The director so versatile that Martin Scorsese was convinced they were a pseudonym
The work of Powell and Pressburger is a force to be reckoned with, an embodiment of the meaning of life and death itself; a defiant beacon of hope and creativity that recharged the very medium of film, remaining as the definitive visionaries of British cinema, and to this day, inspiring some of the most influential directors of all time.
The combined genius of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger was the foundation of the production company and film studio, ‘The Archers’, in which both filmmakers would write, direct, produce and edit all of their work. The films are characterised by the vibrancy and detail of the visual language, with elaborate costumes and sound stages that went above and beyond what was achieved by other filmmakers at the time, showing a daring innovation and commitment to showcasing the full power of cinema. Their stories have this sweeping and often fantastical mood, often with a progressive outlook that focuses on a deep well of moral conflicts and the sometimes taboo subject matter.
However, it took a while before their genius was publicly recognised and praised, with most of their films being lost for years on end before finally being restored and made more widely accessible. And there was one filmmaker who was absolutely essential in preserving their work, and one of the biggest advocates and fans of their work, Martin Scorsese.
Scorsese has spoken many times about his love for Powell and Pressburger, even listing their 1948 film The Red Shoes as his favourite movie of all time, a high spot for a cinephile as fanatic and obsessive as Scorsese, who was a pioneer in the restoration of their work and even has the original red shoes from the film displayed in his home. It’s safe to say that he’s a big fan.
When asked about his relationship to the films of Powell and Pressburger, Scorsese spoke about the mystery around their work and the difficulty of sourcing their movies in the United States during the 1960s and ’70s. Many of the directors that were big in Hollywood at the time were obsessed with the likes of The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, and I Know Where I’m Going, but their films weren’t widely known, and little was known about the directors themselves.
Upon discovering their work, Scorsese said, “We’d been asking for years about Powell and Pressburger,” says the director. “There was hardly anything written about their films at that time. We wondered how the same man who made A Matter of Life and Death, The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp could also have made Peeping Tom. We actually thought for a while Michael Powell was a pseudonym being used by other filmmakers.”
The fact that Scorsese assumed their films couldn’t possibly have been made by one person speaks to the vastness and transformative quality of their work; that they were impossible to pin down because their identity was defined by the idea of reinvention and pushing the medium of film to its limits, never settling for what was safe or and or being deterred by a lack mainstream validation. Their commitment to the craft was more important, reiterating the lasting power of Moira’s famous line from The Red Shoes, when she is asked why she wants to dance and replies, “Why do you want to live?” To Powell and Pressburger, the act of creating was a matter of life and death itself, which is no doubt why the reverberations of its impact can still be felt in cinema today.
