True cinephilia lives outside the confines of your front door, way past the boundaries of your home and native language. So, for all the talk of Martin Scorsese as a preeminent master of American cinema, it’s always been heartening to know the filmmaker and cineaste has appreciated all aspects of international cinema, from the East to the West and beyond. Those who understand Scorsese’s many cinematic affinities know fully well that one of his longtime personal passions has been the films by the Archers, aka the English filmmaking duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Powell and Pressburger) and their ravishingly colorful, imaginative, and luminous films. So in “Made In England: The Films Of Powell and Pressburger,” while Scorsese himself doesn’t direct, it does feel like his movie, replete with all his colorfully insightful observations about the duo, their career, and their filmmaking ambitions. The filmmaker takes you through an intimate, first-person tour of their oeuvre, perhaps not unlike “A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies,” though less dynamic and much more straightforward.
READ MORE: The Essentials: The Films Of Powell & Pressburger
Directed by two-time BAFTA and Emmy-winner David Hinton, while he’s at the helm, Scorsese is narrating, and the entire film feels like it’s built around his perspective, his perceptions, and his ardor and zeal for the radical romanticism inherent in Powell and Pressburgers work, thus still captivating.
For the uninitiated, Powell & Pressburger worked in the golden age of British Cinema—generally viewed in the late 1930s and 1940s— though P&P made stone-cold classics right into the 1960s. While the duo created some terrific black and white anti-war films in the 1930s—“The Spy in Black” (1939), “Contraband” (1940) “49th Parallel” (1941)—they are probably best remembered for their ravishingly expressive color films “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” (1943), “A Canterbury Tale” (1944), “Black Narcissus” (1947) and the “pure cinema” technicolor experiments that pushed the two beyond traditional narrative into more blissful sound and vision cinema (“The Red Shoes, 1948), and “The Tales of Hoffmann” 1951).
While decried at the time as one of the worst films ever made by British critics at the time, 1960s “Peeping Tom,” only made by Michael Powell this time has rightfully reclaimed its status as a lurid and chilling horror film about voyeurism and unhinged sociopathy, which still seems to find room for empathy for its troubled serial killer (one of the duo’s strengths, their emotional complexity).
Powell & Pressburger films being what they are— at their most effective, compelling, and well-known, big, lush, colorfully romantic splashes of radiant cinema— one could easily forgive anyone for focusing on the technical and visual elements of their career, the ones perennially cited in any highlight reel or trailer, and for good reason, it’s just all so gloriously entrancing, sensual and even overwhelming to look at, at times.
But this is Martin Scorsese, so the filmmaker spends just as much time interrogating and illuminating the emotional quality of their films, the complexities of their characters and choices—repression being a big theme, especially of the romantic sort—and the way they always tried to express a complicated humanity for heroes and villains alike.
As Scorsese notes, he and his 1970s cohorts, Spielberg, DePalma, etc., became part of Powell & Pressburger’s rehabilitation for cinephiles. The pair had fallen out of favor, and their newfound appreciation for the work, free of the context of the time, helped bring them to new generations.
Scorsese also illuminates their process: Pressburger would essentially write, Powell would handle the direction, and together, they would produce and edit the films, perhaps clearing up the misunderstanding that both men were actually the film directors.
Scorsese’s academic authority, coupled with his warm, kindhearted affection for their films, really shines so brightly it certainly could compel any cinephile novice to rush out to their… ok, not local video store, but Criterion Collection-like streaming service (the Criterion Channel first and foremost, though MAX surprisingly has a decent collection of TCM-like/Criterion films as well). Like their films, Scorsese’s take is full of eager devotion and should help shed some light on their filmography for the unversed or budding amateur cinephile.
Cinephiles will know that Scorsese has a personal connection here as well. As the documentary states, and eventually delves into later in the picture, Scorsese befriended Michael Powell in the late 1970s just as his career was on the rise and the senior filmmaker’s career has essentially fizzled and stalled out. Powell would then go on to marry Scorsese’s longtime editor and righthand creative lieutenant, Thelma Schoonmaker, in 1984, staying with him until his death in 1990 at the age of 84.
But little, if any, personal bias shows. Scorsese clearly loved the films of Powell & Pressburger at a young age—his formative cinematic memory recall is outstanding—he stayed fascinated by them throughout his career, and getting to know Powell only seemed to enrich the Italian American filmmaker’s appreciation of their work. But while very much an affectionate love letter and valentine to their work, ‘Made In England’ stays deeply professional and objective; Scorsese’s not afraid to detail the way their careers eventually ran out of steam and note the later works that fell short in his estimation, and lacked the true inspiration that had inspired him so much as a young viewer (1972’s “The Boy Who Turned Yellow” and 1968’s “Age of Consent,” films that Scorsese said didn’t have the budgets to allow the duo to truly realize their visions, thus feeling substandard).
For all of Scorsese’s perceptions of P&P’s innovative style and storytelling, for all of the rich array of behind-the-scenes archival footage and dazzling clips of their luminous films from these mad geniuses, there’s an argument to be made that Scorsese steals the film himself, unintentionally of course. Powell & Pressburger left an indelible mark on cinema, and the filmmaker is sure to impress this and put them on their rightful pedestal and within the proper context.
Not to upstage Powell and Pressburger, but if “Made In England” ends on a slightly melancholy note, it’s perhaps Scorsese himself and thoughtful ruminations that unintentionally offer this mood. There’s the old proverb, “When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground,” evocative of all the knowledge that dies with someone once they’re gone, no matter how much they did their best to pass it on. And it’s docs like this that make one realize we have not fully contended with nor can anything really prepare us for what a loss to cinema, its culture, and preservation it will be when Martin Scorsese is gone, unable to continue sharing with us personal remembrances, recollections, and experiences that greatly enhance and deepen the cinematic experience in ways we cannot fathom. If only we keep him forever, if only to make similarly loving and discerning documents into every facet of moviemaking for the rest of time itself. [B+]
“Made In England: The Films Of Powell and Pressburger” is currently playing at the Tribeca Festival.
