 01:24:18,542 --> 01:24:20,542 At the end of the ballet of The Red Shoes , 1282 01:24:20,625 --> 01:24:23,083 the dancer's passion carries her to her doom. 1283 01:24:27,042 --> 01:24:30,500 The ballet is an ecstatic celebration of the glory of art. 1284 01:24:31,000 --> 01:24:33,750 But it also says that being an artist 1285 01:24:34,750 --> 01:24:35,750 will destroy you. 1286 01:24:40,208 --> 01:24:43,917 It says that a true artist makes art 1287 01:24:44,375 --> 01:24:45,750 not because they want to 1288 01:24:46,708 --> 01:24:48,500 but because they have to. 1289 01:24:49,458 --> 01:24:52,417 It's not a choice, but a compulsion. 1290 01:24:55,458 --> 01:25:00,250 Of course, what made Red Shoes unique was that it was about art 1291 01:25:00,292 --> 01:25:01,833 and nothing but art. 1292 01:25:01,917 --> 01:25:04,292 And nothing but art, the best of art, would do. 1293 01:25:06,542 --> 01:25:09,000 There's something of both Michael and Emeric 1294 01:25:09,042 --> 01:25:12,500 in the film's most obsessive character, Boris Lermontov 1295 01:25:14,792 --> 01:25:19,292 Powell Pressburger films often deal with egocentric, volatile 1296 01:25:19,542 --> 01:25:21,417 addictive personalities. 1297 01:25:22,417 --> 01:25:25,833 But these characters speak to me and it may be obvious that many 1298 01:25:25,917 --> 01:25:29,458 of the characters that I'm drawn to are influenced by Powell's heroes. 1299 01:25:30,375 --> 01:25:34,917 They too are antiheroes, broken people driven by conflicts. 1300 01:25:35,167 --> 01:25:37,500 Strangely, I can even see 1301 01:25:37,875 --> 01:25:41,083 something of an affinity between Lermontov and Travis, 1302 01:25:41,125 --> 01:25:42,875 Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver 1303 01:25:43,042 --> 01:25:45,708 because they're both characters on the edge of things. 1304 01:25:45,958 --> 01:25:48,625 Listening, observing other people 1305 01:25:49,000 --> 01:25:51,000 always on the verge of exploding. 1306 01:26:40,833 --> 01:26:42,292 Good evening, Mr Craster. 1307 01:26:43,250 --> 01:26:45,458 Won't they be missing you at the Covent Garden tonight? 1308 01:26:45,542 --> 01:26:47,417 [She speaks French] 1309 01:26:47,667 --> 01:26:49,750 Oh, for God's sake, leave me alone, both of you. 1310 01:26:49,917 --> 01:26:52,750 Please Julian, wait until after the performance. 1311 01:26:53,083 --> 01:26:54,333 It'll be too late then. 1312 01:26:54,417 --> 01:26:56,708 You are already too late, Mr Craster. 1313 01:26:57,667 --> 01:26:58,875 Tell him why you've left him. 1314 01:26:58,958 --> 01:27:00,875 - I haven't left him. - Oh, yes, you have left him. 1315 01:27:00,917 --> 01:27:03,667 Nobody can have two lives and your life is dancing. 1316 01:27:03,833 --> 01:27:07,333 What makes the drama of The Red Shoes so compelling to me is the fact 1317 01:27:07,375 --> 01:27:12,042 that all three of the main characters are driven and tortured people. 1318 01:27:12,917 --> 01:27:14,167 Well, Vicky... 1319 01:27:14,625 --> 01:27:16,167 I love you, Julian. 1320 01:27:16,333 --> 01:27:17,667 Nobody but you. 1321 01:27:21,458 --> 01:27:22,833 But you love that more. 1322 01:27:24,042 --> 01:27:25,208 I don't know! 1323 01:27:25,542 --> 01:27:26,708 I don't know... 1324 01:27:29,375 --> 01:27:32,500 if you go with him now, I will never take you back. Never! 1325 01:27:34,292 --> 01:27:35,917 Do you want to destroy our love? 1326 01:27:36,042 --> 01:27:38,083 Adolescent nonsense! 1327 01:27:39,042 --> 01:27:42,250 Alright, go then, go with him! 1328 01:27:42,292 --> 01:27:45,000 Be a faithful housewife! 1329 01:27:45,667 --> 01:27:48,292 Of course, a scene like this is very risky. 1330 01:27:48,792 --> 01:27:51,208 The performances are pushed to the extreme 1331 01:27:52,125 --> 01:27:55,667 and it's easy to regard the whole thing as trashy, pulp material. 1332 01:27:57,458 --> 01:28:01,583 But I see it as an impulsive and instinctive heightening of reality. 1333 01:28:02,000 --> 01:28:03,625 Life is so unimportant. 1334 01:28:06,250 --> 01:28:10,708 And from now onwards, you will dance! 1335 01:28:11,708 --> 01:28:13,542 Like nobody ever before. 1336 01:28:23,792 --> 01:28:27,667 Eventually life and art come together 1337 01:28:28,208 --> 01:28:31,500 and the red shoes acquire the same power in life 1338 01:28:32,250 --> 01:28:33,500 that they had in the ballet. 1339 01:28:36,500 --> 01:28:41,167 I will never forget that most vivid image of Moira Shearer's eyes. 1340 01:28:41,417 --> 01:28:43,458 When the shoes begin to take her away. 1341 01:28:48,250 --> 01:28:50,125 Her face, grotesque, 1342 01:28:52,333 --> 01:28:55,042 echoes of an ancient tragic mask. 1343 01:28:59,583 --> 01:29:02,417 It's so bold and flamboyant and extreme. 1344 01:29:02,583 --> 01:29:06,833 I liked, I like that it sometimes seems out of control. 1345 01:29:07,875 --> 01:29:10,000 Not the emotions of the characters, 1346 01:29:10,042 --> 01:29:12,500 but the emotions of the people who made the film. 1347 01:29:12,708 --> 01:29:14,250 Their passion's out of control. 1348 01:29:15,208 --> 01:29:18,208 And their total commitment to their fairytale story 1349 01:29:18,250 --> 01:29:20,583 creates an unforgettable climax. 1350 01:29:22,500 --> 01:29:23,625 No! 1351 01:29:30,917 --> 01:29:34,792 Why do you think it was so important for you to show somebody dying for their art? 1352 01:29:35,042 --> 01:29:37,042 I think because I would do it myself. 1353 01:29:37,708 --> 01:29:39,208 - Really? - Mm. 1354 01:29:42,958 --> 01:29:43,958 You don’t believe me. 1355 01:29:46,875 --> 01:29:50,250 When the executives of Rank saw The Red Shoes , they hated it. 1356 01:29:50,917 --> 01:29:54,667 The company was increasingly in the hands of bureaucrats and money men 1357 01:29:54,958 --> 01:29:58,542 who saw it as a disastrously uncommercial art movie. 1358 01:29:59,167 --> 01:30:00,292 'RED SHOES' GETS ROUSING WELCOME FROM N.Y. CRITICS 1359 01:30:00,333 --> 01:30:03,708 It was two Americans, Bob Benjamin and Arthur Krim 1360 01:30:04,333 --> 01:30:06,708 who transformed the fortunes of the picture 1361 01:30:07,083 --> 01:30:10,333 by running it continuously in a single theater in New York. 1362 01:30:10,375 --> 01:30:11,792 THE RED SHOES ARE STILL DANCING ON BROADWAY AFTER 2 YEARS! 1363 01:30:11,833 --> 01:30:15,833 From there, he went on to become The Archers' most popular film. 1364 01:30:15,958 --> 01:30:18,750 One of the greatest and most successful pictures ever made. 1365 01:30:20,417 --> 01:30:24,125 For me, it's the ultimate subversive commercial movie. 1366 01:30:25,042 --> 01:30:27,292 It's the epitome of everything that I admire most 1367 01:30:27,375 --> 01:30:28,583 about Powell and Pressburger. 1368 01:30:29,958 --> 01:30:32,958 It is utterly satisfying as popular entertainment 1369 01:30:33,333 --> 01:30:36,292 but also wildly inventive, profound, 1370 01:30:36,333 --> 01:30:39,292 complex and not at all comforting. 1371 01:30:41,000 --> 01:30:44,083 It's a film that has been gloriously vindicated by history. 1372 01:30:44,958 --> 01:30:46,833 But back in 1949 1373 01:30:46,875 --> 01:30:50,708 Michael and Emeric were so disgusted by the way that Rank treated the picture 1374 01:30:51,458 --> 01:30:53,167 that they split from the company. 1375 01:30:56,042 --> 01:30:59,875 They crossed over to London Films and linked up once again with Alex Korda. 1376 01:31:00,375 --> 01:31:03,625 Alex was the most pleasant, 1377 01:31:03,667 --> 01:31:05,833 fun-loving creature 1378 01:31:06,292 --> 01:31:08,083 who could charm money out, 1379 01:31:08,167 --> 01:31:12,375 not only those who had the money, but strangely, 1380 01:31:13,083 --> 01:31:16,458 also of people, some people who had no money at all. 1381 01:31:16,500 --> 01:31:18,917 Which, of course, ended in disaster. 1382 01:31:25,750 --> 01:31:29,167 The Small Back Room was the first film they made under their new deal. 1383 01:31:30,000 --> 01:31:33,042 And it represented another startling change in direction. 1384 01:31:33,917 --> 01:31:37,708 Having just made a huge Technicolor masterpiece, 1385 01:31:37,917 --> 01:31:40,917 Michael now decided, naturally, that he wanted to make 1386 01:31:41,458 --> 01:31:42,833 a small black and white picture. 1387 01:31:43,917 --> 01:31:47,000 "I needed to escape from romance into reality" 1388 01:31:47,250 --> 01:31:48,250 is how he put it. 1389 01:31:52,167 --> 01:31:54,375 The reality, of course, is what The Archers 1390 01:31:54,417 --> 01:31:56,042 were always accused of avoiding. 1391 01:31:56,125 --> 01:31:58,583 So they now faced up squarely to their critics 1392 01:31:58,750 --> 01:32:03,083 by taking a journey through a bleak succession of blacked-out streets, 1393 01:32:03,375 --> 01:32:04,708 crowded pubs, 1394 01:32:04,958 --> 01:32:06,333 desolate flats 1395 01:32:06,625 --> 01:32:08,333 and stuffy offices. 1396 01:32:09,875 --> 01:32:12,042 What excited Michael most about the film though, 1397 01:32:12,083 --> 01:32:14,708 was the troubled psychology of the characters, 1398 01:32:15,333 --> 01:32:18,000 drawn from Nigel Balchin's original novel. 1399 01:32:19,917 --> 01:32:20,958 I must have a drink. 1400 01:32:22,083 --> 01:32:23,375 Ask me to have a drink, woman. 1401 01:32:23,625 --> 01:32:24,750 Have a drink, Sammy. 1402 01:32:26,500 --> 01:32:27,500 Whiskey? 1403 01:32:30,583 --> 01:32:34,458 No, thanks, Susan. I'll have some of my nice medicine. 1404 01:32:37,708 --> 01:32:41,917 Sammy, the central character is a munitions expert 1405 01:32:42,000 --> 01:32:45,292 who's lost a foot, and now wears a prosthetic. 1406 01:32:46,375 --> 01:32:48,083 Why don't you take the thing off? 1407 01:32:50,375 --> 01:32:51,583 You know that helps. 1408 01:32:52,000 --> 01:32:53,042 No. 1409 01:32:56,083 --> 01:32:57,333 You do when you're alone. 1410 01:32:58,333 --> 01:33:00,208 Why will you keep it on when I'm here? 1411 01:33:07,583 --> 01:33:09,042 It's all right now. 1412 01:33:10,250 --> 01:33:14,292 You must realize that you can have ideas that'll win the war four times over... 1413 01:33:14,500 --> 01:33:17,458 but it still won't do anybody any good unless you can sell them. 1414 01:33:17,917 --> 01:33:20,792 We're not in a university department now. 1415 01:33:20,833 --> 01:33:23,417 No, nor in an advertising agency, where you belong. 1416 01:33:23,667 --> 01:33:24,667 Now look here, Sammy, 1417 01:33:24,875 --> 01:33:27,917 You may think you're a great big scientist and I'm just a commercial stooge... 1418 01:33:27,958 --> 01:33:30,542 But the plain fact is if you make a mess of things, I have to clear it up. 1419 01:33:30,583 --> 01:33:31,625 And the equally plain fact 1420 01:33:31,667 --> 01:33:34,375 is the stuff you build a reputation on comes chiefly out of my head! 1421 01:33:34,417 --> 01:33:37,667 I'm not a politician or a salesman, but neither am I a kid of ten. 1422 01:33:42,958 --> 01:33:45,375 Sammy's frequently in physical pain 1423 01:33:45,667 --> 01:33:49,500 and this feeds a craving for whiskey that he struggles to control. 1424 01:33:49,542 --> 01:33:50,583 Sammy? 1425 01:33:53,417 --> 01:33:56,917 You could run the section yourself. Even Pinker says so. 1426 01:33:57,333 --> 01:33:58,875 But you just won't face things. 1427 01:33:59,583 --> 01:34:02,583 You go on being sorry for yourself with everything in the world to live for. 1428 01:34:03,458 --> 01:34:05,792 But what's so special about only having one foot? 1429 01:34:05,833 --> 01:34:07,500 You just haven't got the guts! 1430 01:34:08,792 --> 01:34:11,333 - Will you shut up? - Every word I said is true. 1431 01:34:11,708 --> 01:34:14,042 Oh, Sammy, you're such a fool. 1432 01:34:15,208 --> 01:34:16,917 Why don't you pull yourself together, Sue? 1433 01:34:17,375 --> 01:34:19,042 You're making an ass of yourself. 1434 01:34:22,333 --> 01:34:25,292 Next time you just decide to go home when we're out together 1435 01:34:26,000 --> 01:34:27,833 I'd be obliged if you'd tell me. 1436 01:34:30,208 --> 01:34:33,292 The Archers demonstrated here that if they chose 1437 01:34:33,708 --> 01:34:35,292 they could do heartfelt work 1438 01:34:35,750 --> 01:34:37,750 in the British realist tradition. 1439 01:34:38,583 --> 01:34:41,875 Reining in their instincts for fantasy and comedy 1440 01:34:42,125 --> 01:34:44,958 and focusing instead on the emotional truth 1441 01:34:45,083 --> 01:34:46,708 of a complicated love story. 1442 01:34:50,875 --> 01:34:54,292 I've been thinking, if you really think I'm such a poor sap as you said tonight... 1443 01:34:55,458 --> 01:34:57,083 we'd better get out of each other's way. 1444 01:34:59,250 --> 01:35:01,167 The same thought had occurred to me. 1445 01:35:07,375 --> 01:35:10,333 The finished film is full of anger, and anguish 1446 01:35:11,083 --> 01:35:12,208 and the critics loved it. 1447 01:35:12,250 --> 01:35:14,417 Well, get out of it! 1448 01:35:17,750 --> 01:35:21,167 The only trouble was that audiences just weren't interested. 1449 01:35:22,875 --> 01:35:24,292 They didn't want grim stories 1450 01:35:24,333 --> 01:35:26,917 which harked back to the miseries of the war years. 1451 01:35:28,917 --> 01:35:30,750 So instead of being a new beginning, 1452 01:35:31,542 --> 01:35:34,708 The Small Back Room proved to be a dead end. 1453 01:35:41,250 --> 01:35:42,833 In characteristic fashion, 1454 01:35:43,333 --> 01:35:47,000 the pair now bounced from the bleakest picture they had ever made 1455 01:35:47,083 --> 01:35:49,083 into their most frivolous film to date. 1456 01:35:53,792 --> 01:35:57,208 Alexander Korda had directed a very profitable version 1457 01:35:57,250 --> 01:36:00,417 of The Scarlet Pimpernel back in the 1930s. 1458 01:36:01,708 --> 01:36:05,792 And he now wanted it remade as a Technicolor spectacular. 1459 01:36:08,583 --> 01:36:10,958 Sam Goldwyn would bring in the Hollywood money. 1460 01:36:11,167 --> 01:36:14,292 And for the first time in their partnership, Powell and Pressburger 1461 01:36:14,375 --> 01:36:17,500 found themselves doing something that neither of them wanted to do, 1462 01:36:17,708 --> 01:36:20,208 a remake of a worn out classic. 1463 01:36:20,500 --> 01:36:23,500 Nobody can help you, not even your government. 1464 01:36:25,583 --> 01:36:26,875 Now, what do you say? 1465 01:36:31,250 --> 01:36:32,958 You seem to have thought of everything. 1466 01:36:34,375 --> 01:36:36,208 Nothing is left of me now, but to say... 1467 01:36:39,125 --> 01:36:40,250 congratulations. 1468 01:36:41,375 --> 01:36:42,792 You're very kind, Sir Percy. 1469 01:36:43,167 --> 01:36:47,292 They decided that the only thing to do with the corny old Pimpernel story 1470 01:36:47,542 --> 01:36:50,542 was to transform it into an exuberant entertainment 1471 01:36:50,750 --> 01:36:53,375 by filling it with comedy and music. 1472 01:37:00,500 --> 01:37:03,125 There's an impudent cinematic joke when Cyril Cusack 1473 01:37:03,208 --> 01:37:05,333 finds himself sneezing uncontrollably, 1474 01:37:05,375 --> 01:37:07,542 and when he sneezes, they cut to fireworks. 1475 01:37:08,125 --> 01:37:10,167 It's the most startling imagery and editing, 1476 01:37:10,208 --> 01:37:11,667 it's got nothing to do with the story. 1477 01:37:11,708 --> 01:37:12,750 I mean, it's not as though 1478 01:37:12,792 --> 01:37:14,917 there are fireworks going on outside the walls in the movie. 1479 01:37:14,958 --> 01:37:18,000 It's simply a visual metaphor coming right out of the blue. 1480 01:37:18,375 --> 01:37:21,167 You know, I think you-- Actually, you could trace it back 1481 01:37:21,500 --> 01:37:23,708 to early silent films 1482 01:37:23,917 --> 01:37:27,000 where often you could see what a person's hearing. 1483 01:37:36,875 --> 01:37:39,000 Or it's like an experiment in avant garde film 1484 01:37:39,042 --> 01:37:40,917 where anything can happen with images. 1485 01:37:41,042 --> 01:37:43,458 But for Michael and Emeric to be doing this here 1486 01:37:43,875 --> 01:37:44,917 in the middle of a drama, 1487 01:37:45,625 --> 01:37:49,167 for me, it represents their pure enjoyment in just making movies. 1488 01:37:51,125 --> 01:37:52,792 But back in 1950 1489 01:37:53,000 --> 01:37:55,542 you didn't make fun of the plot in an adventure story. 1490 01:37:56,083 --> 01:37:58,500 And Sam Goldwyn hated them for it. 1491 01:37:58,750 --> 01:38:03,000 All he wanted was a color version of the original picture. 1492 01:38:03,750 --> 01:38:07,917 So they had to do reshoots and re-edits And the result was a miserable 1493 01:38:08,292 --> 01:38:10,708 compromise which satisfied nobody. 1494 01:38:15,833 --> 01:38:18,000 In the same difficult year of 1950, 1495 01:38:18,125 --> 01:38:21,625 They entered into another co-production with another big Hollywood producer, 1496 01:38:21,708 --> 01:38:23,125 David Selznick. 1497 01:38:24,333 --> 01:38:27,125 This time, the film was Gone to Earth , 1498 01:38:27,750 --> 01:38:30,375 a steamy tale of Shropshire folk 1499 01:38:30,750 --> 01:38:32,625 based on a novel by Mary Webb. 1500 01:38:34,167 --> 01:38:36,500 Selznick wanted the movie to be a showcase 1501 01:38:36,542 --> 01:38:38,458 for his new wife Jennifer Jones, 1502 01:38:38,750 --> 01:38:40,500 who turned out to be terrific. 1503 01:38:41,500 --> 01:38:44,083 We were delighted to have Jennifer Jones. 1504 01:38:44,250 --> 01:38:46,542 Not so delighted with Selznick. 1505 01:38:47,125 --> 01:38:48,792 He was madly in love with her. 1506 01:38:49,292 --> 01:38:51,792 And intensely possessive. 1507 01:38:52,292 --> 01:38:54,708 And also afraid to come on the set when she was there 1508 01:38:54,750 --> 01:38:56,458 because she would throw something at him. 1509 01:38:56,917 --> 01:38:58,958 And so you can, 1510 01:38:59,000 --> 01:39:02,875 you were continually conscious of a glaring eyeball from behind the set. 1511 01:39:03,417 --> 01:39:06,542 Gone to earth! 1512 01:39:06,667 --> 01:39:09,417 Gone to Earth is a kind of gothic masterpiece. 1513 01:39:09,833 --> 01:39:12,375 It's full of Michael's deep feeling for the land, 1514 01:39:12,583 --> 01:39:16,583 the natural world and the rituals of English country life. 1515 01:39:42,042 --> 01:39:43,667 "When at once, a little of midnight 1516 01:39:44,583 --> 01:39:48,167 climbed to the steepest stones on the top of God's little mountain. 1517 01:39:50,500 --> 01:39:52,833 lay your shawl on the devil's chair 1518 01:39:54,083 --> 01:39:55,375 and walk around it. 1519 01:39:58,667 --> 01:39:59,875 Ask your wish." 1520 01:40:01,125 --> 01:40:03,250 If I be to go to "Hunter's Spinney..." 1521 01:40:04,458 --> 01:40:05,750 If I be to go... 1522 01:40:06,958 --> 01:40:08,833 let me hear the fairy music. 1523 01:40:55,125 --> 01:40:58,958 Jennifer Jones' character Hazel is a wild thing 1524 01:40:59,375 --> 01:41:01,542 in a world of traps and snares. 1525 01:41:04,208 --> 01:41:05,458 They're after us, Foxy. 1526 01:41:13,167 --> 01:41:14,250 Which way are they headin'? 1527 01:41:14,333 --> 01:41:15,958 "Hunter's Spinney"! This way! 1528 01:41:16,125 --> 01:41:18,542 - They'll pull you down! - Drop it, they'll pull you down! 1529 01:41:19,208 --> 01:41:21,167 Give her to me, you little fool, give her to me! 1530 01:41:21,875 --> 01:41:27,375 Gone to earth! 1531 01:41:27,458 --> 01:41:31,833 The trouble was that Selznick then refused to accept the film that they delivered. 1532 01:41:32,208 --> 01:41:35,208 At the end, his conception of the film... 1533 01:41:36,167 --> 01:41:37,167 was different. 1534 01:41:37,542 --> 01:41:40,208 And he wanted us to make changes and we didn't. 1535 01:41:40,292 --> 01:41:42,792 And he had the film for North America. 1536 01:41:42,833 --> 01:41:45,375 So he shot extra scenes with Jennifer, 1537 01:41:45,458 --> 01:41:47,667 I think Rouben Mamoulian shot them. 1538 01:41:48,708 --> 01:41:54,333 Selznick ended up suing them and releasing his own version called The Wild Heart . 1539 01:41:54,833 --> 01:41:56,333 So The Archer's two attempts 1540 01:41:56,375 --> 01:41:58,750 to make commercial pictures with Hollywood producers 1541 01:41:59,167 --> 01:42:03,125 both turned into a shambles of recrimination and lawsuits. 1542 01:42:04,208 --> 01:42:07,875 The switch from wartime idealism to peacetime commercialism 1543 01:42:08,083 --> 01:42:10,250 was proving to be very tough. 1544 01:42:11,583 --> 01:42:14,500 Creatively speaking, everything was going awry 1545 01:42:14,792 --> 01:42:19,625 and the partners urgently needed to get back to making their own kind of pictures. 1546 01:42:24,042 --> 01:42:27,042 It was the conductor Mr Thomas Beecham 1547 01:42:27,083 --> 01:42:30,833 who proposed a film of Offenbach's opera, TALES OF HOFFMANN . 1548 01:42:31,625 --> 01:42:33,542 And Emeric seized on the idea. 1549 01:42:34,417 --> 01:42:36,833 Music was always his first love among the arts. 1550 01:42:37,750 --> 01:42:42,375 Emeric also found a fellow spirit in the German writer Hoffmann. 1551 01:42:42,500 --> 01:42:47,292 They had a shared taste for the magical, the morbid and the fantastical. 1552 01:42:49,500 --> 01:42:54,625 In the first tale, Hoffmann falls in love with a mechanical doll, Olympia. 1553 01:42:56,208 --> 01:42:58,458 That young fellow there, I vow 1554 01:42:58,500 --> 01:43:00,542 Very soon will pop the question 1555 01:43:00,583 --> 01:43:05,625 My friend indeed 1556 01:43:27,667 --> 01:43:29,292 What excited Michael here 1557 01:43:29,583 --> 01:43:33,292 was the radical idea of rethinking opera as cinema 1558 01:43:33,875 --> 01:43:36,208 by transforming it into dance. 1559 01:43:36,375 --> 01:43:39,667 Birds in woodland ways Are winging... 1560 01:43:39,708 --> 01:43:42,708 He cast dancers, rather than singers, in key parts. 1561 01:43:43,542 --> 01:43:45,667 This brought the stories to life visually 1562 01:43:46,083 --> 01:43:49,667 and drove the production towards Michael's ideal of a film 1563 01:43:49,750 --> 01:43:51,500 in which everything is choreographed. 1564 01:44:11,208 --> 01:44:13,250 The whole thing was shot like a silent movie 1565 01:44:13,292 --> 01:44:15,333 with music always played back on the set. 1566 01:44:15,500 --> 01:44:17,458 So the performers and the crew 1567 01:44:17,917 --> 01:44:19,625 were all under the spell of it. 1568 01:44:23,458 --> 01:44:27,500 Of course, movement itself is central to the art of motion pictures. 1569 01:44:27,750 --> 01:44:29,708 I love the way a camera can move. 1570 01:44:30,292 --> 01:44:32,458 I love cutting from one movement to another. 1571 01:44:33,208 --> 01:44:36,875 And in those special moments when everything is moving just right, 1572 01:44:38,250 --> 01:44:40,792 whether you're on the set or you're in the editing room, 1573 01:44:41,000 --> 01:44:43,792 you feel possessed by a very powerful energy. 1574 01:44:47,167 --> 01:44:49,750 When I'm asked out of all movies, what is your favorite scene? 1575 01:44:50,917 --> 01:44:52,792 I always think about the sword fight 1576 01:44:52,917 --> 01:44:54,958 in the Gondola in Hoffmann . 1577 01:45:06,708 --> 01:45:09,000 It's so supple and fluid. 1578 01:45:10,167 --> 01:45:13,458 Thoroughly, physical and entirely dreamlike. 1579 01:45:16,167 --> 01:45:17,625 There's no sound effects at all. 1580 01:45:19,208 --> 01:45:20,583 It's both very immediate 1581 01:45:21,792 --> 01:45:22,792 and very distant. 1582 01:45:29,542 --> 01:45:32,042 And it's something that no other art form can do. 1583 01:45:33,000 --> 01:45:34,042 It's pure film. 1584 01:45:50,833 --> 01:45:55,208 Practically every technique known to movies is employed in Hoffmann 1585 01:45:55,375 --> 01:45:59,708 and there's absolutely no respect for conventional continuity. 1586 01:46:06,167 --> 01:46:08,083 The film keeps surpassing itself 1587 01:46:08,167 --> 01:46:10,583 with the surreal and surprising nature of its imagery. 1588 01:46:11,292 --> 01:46:16,000 You get broad theatrical effects combined with perfect cinematic detail. 1589 01:46:16,833 --> 01:46:19,167 Like the movement of Olympia's eyes here. 1590 01:46:23,375 --> 01:46:26,125 And the eyes are choreographed too, just like everything else. 1591 01:46:28,458 --> 01:46:31,542 I always noticed that, particularly with Robert Helpmann's eyes 1592 01:46:32,250 --> 01:46:33,292 just a glance 1593 01:46:33,750 --> 01:46:35,750 and it's as if he danced five steps. 1594 01:46:39,208 --> 01:46:42,625 One of Michael's favorite mantras was "All Art is One". 1595 01:46:43,458 --> 01:46:45,000 Because he believed that in a film, 1596 01:46:45,208 --> 01:46:49,458 you could bring together literature, music, dance, drama and design 1597 01:46:49,875 --> 01:46:54,667 to create a kind of total cinema that would transcend the traditional arts. 1598 01:46:57,500 --> 01:47:00,708 The Tales of Hoffmann is the closest that he got to achieving that. 1599 01:47:04,000 --> 01:47:08,917 It also represented the fulfillment of all his most adventurous ideas. 1600 01:47:09,875 --> 01:47:13,000 I mean, the whole thing is both a composed film 1601 01:47:13,292 --> 01:47:16,208 like the 10 minute experiment in Black Narcissus 1602 01:47:16,542 --> 01:47:21,333 and a surreal psychodrama, like the ballet in The Red Shoes . 1603 01:47:23,542 --> 01:47:26,792 The result is a film that performs like a symphony. 1604 01:47:26,833 --> 01:47:29,125 You can watch it over and over again, 1605 01:47:29,292 --> 01:47:31,250 discovering new things each time. 1606 01:47:34,417 --> 01:47:37,750 It's as close to pure expression as cinema can get. 1607 01:47:37,958 --> 01:47:39,750 Just image after image 1608 01:47:39,833 --> 01:47:43,542 designed to communicate feelings in a very explicit way. 1609 01:48:06,083 --> 01:48:08,250 History was made in New York last weekend, 1610 01:48:08,292 --> 01:48:10,792 as for the first time, the Metropolitan Opera House 1611 01:48:10,833 --> 01:48:12,250 was turned into a cinema. 1612 01:48:12,792 --> 01:48:14,875 And the reason was Tales of Hoffmann , 1613 01:48:15,083 --> 01:48:18,667 a new British picture from London Films, given its world premiere 1614 01:48:18,708 --> 01:48:21,542 at a gala social occasion in aid of the Red Cross. 1615 01:48:24,292 --> 01:48:26,250 After the big premiere in New York, 1616 01:48:26,875 --> 01:48:31,083 Powell and Pressburger got a letter of congratulations from one of their heroes, 1617 01:48:31,292 --> 01:48:32,458 Cecil B DeMille. 1618 01:48:32,500 --> 01:48:34,375 I THANK YOU FOR OUSTANDING COURAGE AND ARTISTRY 1619 01:48:36,875 --> 01:48:40,125 But a painful controversy developed when the film was shown at Cannes, 1620 01:48:40,875 --> 01:48:44,375 Alex Korda thought the third act was slow and dull 1621 01:48:44,583 --> 01:48:45,833 and it ought to be cut out. 1622 01:48:46,667 --> 01:48:48,625 Michael adamantly refused, 1623 01:48:49,000 --> 01:48:51,000 but he felt that Emeric was siding with Korda. 1624 01:48:51,500 --> 01:48:52,625 And he took this badly. 1625 01:48:53,333 --> 01:48:55,875 It was the last time that Michael would work with Korda. 1626 01:48:56,708 --> 01:48:57,792 Or worse than that, 1627 01:48:58,417 --> 01:49:03,333 it shook the firm foundations of trust between him and Emeric. 1628 01:49:07,292 --> 01:49:09,708 There was now a grim period of three years 1629 01:49:09,750 --> 01:49:12,750 during which the partners didn't make a single film together. 1630 01:49:14,250 --> 01:49:16,708 Michael was full of ambitious ideas, 1631 01:49:16,917 --> 01:49:18,958 but he insisted on creative freedom. 1632 01:49:20,292 --> 01:49:21,625 And who would give him that now 1633 01:49:21,667 --> 01:49:24,417 that he's burned his bridges with Korda and Rank? 1634 01:49:29,417 --> 01:49:33,792 Frustrated and restless, he spent a lot of time traveling the world. 1635 01:49:35,333 --> 01:49:37,417 He was a celebrity, an important man, 1636 01:49:37,458 --> 01:49:40,917 but he was not sure what to do with himself anymore. 1637 01:49:42,083 --> 01:49:44,792 Michael dreamed of adventurous productions with great artists, 1638 01:49:44,833 --> 01:49:46,292 maybe financed by television. 1639 01:49:46,958 --> 01:49:49,208 And one idea was a story from the Odyssey 1640 01:49:49,292 --> 01:49:52,333 starring Orson Welles with a libretto by Dylan Thomas, 1641 01:49:52,667 --> 01:49:54,083 and music by Stravinsky. 1642 01:49:56,292 --> 01:49:58,375 Emeric was always the more practical of the two. 1643 01:49:58,417 --> 01:50:01,000 He went back to Korda to direct a film on his own. 1644 01:50:01,667 --> 01:50:04,917 This was a tale for children called Twice Upon a Time . 1645 01:50:05,750 --> 01:50:07,208 But it was not a success. 1646 01:50:09,583 --> 01:50:13,417 The shaken and embattled partnership tried to recover their momentum 1647 01:50:13,708 --> 01:50:15,333 with all kinds of new projects. 1648 01:50:16,250 --> 01:50:18,083 But they couldn't get anything off the ground. 1649 01:50:22,083 --> 01:50:24,542 There just wasn't much money around for British film production 1650 01:50:24,625 --> 01:50:26,250 in the early fifties, and it was hard 1651 01:50:26,542 --> 01:50:29,417 to make any kind of deal without losing their independence. 1652 01:50:29,708 --> 01:50:32,292 I mean, you want to make a picture and you want to get the money, 1653 01:50:32,375 --> 01:50:35,542 well, you know, you go everywhere you talk to everybody, you do what you can. 1654 01:50:35,583 --> 01:50:38,625 But Michael and Emeric weren't used to working that way. 1655 01:50:39,375 --> 01:50:41,333 They wanted to hang on to their independence 1656 01:50:41,542 --> 01:50:42,917 and they suffered because of it. 1657 01:50:45,125 --> 01:50:48,917 The stress and strain seemed to drag the two men in opposite directions, 1658 01:50:49,208 --> 01:50:52,292 with Michael becoming more idealistic and combative 1659 01:50:52,333 --> 01:50:56,750 while Emeric grew more disappointed and frustrated. 1660 01:50:58,750 --> 01:51:02,958 Eventually they scraped together the wherewithal to make Oh... Rosalinda!! 1661 01:51:03,458 --> 01:51:05,542 An updating of Die Fledermaus 1662 01:51:05,708 --> 01:51:07,875 set in contemporary Vienna. 1663 01:51:08,500 --> 01:51:12,042 The slogan of the movie suited their mood at the time: 1664 01:51:12,375 --> 01:51:15,250 "The situation is hopeless but not serious." 1665 01:51:15,708 --> 01:51:16,792 It seems to me 1666 01:51:17,750 --> 01:51:18,792 with great respect 1667 01:51:18,958 --> 01:51:21,750 to have happened like this! 1668 01:51:29,167 --> 01:51:32,958 The film starts off promisingly with an utterly distinctive design 1669 01:51:33,333 --> 01:51:36,250 and some characteristically ambitious ideas. 1670 01:51:38,708 --> 01:51:41,458 But it never quite lives up to that early promise. 1671 01:51:58,250 --> 01:51:59,667 Rosalinda! 1672 01:52:00,500 --> 01:52:04,042 It is not a composed film, like their best musical works, 1673 01:52:04,500 --> 01:52:06,958 but something looser and less disciplined. 1674 01:52:07,292 --> 01:52:09,125 And I think they never really had the money 1675 01:52:09,167 --> 01:52:12,042 that they needed to carry through their ideas with conviction 1676 01:52:15,417 --> 01:52:19,500 and the champagne that the film offers mostly turns out to be flat 1677 01:52:19,708 --> 01:52:20,958 rather than sparkling. 1678 01:52:24,417 --> 01:52:26,750 The British public, certainly disappointed Emeric 1679 01:52:26,792 --> 01:52:29,917 by refusing to share his very European taste for operetta. 1680 01:52:30,875 --> 01:52:34,833 And the partners were by now desperately in need of some kind of success. 1681 01:52:36,917 --> 01:52:40,250 The next job they took on was an old-fashioned war movie called 1682 01:52:40,708 --> 01:52:42,167 The Battle of the River Plate. 1683 01:52:43,958 --> 01:52:46,708 Michael had a great time shooting it because he was allowed 1684 01:52:46,750 --> 01:52:49,042 to take command of a large fleet of warships 1685 01:52:49,333 --> 01:52:52,792 in order to get the film's magnificent shots of ships at sea. 1686 01:53:03,208 --> 01:53:06,500 What gave the images their spectacular impact on the screen 1687 01:53:06,917 --> 01:53:10,458 was the fact that they were shot in the new widescreen format of VistaVision 1688 01:53:10,583 --> 01:53:12,667 which was like the IMAX of its day. 1689 01:53:13,750 --> 01:53:16,167 You sat in the cinema and you felt like you were on the deck 1690 01:53:16,250 --> 01:53:17,292 of one of those ships. 1691 01:53:20,208 --> 01:53:22,625 The scale and clarity of it was magical. 1692 01:53:29,667 --> 01:53:33,250 And out of nowhere, the pair suddenly had a box office hit again. 1693 01:53:33,583 --> 01:53:37,042 The Empire Theater in Leicester Square was the magnet that drew a vast crowd 1694 01:53:37,125 --> 01:53:39,542 of Londoners who came to see all they could 1695 01:53:39,583 --> 01:53:41,583 of those attending the Royal Film Performance. 1696 01:53:41,917 --> 01:53:44,083 Young French star Brigitte Bardot, for example. 1697 01:53:46,000 --> 01:53:49,917 And Mrs Arthur Miller, who you probably know even better as Marilyn Monroe. 1698 01:53:51,292 --> 01:53:53,208 Her Majesty talking with Miss Monroe 1699 01:53:53,292 --> 01:53:55,375 remarks that they were neighbors at Windsor. 1700 01:53:56,000 --> 01:53:58,292 Dramatically speaking, for the first time, 1701 01:53:58,875 --> 01:54:00,917 they had made a very conventional movie. 1702 01:54:01,917 --> 01:54:04,208 With nothing surprising or new about it. 1703 01:54:06,417 --> 01:54:09,958 ...it's suicide, she’s tearing herself apart! 1704 01:54:11,292 --> 01:54:13,250 The twilight of the gods. 1705 01:54:15,917 --> 01:54:17,625 But the success of River Plate 1706 01:54:17,875 --> 01:54:20,792 meant that they suddenly had standing in the industry again 1707 01:54:21,083 --> 01:54:24,417 and Rank offered them a five-year contract for seven films. 1708 01:54:25,542 --> 01:54:27,750 Emeric was eager to accept, but Michael feared that 1709 01:54:27,792 --> 01:54:31,750 they would end up making mediocre pictures full of mediocre contract players. 1710 01:54:32,042 --> 01:54:35,875 And he couldn't stomach the idea of giving up their dreams and their autonomy. 1711 01:54:37,167 --> 01:54:40,250 Eventually he agreed to do just one film for Rank 1712 01:54:40,375 --> 01:54:43,375 and this would be Ill Met by Moonlight . 1713 01:54:54,000 --> 01:54:56,458 The subject might have been a great one for The Archers. 1714 01:54:56,792 --> 01:54:59,542 It was based on the true story of Paddy Leigh Fermor, 1715 01:54:59,958 --> 01:55:01,333 a very British hero, 1716 01:55:01,958 --> 01:55:03,333 a gentleman amateur, 1717 01:55:04,167 --> 01:55:08,125 who managed to kidnap a German general on Crete during World War II. 1718 01:55:14,792 --> 01:55:15,833 Come on! 1719 01:55:23,208 --> 01:55:25,792 The problem with the film is that Emeric wanted to tell the story 1720 01:55:25,833 --> 01:55:28,000 in a downbeat documentary way, 1721 01:55:28,208 --> 01:55:30,833 while Michael wanted to make a big romantic picture. 1722 01:55:45,667 --> 01:55:50,250 Once again, the VistaVision camera afforded some big beautiful images. 1723 01:55:50,500 --> 01:55:54,250 But at its heart, the film was confused and it was uninspired. 1724 01:56:01,833 --> 01:56:05,208 Michael felt that Emeric had become tired and timid 1725 01:56:05,458 --> 01:56:08,083 and that he had lost all his fire and ambition. 1726 01:56:08,958 --> 01:56:11,167 Emeric felt that Michael had gone mad 1727 01:56:11,458 --> 01:56:14,583 and become wildly unreasonable about everything. 1728 01:56:16,250 --> 01:56:20,583 Michael hated Rank's choice of Dirk Bogarde as the lead. 1729 01:56:21,625 --> 01:56:22,958 Come on, flash the signal. 1730 01:56:23,000 --> 01:56:24,208 Sugar baker, SB. 1731 01:56:24,542 --> 01:56:25,792 How do I flash "sugar baker"? 1732 01:56:27,583 --> 01:56:29,208 Don't you know the Morse code? 1733 01:56:29,250 --> 01:56:30,958 Me? But don't you... 1734 01:56:31,292 --> 01:56:32,292 No. 1735 01:56:33,917 --> 01:56:34,917 So... 1736 01:56:36,417 --> 01:56:37,667 Do you know the Morse code? 1737 01:56:38,167 --> 01:56:39,167 But of course. 1738 01:56:40,875 --> 01:56:42,542 Aren't you professional soldiers? 1739 01:56:42,833 --> 01:56:43,833 Good lord, no. 1740 01:56:44,333 --> 01:56:45,333 The Major here? 1741 01:56:45,792 --> 01:56:48,625 No, an amateur, distinguished amateur, but still an amateur. 1742 01:56:49,667 --> 01:56:52,292 Michael was refused permission to shoot in Crete, 1743 01:56:52,500 --> 01:56:54,625 and had to make the film in France instead. 1744 01:56:57,250 --> 01:57:00,708 Everything added up to make a weary and troubled production 1745 01:57:00,917 --> 01:57:02,792 that no one really believed in. 1746 01:57:04,833 --> 01:57:07,042 When Michael saw the film 30 years later, 1747 01:57:07,208 --> 01:57:09,500 even he was surprised by how poor it was. 1748 01:57:10,250 --> 01:57:13,750 He felt the acting was mediocre, the camera work a mistake. 1749 01:57:14,042 --> 01:57:18,667 And even in 1957, the whole thing must have looked painfully old-fashioned. 1750 01:57:18,792 --> 01:57:21,542 "The script was underwritten, and weak on action", he said 1751 01:57:21,708 --> 01:57:23,167 "the gags were unoriginal 1752 01:57:23,333 --> 01:57:24,667 and the surprises, 1753 01:57:24,708 --> 01:57:26,125 not surprising." 1754 01:57:29,583 --> 01:57:32,458 During the editing the Powell and Pressburger team 1755 01:57:32,500 --> 01:57:36,167 faced up to the fact that they no longer saw things in the same way, 1756 01:57:36,375 --> 01:57:38,917 and decided to dissolve their partnership. 1757 01:57:42,667 --> 01:57:45,000 I didn't like being tied down to the facts. 1758 01:57:45,375 --> 01:57:49,583 Yes, I read that you resisted that sort of realism and wanted to-- 1759 01:57:49,750 --> 01:57:52,583 - Bit more imagination in it. - Oh, yes. And... 1760 01:57:52,875 --> 01:57:55,875 and so we sort of naturally drifted apart on this. 1761 01:57:56,833 --> 01:57:58,417 On this idea. 1762 01:57:58,500 --> 01:58:01,125 You didn't have a sort of hammer and tongs argument and... 1763 01:58:01,167 --> 01:58:02,250 No, no. 1764 01:58:02,375 --> 01:58:06,000 Throwing down the gauntlet for realism and you marching off in a huff about... 1765 01:58:06,333 --> 01:58:10,542 No, it was just a rather sad mutual gap. 1766 01:58:11,500 --> 01:58:13,042 You can't have a mutual gap, can you? 1767 01:58:13,417 --> 01:58:17,208 A sad gap which opened between two loving people. 1768 01:58:18,292 --> 01:58:20,833 This is the way Emeric summed up the partnership once. 1769 01:58:21,583 --> 01:58:25,250 "I always had the feeling that we were amateurs in a world of professionals. 1770 01:58:25,458 --> 01:58:28,458 Amateurs stand so much closer to what they are doing 1771 01:58:28,583 --> 01:58:30,292 and they are driven by enthusiasm, 1772 01:58:30,667 --> 01:58:34,708 which is so much more forceful than what professionals are driven by." 1773 01:58:36,542 --> 01:58:40,625 People are always asking us how we managed to work together for so long. 1774 01:58:40,667 --> 01:58:42,208 Something like eighteen years. 1775 01:58:43,500 --> 01:58:44,625 The answer is 1776 01:58:45,500 --> 01:58:46,542 love. 1777 01:58:47,583 --> 01:58:49,333 You can't have a collaboration 1778 01:58:50,083 --> 01:58:51,125 in anything 1779 01:58:51,625 --> 01:58:52,708 without love. 1780 01:58:55,000 --> 01:58:57,542 Emeric and Michael always remained good friends 1781 01:58:57,583 --> 01:59:00,500 and neither man ever said a bad word about the other. 1782 01:59:01,625 --> 01:59:06,583 I started to write novels. Very, very few of them, only two. 1783 01:59:06,750 --> 01:59:07,750 And... 1784 01:59:08,208 --> 01:59:10,833 well, I think nice novels. 1785 01:59:16,750 --> 01:59:18,792 Mark, what a beautiful little boy. 1786 01:59:19,042 --> 01:59:20,042 Who is he? 1787 01:59:20,833 --> 01:59:21,833 Me. 1788 01:59:23,500 --> 01:59:24,667 Course it is. 1789 01:59:25,000 --> 01:59:26,208 Then who took this film? 1790 01:59:28,250 --> 01:59:29,250 My father. 1791 01:59:31,250 --> 01:59:34,500 Michael went on to make one more great film without Emeric. 1792 01:59:34,958 --> 01:59:36,333 Ah! What's that? 1793 01:59:41,583 --> 01:59:43,375 That was Peeping Tom . 1794 01:59:44,208 --> 01:59:48,542 And for me, it represents Michael's determination to keep on experimenting. 1795 01:59:51,125 --> 01:59:52,292 Mark, what are you doing? 1796 01:59:52,417 --> 01:59:54,250 Wanted to photograph you watching. 1797 01:59:54,458 --> 01:59:55,458 No, no! 1798 01:59:56,583 --> 01:59:58,958 Michael even included himself in this story 1799 01:59:59,000 --> 02:00:00,917 casting himself as the bullying father 1800 02:00:00,958 --> 02:00:04,417 who terrifies his own child in order to study his fear. 1801 02:00:08,292 --> 02:00:09,292 What's he doing? 1802 02:00:11,583 --> 02:00:12,792 Giving me a present. 1803 02:00:14,417 --> 02:00:15,417 What is it? 1804 02:00:17,167 --> 02:00:18,292 Can't you guess? 1805 02:00:21,917 --> 02:00:23,000 A camera. 1806 02:00:27,375 --> 02:00:29,125 That child grows up to be a killer. 1807 02:00:29,292 --> 02:00:31,542 And what's most unsettling about it, 1808 02:00:31,667 --> 02:00:34,250 of course, is that he's shown sympathetically. 1809 02:00:34,375 --> 02:00:36,542 As a shy and suffering person. 1810 02:00:36,625 --> 02:00:37,625 Switch it off, Mark! 1811 02:00:40,125 --> 02:00:41,500 Mark, switch it off! 1812 02:00:41,750 --> 02:00:44,542 His trouble is that he is not at home in this world 1813 02:00:45,375 --> 02:00:47,500 and he feels truly alive and whole 1814 02:00:47,625 --> 02:00:52,042 only in the images he creates built from the destruction of others. 1815 02:00:53,958 --> 02:00:57,250 Every night you switch on that film machine. 1816 02:00:59,167 --> 02:01:02,833 What are these films you can't wait to look at? 1817 02:01:04,750 --> 02:01:06,458 What's the film you're showing now? 1818 02:01:08,500 --> 02:01:10,583 Take me to your cinema. 1819 02:01:11,375 --> 02:01:12,375 Yes. 1820 02:01:14,208 --> 02:01:16,708 The atmosphere that permeates the whole film 1821 02:01:16,750 --> 02:01:19,125 is one of overwhelming sadness. 1822 02:01:22,042 --> 02:01:23,917 What am I seeing, Mark? 1823 02:01:28,792 --> 02:01:30,125 Why don't you answer? 1824 02:01:36,583 --> 02:01:37,583 Oh! 1825 02:01:40,417 --> 02:01:41,417 It's no good. 1826 02:01:42,333 --> 02:01:44,167 I was afraid it wouldn't be. 1827 02:01:44,875 --> 02:01:45,875 What? 1828 02:01:46,208 --> 02:01:47,875 The lights fade too soon. 1829 02:01:48,500 --> 02:01:51,125 It's a very disturbing and transgressive film, 1830 02:01:51,542 --> 02:01:53,458 but it's also very moving because 1831 02:01:53,625 --> 02:01:57,250 at the heart of it is this radical compassion, 1832 02:01:58,208 --> 02:02:00,208 it asks you to feel for someone 1833 02:02:00,250 --> 02:02:02,000 who is a madman and a murderer. 1834 02:02:02,042 --> 02:02:03,750 What do you think you've spoiled? 1835 02:02:04,625 --> 02:02:05,708 An opportunity. 1836 02:02:07,417 --> 02:02:09,167 Now, I have to find another one. 1837 02:02:14,500 --> 02:02:15,583 Watch them, Helen. 1838 02:02:16,375 --> 02:02:17,750 Watch them, say goodbye, 1839 02:02:18,417 --> 02:02:19,458 one by one. 1840 02:02:20,167 --> 02:02:21,750 I have timed it so often. 1841 02:02:30,833 --> 02:02:31,708 Helen! 1842 02:02:31,875 --> 02:02:32,875 Helen! 1843 02:02:33,250 --> 02:02:34,250 I'm afraid. 1844 02:02:34,875 --> 02:02:36,750 No, no, Mark! 1845 02:02:40,500 --> 02:02:41,583 And I'm glad... 1846 02:02:42,583 --> 02:02:43,583 I'm afraid. 1847 02:02:46,458 --> 02:02:49,417 "I was shocked to the core to find a director of his standing 1848 02:02:49,458 --> 02:02:54,208 befouling the screen with such perverted nonsense." 1849 02:02:54,542 --> 02:02:59,292 "The word for Michael Powell's Peeping Tom is, quite simply, nasty." 1850 02:02:59,625 --> 02:03:03,167 " Peeping Tom stinks more than anything else in British films 1851 02:03:03,208 --> 02:03:05,083 since The Stranglers of Bombay ." 1852 02:03:05,667 --> 02:03:09,042 "The only really satisfactory way to dispose of Peeping Tom 1853 02:03:09,125 --> 02:03:12,625 would be to shovel it up and flush it swiftly down the nearest sewer." 1854 02:03:13,333 --> 02:03:15,583 I believed in the film, they didn't. 1855 02:03:16,500 --> 02:03:18,500 It vanished for 20 years. 1856 02:03:19,292 --> 02:03:20,667 And I vanished with it. 1857 02:03:21,417 --> 02:03:23,042 I was no longer bankable. 1858 02:03:23,375 --> 02:03:24,917 I was too independent. 1859 02:03:25,458 --> 02:03:26,958 I wanted my own way. 1860 02:03:28,125 --> 02:03:31,667 The other thing that counted against Michael was the fact that by now 1861 02:03:32,167 --> 02:03:33,583 it was the 60s. 1862 02:03:34,000 --> 02:03:35,542 Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz, 1863 02:03:35,583 --> 02:03:37,958 Lindsay Anderson were making fresh energetic, 1864 02:03:38,083 --> 02:03:41,500 a kind of classic films which drew on the documentary tradition 1865 02:03:41,708 --> 02:03:44,000 and the ideas of the European New Wave. 1866 02:03:45,333 --> 02:03:47,542 This is Ron, I want a word with you! 1867 02:03:47,583 --> 02:03:51,542 For these young men, Michael represented ancient history. 1868 02:03:52,750 --> 02:03:54,792 - Give me my money back! - Call it! 1869 02:04:00,500 --> 02:04:01,500 Cut! 1870 02:04:01,750 --> 02:04:03,792 I go out of frame, you don't follow me at all? 1871 02:04:03,875 --> 02:04:06,542 - No, we don't follow you. - Oh, it’s alright then. Alright, good. 1872 02:04:06,583 --> 02:04:07,667 Oh, sorry... 1873 02:04:07,708 --> 02:04:11,625 No, I had a feeling in that take that I was opening my mouth 1874 02:04:11,750 --> 02:04:15,542 and licking my lips a little too much. I suddenly found myself doing that. 1875 02:04:15,583 --> 02:04:17,667 - Yes, do it again. - Would you like to take another? 1876 02:04:17,708 --> 02:04:18,667 Action! 1877 02:04:18,750 --> 02:04:20,917 After much struggle, he managed to put together 1878 02:04:20,958 --> 02:04:22,833 two low budget pictures in Australia. 1879 02:04:23,542 --> 02:04:25,708 Mrs Ryan, I want a word with you! 1880 02:04:25,875 --> 02:04:26,875 I want a word... 1881 02:04:26,958 --> 02:04:28,042 Including this one 1882 02:04:28,083 --> 02:04:31,167 Age of Consent with Helen Mirren and James Mason. 1883 02:04:31,375 --> 02:04:34,167 - Give me that money back, it’s mine! - You stole it from me! 1884 02:04:38,292 --> 02:04:39,333 Cut! 1885 02:04:39,417 --> 02:04:42,833 It never became a real tug of war, with both of you tugging. 1886 02:04:43,083 --> 02:04:47,500 If it really is a tug of war, so that your life is depending on the bag. 1887 02:04:47,542 --> 02:04:49,875 And if you lose the bag, you've gone, you know. 1888 02:04:50,292 --> 02:04:51,292 Cora! 1889 02:04:52,042 --> 02:04:53,083 Action now. 1890 02:05:01,292 --> 02:05:02,292 Cut! 1891 02:05:02,333 --> 02:05:03,708 It was wonderful, darling. 1892 02:05:04,042 --> 02:05:05,208 Marvellous. Are you alright? 1893 02:05:05,625 --> 02:05:06,875 It was very clever. 1894 02:05:10,667 --> 02:05:11,875 Everybody happy? 1895 02:05:13,042 --> 02:05:16,458 He had no way of knowing it, but this would be his last feature film. 1896 02:05:17,625 --> 02:05:20,250 He was never able to raise the money to make another one. 1897 02:05:23,000 --> 02:05:24,000 She's dead. 1898 02:05:27,958 --> 02:05:29,042 Grandma? 1899 02:05:31,208 --> 02:05:33,667 Of course, it was during the very years 1900 02:05:33,750 --> 02:05:36,458 that Michael was struggling and sinking into obscurity 1901 02:05:36,917 --> 02:05:39,750 that people like me and Francis Coppola were discovering 1902 02:05:39,833 --> 02:05:41,625 his work on the other side of the Atlantic. 1903 02:05:43,750 --> 02:05:47,042 And our great fortune was that we were watching the Powell Pressburger films 1904 02:05:47,125 --> 02:05:49,500 without any cultural baggage. 1905 02:05:49,875 --> 02:05:52,917 We had no prejudices based on when they were made 1906 02:05:53,125 --> 02:05:54,708 or how they were received. 1907 02:05:54,875 --> 02:05:56,875 We just saw them as enjoyable films 1908 02:05:57,042 --> 02:05:59,000 and sometimes wonderful works of art. 1909 02:05:59,833 --> 02:06:04,333 We watched all types of British films, whether it was Grierson or Jennings, 1910 02:06:04,833 --> 02:06:08,000 David Lean or Carol Reed, Hitchcock or Powell and Pressburger. 1911 02:06:08,167 --> 02:06:11,250 And we didn't think of any one style as better than the others. 1912 02:06:11,458 --> 02:06:16,042 For us, they all reflected different aspects of one people. 1913 02:06:16,750 --> 02:06:17,750 The British. 1914 02:06:18,500 --> 02:06:20,375 And we were open to all of it. 1915 02:06:22,208 --> 02:06:23,708 When I got to know Michael well, 1916 02:06:23,958 --> 02:06:28,500 he certainly seemed to me imbued with the spirit and the soul of Britain. 1917 02:06:29,417 --> 02:06:32,375 And it was my great good fortune in the 1980s 1918 02:06:32,583 --> 02:06:35,500 to finally see him and Emeric rediscovered 1919 02:06:35,833 --> 02:06:38,125 and reassessed in Britain too. 1920 02:06:39,333 --> 02:06:43,125 I can't begin to describe how touched 1921 02:06:43,417 --> 02:06:47,583 and how happy I am to be presenting this award tonight. 1922 02:06:48,000 --> 02:06:53,833 An award which I feel very deeply is long, long overdue. 1923 02:06:56,625 --> 02:06:58,167 These two giants of the cinema 1924 02:06:58,208 --> 02:07:01,333 who had pretty much disappeared into oblivion for 20 years 1925 02:07:02,042 --> 02:07:05,667 were finally granted the honor and respect that they deserved. 1926 02:07:07,542 --> 02:07:09,875 In 1984, Michael got married 1927 02:07:09,958 --> 02:07:12,833 to my longtime film editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, 1928 02:07:13,375 --> 02:07:15,625 who's edited all my films since Raging Bull . 1929 02:07:16,167 --> 02:07:19,125 They lived here in New York and Michael became a constant friend 1930 02:07:19,375 --> 02:07:21,500 and a constant presence in my life. 1931 02:07:22,333 --> 02:07:25,208 He was a guy who hadn't made a picture in 25-30 years. 1932 02:07:25,250 --> 02:07:27,958 But every day he was planning one. 1933 02:07:30,333 --> 02:07:35,042 When I went through difficult times, he was a tremendous support. 1934 02:07:36,083 --> 02:07:38,500 I remember when I was finishing The King of Comedy 1935 02:07:38,750 --> 02:07:41,000 I was at a very low point. 1936 02:07:41,750 --> 02:07:45,083 But Michael somehow seemed to understand everything I was going through. 1937 02:07:45,708 --> 02:07:46,792 He never... 1938 02:07:47,167 --> 02:07:48,333 he was never intrusive. 1939 02:07:49,208 --> 02:07:51,458 But he was able to talk to me personally 1940 02:07:51,792 --> 02:07:55,750 from the experience that he had of a very long creative life. 1941 02:07:56,125 --> 02:07:58,333 And his voice was very different from 1942 02:07:58,708 --> 02:08:01,000 the voices of the others around me at the time. 1943 02:08:02,042 --> 02:08:05,083 He had a spirit that was always strong 1944 02:08:05,250 --> 02:08:06,542 and uncompromised. 1945 02:08:07,250 --> 02:08:09,583 Even when he seemed to be a forgotten man. 1946 02:08:10,458 --> 02:08:14,042 That spirit supported me in periods of doubt 1947 02:08:14,458 --> 02:08:15,500 and desolation. 1948 02:08:18,250 --> 02:08:19,667 I look back on it now 1949 02:08:19,708 --> 02:08:22,292 and I find it extraordinary that I knew Michael Powell personally 1950 02:08:22,333 --> 02:08:23,750 for 16 years. 1951 02:08:23,792 --> 02:08:26,958 And he was not only a support but a guide. 1952 02:08:27,208 --> 02:08:31,750 Pushing me along, giving me confidence, keeping me bold in my own work. 1953 02:08:31,792 --> 02:08:33,167 It's OK, fellas, no problem. 1954 02:08:34,500 --> 02:08:37,208 This one's gone. What? OK, yeah. 1955 02:08:37,958 --> 02:08:40,750 I'll never be able to fully understand or express 1956 02:08:41,542 --> 02:08:44,667 why he meant so much to me and why he'll always be with me. 1957 02:08:48,875 --> 02:08:50,208 And that current of thought 1958 02:08:50,250 --> 02:08:53,167 always leads back to those films he made with Emeric. 1959 02:08:54,542 --> 02:08:56,000 I'm signing off now, June. 1960 02:08:56,042 --> 02:08:57,583 Goodbye, goodbye June. 1961 02:08:57,667 --> 02:09:00,583 Hello, G for George. Hello, G-George? 1962 02:09:00,625 --> 02:09:01,667 Hello G-George? 1963 02:09:01,750 --> 02:09:04,750 David Niven saying goodbye to Kim Hunter over the radio 1964 02:09:05,042 --> 02:09:07,042 in A Matter of Life and Death . 1965 02:09:14,458 --> 02:09:15,583 Let it ring. 1966 02:09:15,792 --> 02:09:20,250 The intensely erotic scenes between Kathleen Byron and David Farrar 1967 02:09:20,667 --> 02:09:22,125 in The Small Back Room . 1968 02:09:29,083 --> 02:09:31,792 The camera moving up and away from the duel 1969 02:09:32,042 --> 02:09:33,708 in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp . 1970 02:09:42,250 --> 02:09:45,792 Certain films, you simply run all the time and you live with them. 1971 02:09:46,958 --> 02:09:49,625 As you grow older, they grow deeper. 1972 02:09:50,583 --> 02:09:52,375 I'm not sure how it happens, but it does. 1973 02:09:54,458 --> 02:09:57,333 For me, that body of work is a wondrous presence, 1974 02:09:57,750 --> 02:09:59,625 a constant source of energy, 1975 02:10:00,083 --> 02:10:01,167 and a reminder 1976 02:10:01,458 --> 02:10:04,833 of what life and art are all about. 1977 02:10:22,500 --> 02:10:23,625 When you look back 1978 02:10:23,667 --> 02:10:26,042 do you think that somehow or other, the British 1979 02:10:26,625 --> 02:10:30,750 didn't appreciate you both as much as they might have? 1980 02:10:33,250 --> 02:10:36,042 When did the British ever appreciate their great men? 1981 02:10:40,000 --> 02:10:41,000 Cut. 1982 02:10:41,083 --> 02:10:43,333 I hope this will, this will be cut. 1983 02:10:45,667 --> 02:10:48,875 MADE IN ENGLAND