| |
|
Michael Powell &
Emeric Pressburger |
|
Director / Screenwriter /
Producer |
 |
|
See also
Michael
Powell |
| Powell 1905
- 1990 | Pressburger 1902 - 1988 |
| Powell Born September 30,
Bekesbourne, Kent, England | Pressburger Born December 5,
Miskolc, Austria-Hungary |
|
Key
Production Country: UK
|
|
Key Genres:
Drama, Romantic Drama, War, War Drama |
|
Key
Collaborators: Reginald
Mills (Editor), Brian Easdale (Composer), Alfred Junge (Production Designer),
David Farrar (Leading Character Player), Esmond Knight (Leading
Character Player), Christopher Challis (Cinematographer), Allan Gray
(Composer), Hein Heckroth (Production Designer), Roger Livesey
(Leading Player), Kathleen Byron (Leading Character Player) |
|
|
Highly Recommended: Black
Narcissus (1946)*, A Matter of Life and Death (1946)*, The Red Shoes
(1948)* |
|
Recommended: The
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)*, A Canterbury Tale (1944)*,
I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)*,
The Small Back Room
(1949), Gone
to Earth (1950), The
Tales of Hoffman (1951) |
|
Worth a Look: One
of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) |
|
Approach with Caution:
The Battle of the River Plate (1956) |
|
* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB: Michael Powell ]
[
IMDB: Emeric
Pressburger ] [
TCMDB: Michael Powell ] [
TCMDB: Emeric Pressburger ] [
All-Movie
Guide: Michael Powell ] [
All-Movie
Guide: Emeric Pressburger ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference: Powell & Pressburger ]
[
Film Reference: Emeric Pressburger ]
[
Pilgrims'
Progress: BFI Page ] [
The
Powell & Pressburger Pages ] [
Kamera
Article ] [
Wikipedia ] [
Screen Online Biography ]
[
The Criterion Collection ] |
|
Books:
[
Powell and Pressburger: A Cinema of Magic Spaces
]
[
Michael Powell: Interviews
]
[
The
Films of Michael Powell and the Archers ] [
Arrows
of Desire: The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger ] [
Emeric
Pressburger: The Life and Death of a Screenwriter ] |
|
|
    |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
"During
the 1940s, Hungarian-born Pressburger and his partner
Michael Powell
- known as 'The Archers' - made a series of classic British
films: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A
Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going!
and Stairway to Heaven (both 1946), Black Narcissus
(1947) and The Red Shoes (1948). These films create a
world of magic, humour, tenderness, passion and miraculous
beauty." -
(The Movie Book, 1999) |
|
| |
|
|
| |
"They struggle
with great, clashing virtues - with marvelous visual imagination
(Powell) and uneasy, intellectual substance (Pressburger)... The
great Powell and Pressburger films do not go stale; they never
relinquish their wicked fun or that jaunty air of being poised
on the brink." -
David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002) |
|
| |
|
|
| |
"The
films that carry the unusual credit of "Produced, Written and
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger" are
eccentric, extravagant, witty fantasies. They contrast sharply
with the realistic approach typical of British cinema of their
period." -
Ronald Bergan (Film - Eyewitness Companions, 2006)
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
"One of the most imaginative writer/directors in the British
cinema. Powell lensed comedy (Colonel Blimp, 45),
fantasy (Stairway to Heaven, 46), homespun drama (I
Know Where I'm Going, 47), psychological studies (The
Small Back Room, 49), war stories (One of Our Aircraft is
Missing, 42), and even films of ballet and opera (Tales
of Hoffmann, 51).
Powell had
an energetic camera style and a sense of color few of his
contemporaries shared." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include The Elusive Pimpernel (1950), Oh...
Rosalinda!! (1955), and Ill Met by Moonlight (1957). |
|
|
|
8 |
| |
|
"As
Britain’s most famous producing-directing team, Powell and
Pressburger divided critical opinion between those who
demanded social realism within cinema and those who
supported an auteurist vision. With the rise of auteur
theory in journals such as the UK-based Movie, the
work of Powell and Pressburger received a more positive
critical reevaluation. At the box office, the duo’s
fantastical, mystical tales enjoyed great success… In 1943
they established their own production company called the
Archers, for which they made a succession of popular and
significant films."
-
Scott Henderson, Schirmer Encyclopedia
of Film |
| |
 |
| |
|
●
Top 250 Directors |
| ●
100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
|
●
501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
|
|
|
See Also |
|
| |
|
Michael Powell's Favourites |
| The
Birth of a Nation (1915)
D.W. Griffith,
The Blue Angel (1930)
Josef von
Sternberg,
Broken Blossoms (1919)D.W.
Griffith,
Un Carnet de Bal (1937)
Julien Duvivier,
The Gold Rush (1925)
Charles Chaplin,
Greed (1924)
Erich von Stroheim,
M (1931)
Fritz Lang,
Ninotchka (1939)
Ernst Lubitsch,
Turksib (1929) Victor A. Turin, The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Victor Fleming.
Source:
Cinematheque
Belgique (1952) |
| |
|
|
|
|