MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER: A Love Letter To The Preeminent Magicians Of The Movies

More than anyone else who has ever made movies, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger understood that film can and should represent not life as it is, but life as it feels. Theirs is a heightened version of reality in which magic is ever-present, whether it be in the thin air swirling around a convent in the Himalayas, the bricks of a cursed castle in the Scottish Hebrides, or the bright red silk of a powerful pair of ballet shoes. Their beautiful body of work continues to enrapture audiences to this day and, if anything, grows more and more popular as time goes by. This is in large part due to efforts by the duo’s biggest fan, director Martin Scorsese, and Powell’s widow, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, to ensure that the films of Powell and Pressburger continue to be restored, preserved, and screened for audiences around the world.

Directed by David Hinton and presented on screen by an irresistably effusive Scorsese, the new documentary Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger is essentially a cinematic love letter from Scorsese to these two men. It explores their collaboration on so many classic (and some not-so-classic) films as well as the massive impact these films had on Scorsese’s life, first as a young child watching them on television and later as a talented filmmaker himself. If you’re already a fan of Powell and Pressburger, Made in England is a must-see; if you’re unfamiliar with their films, it provides a moving introduction to their work and what makes it so special.

The Life and Death of Powell and Pressburger

Michael Powell was born in 1905 in England; he received a crash course in filmmaking while working for the legendary silent movie director Rex Ingram before cutting his teeth on a variety of English “quota quickies.” Emeric Pressburger was born in 1902 in Hungary; he started as a screenwriter at UFA in Berlin before his Jewish heritage made life under the Nazis untenable, going first to Paris and then to London. Brought together in 1939 by the producer Alexander Korda when Korda asked Pressburger to revise the script for the Powell-directed The Spy in Black, their filmmaking partnership would last almost 35 years and result in 24 films, including such unequivocal classics as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I’m Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, and—perhaps most famously—The Red Shoes.

Scorsese is the only talking head who appears on screen in Made in England, making him our sole tour guide from the early days in which Powell and Pressburger were primarily focused on making World War II propaganda to their post-war experimentations in color, music, and dance. It’s hard to think of a more enthusiastic and knowledgeable person to take on such a role, especially since Powell was not only a major influence on Scorsese’s work but also, late in his life, a close personal friend. If anything, the film’s biggest weakness is that it does focus a bit more heavily on Powell as a result, including the work he did before and after meeting Pressburger, such as the then-controversial but now-classic 1960 slasher flick Peeping Tom.

The Tales of Scorsese

Still, Made in England makes it clear from the very start that this documentary is not the kind of general overview of Powell and Pressburger that you might get in a film school lecture, but a deeply personal exploration of their work: one in which Scorsese reminisces about watching The Tales of Hoffman on a tiny black-and-white television as a child, explains how charming yet morally grey characters like Lermontov of The Red Shoes influenced so many of Scorsese’s cinematic antiheroes, and shares Powell’s initial reaction to Mean Streets (great movie, but too much red in the color palette—an ironic critique, as Scorsese notes that his liberal use of red was largely influenced by Powell himself). Indeed, Made in England utilizes not just a wealth of footage from Powell and Pressburger’s films, but footage from Scorsese’s as well, in many cases going so far as to place shots side by side on the screen so we can see exactly how much Scorsese has lovingly cribbed from his heroes.

Scorsese examines each film and the technique involved in making them from the perspective of a filmmaker as well as a fan, which makes Made in England equal parts enlightening and entertaining; he also doesn’t hesitate to tell us when he thinks something is subpar, tearing into later efforts from the duo like The Elusive Pimpernel and Ill Met by Moonlight in a way that I honestly found a bit amusing (especially since I do have some fondness for the latter). Tribute is also paid to the many other great artists who helped bring Powell and Pressburger’s shared visions to life on screen, including but not limited to actress Deborah Kerr, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and production designer Alfred Junge; after all, Scorsese knows better than anyone that filmmaking is a team sport, one in which you often rely on the same teammates again and again in order to succeed. There is also archival footage of the filmmakers themselves sprinkled into the mix, allowing us to see that while their creative partnership may have petered out, their friendship remained strong until the end. (Pressburger passed away in 1988, Powell two years later, in 1990.)

Conclusion

A vibrant montage of sights, sounds, and emotions as only they could conjure them, Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger is a fitting tribute to the preeminent magicians of the movies.

Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger opens in theaters in the U.S. on July 12, 2024.