Backlisted - A Life in Movies by Michael Powell

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

This episode of Backlisted is devoted to A Life in Movies (1986), the first volume of memoirs of the filmmaker Michael Powell who, with his partner Emeric Pressburger, is responsible for some of the finest, most magical and soulful films ever to come out of the UK: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and many more. Joining us for a discussion of Powell's life and work - and his vision of cinema as a space in which all the other arts may find expression - are memoirist and critic James Cook and film writer and academic Melanie Williams. We focus on four productions of the Archers that between them tell the story of Powell and Pressburger's achievement: The Spy in Black, A Matter of Life and Death, "I Know Where I'm Going!" and Gone to Earth. If for some reason you have yet to see these films, or any of Michael Powell's work, set aside some time for your next personal obsession. You'll be glad you did. * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here http://bit.ly/backlistednewsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is an advertisement from BetterHelp. Everyone knows therapy is great for solving problems. But turns out, therapy has some issues of its own. Finding the right therapist, fitting into their schedule, and, of course, the cost. BetterHelp can help solve these problems. It's online, convenient, built around your schedule, and surprisingly affordable, too. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more.

That's BetterHelp.com. meeting with friends before the show, we can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast which gives new life to old books. Today you find us in a grove of trees near the village of Beaksbourne in South East Kent.

It is August 1914 and we're watching two young boys high in the branches of a beech tree where they have fashioned a shelter out of an old cart and a small cider barrel. The smaller of the two has brown curly hair and is demolishing an apple. Both have their eyes fixed firmly on the horizon where out of the haze a cloud of dust is rising and the sound of jangling horses' bridles and the grind of iron wheels is getting ever closer. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound, where people crowdfund the books they really want to read.

And I'm Andy Miller, the author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And joining us today on Backlisted are a returning guest from our deep past and a debutante from our present and future. Please welcome to the show James Cook and Melanie Williams. Hello, both of you. Hello. Welcome. Thank you for coming along.

Yes. James Cook is an author, editor and arts journalist based in London. His first book, Memory Songs, an exploration of the music that shaped the 1990s, was published by Unbound in 2018. His second, In Her Room, How Music Helped Me Connect With My Autistic Daughter, was published by Bonnier Books in 2020. He is currently an editor at Review 31 magazine. His short fiction and essays have appeared in the anthologies Vagabond Holes, which was published by Fremantle Press Penguin Australia, and Garden Among Fires, published by Dodo Inc. A regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement,

his journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The Saturday Telegraph, Art Review, 3AM Magazine, Minor Lit, Boundless Magazine, Litro, and Review 31, among others. He previously appeared on Backlisted episode 56, which was a Christmas episode, a lovely Christmas episode, his brother Jude to discuss Ian Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. James, what is it about you and choosing books about films on Backlisted? Well, just always been sort of obsessed with films and British films in particular. They have a lot in common in terms of their sort of visual style, I think.

You know, Cubby Broccoli said that every penny of the budget is up on the screen, which you get with a lot of the, you know, Colonel Blimp and A Matter of Life and Death. And there's lots of other things like the, you know, the humour, the one-liners and that sort of stuff. So there's a few connections there that I found. Well, a theme

that we'll return to uh in the course of this episode is how michael powell brackets listeners spoiler he's the author of the book we're going to talk about uh and michael powell believed that art at its best should encompass all other forms of art within it so it's perfectly acceptable for a books podcast, therefore, to feature the work of a book by a filmmaker taking in films based on paintings, music, ballet, and other sources, because it's all one song, as Neil Young famously says. So that's my answer to anyone who's thinking, why are they doing films this time? well we are and we aren't because it's all one river we're also joined today by Melanie Williams

hello Mel Melanie Williams is a professor of film studies at the University of East Anglia she's written and edited numerous books about British cinema including Ealing Revisited David Lean Female Stars of British Cinema, two books about British film in the 1960s.

We are in debt to her for that work in particular, listeners. And most recently, a wonderful BFI Film Classics book on the kitchen sink classic, A Taste of Honey. A particular favourite, it says here, of Andy Miller. I started referring to myself in the third person. Now, like all lunatics, Andy Miller does like that film.

Mel. Hey Mel, guess what? This is the second mention of Rita touching me on this podcast in two weeks. I managed to get a smashing time in last time. Oh, are you hoping for a hat trick? Next time. Listen, listeners, if you're playing bingo at home listen out for the words rita tushingham in the next

episode melanie um what when you're writing about film do you write for readers who have already seen the film or are you trying to encourage people to see it for the first time oh that's that's a that's an interesting question i suppose you're trying to do a bit of both so you know often with the kind of writing that i'm doing i'm aware that it might be used to set reading for someone's university course and so you're introducing people to a film in some instances, but you're also trying to provide something for the people that are already very familiar with that film. So it's kind of, yeah, a bit of both, I guess.

I noticed that you're perhaps acting in the role of consultant in some way for the forthcoming production of A Taste of Honey at the Royal Exchange in Manchester? I am, yes. What are you advising them on, the beehives or the... Duffel coats. Duffel coats, yes, of course. Yeah, I'm official consultant on duffel coats.

Kamals. Yes, those are my specialist subjects, yeah. I would guess on kind of Sheila Delaney and that particular kind of period in post-war British history and, yeah, the whole kind of context for that play and then the film adaptation.

John, move us along, please. I will. Well, probably not going to come as a surprise to hear that the book that we're discussing, that James and Melanie are here to discuss, is A Life in Movies, the autobiography of Michael Powell, first published by Heinemann in 1986 and acknowledged as one of the best and most engaging books about English cinema ever written. As Powell's friend and most famous cinematic disciple Martin Scorsese writes, the book is much more than the reminiscences of a film director. It is as absorbing as any

novel. From his early childhood in rural Kent before the First World War, through his accidental entry into the movie business as a gopher for the silent director Rex Engrams, his apprenticeship to Hitchcock, his partnership with Emmerich Pressburger, who, between them as the archers, wrote, produced and directed 19 movies, including many that are now regarded as classics. Powell's book is astonishing in its detail about how each movie was made and why, and contains portraits of an astonishing cast of characters, not just actors, but technicians, artists, musicians, choreographers, all of whom helped transform his craft into art.

Or as the critic Ian Christie described it, daring experiments in reducing the importance of narrative. Something we love on this podcast. I can get behind that. Amazingly, for a book of over 700 pages, written by a man in his early 80s, the narrative ends when he's just 43, just after the huge and unexpected success of The Red Shoes in 1947. As Alexander Walker has written, this doesn't really matter.

Such is the charm and energy of Powell's prose. He is able to present the whole man in what is really half a life. The second half of that life was much more difficult, as I'm sure we'll discuss, but what we have here is a rare thing, a book by a supreme craftsman in a new art form, picking up the trims, as he writes, from the cutting room floor of memory. The book also gives us the chance to each choose and talk about one of the movies Powell writes about,

Productions of the Archers, directed by Michael Powell, written by Emmerich Pressburger, though even that division of responsibilities isn't really accurate. But before I start wielding the clapboard, I have two things to say. The first thing is, at the end of this episode, I am going to read something. I'm genuinely really excited about this. This is a piece of primary research. While I was preparing for this episode, I stumbled upon a poem by Michael Powell that has not been reprinted or referred to as far as I tell, since its original publication in 1959. It's a genuinely rare, funny, splenetic, and characteristic piece of work by Michael Powell. And it is my pleasure and privilege to be able to bring it back to the world here on Backlisted.

So stay listening, or or fast forward for that. That's coming up at the end of the show. Exclusive poem by Michael Powell. James, you chose this book. When did you first read it or when did you first become aware of the films of Michael Powell and or Emmerich Pressburger? So it was, well, 30 years ago, 31 years ago, 1993. And I found it in Muswell Hill Library.

I remember it well because I drew two books out that day. One was John Densmore's biography, Drum of the Doors, which is so bad that I still wish I could invoice him for the hours of my life that I'll never get back. And the other was Michael Powell, A Life in Movies, which was amazing. So I sort of drew out one of the worst memoirs and one of the best on one day. That's a little bit unfair to John Densmore. I mean, it's a great drama, but, you know. No, I don't think so.

Sorry, John. I know, it's a great drama, but, you know. No, I don't think so. Sorry, John. I know you're listening. Yeah. I was aware of Powell and Pressburger and The Archers because I'd seen A Matter of Life and Death about 10 years before. But this book, which was this magnificent, sprawling memoir, clearly written by a raging egotist and a genius. Yeah, in a voice that was charming and companionable and funny.

Also teeming with stories about the Powell and Pressburger films, which I was eager to hear because, you know, you couldn't, that sort of information pre-internet wasn't hard, it was hard to come by. That's very true. And, yeah, as you you've said i think we touched on that it's um it's also a history an alternative history of the the entire film industry from silent movies up until around 1948 when the book ends i'm sure this is a thing we'll return to was was A Matter of Life and Death the first film that you remember seeing by the Archers? Yes.

Yes, it was. So rewind 10 years, maybe 11 years, back to 1982. I switched on BBC Two very late at night, and there straightaway was the Burning Bomber sequence. Right. Next minute you know you're in this sort of cool monochrome, I was going to say heaven, they're very careful not to use the word heaven, this other world, you know.

And then I just filed it away in the back of my mind as this strange film, you know, with David Niven. It had all the sensibilities, this is what I really remember, of a modern film, yet it was clearly had all the sensibilities, this is what I really remember, of a modern film, yet it was clearly made in the 1940s, so I couldn't make it out. And that was my first exposure to The Archers. Also, it's worth saying,

David Niven, author of the single greatest book of all time, The Moons of Balloon. The Moons of Balloon. So one day we will make an episode and then our work here will be done. I can't believe we've never done that book. Well, their book's about quite similar, you know. Yeah. Incredible.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. That's a really good point. Melanie, so same kind of fudged question to you. Well, you know what I mean, because it's so difficult to bring it into one event. Can you remember either when you first read A Life in Movies or when you first became aware of Powell and Pressburger or The Archers as a an artistic force? that I was really taken by and that sent me back to the Powell and Pressburger films was Peeping Tom, which is obviously Powell without Pressburger. And I saw that at the kind of art cinema when it was on a sort

of 90s re-release or around that time. Which cinema, please? Oh, I think it probably would have been either The Watershed in Bristol or Hull Screen. I'm not sure. One of those. And I was absolutely kind of blown away by this and finding out about the kind of critical reception that the film had

and how it was said to have ended Powell's filmmaking career. Of course, it's much more complicated than that. But that sense of sort of transgression, rebellion, a film that's a sympathetic depiction of a serial killer with the colour and the violence. And, you know, as a kind of, you know, 90s cineast, this was right up my strata. And that kind of sent me back to the earlier Pal and Pressburger films

and, you know, a kind of process of really kind of retrospectively finding those really interesting, particularly Black Narcissus, I Know Where I'm Going, kind of mystical, magical, weird, idiosyncratic British films. One of the things I think is a recurring trope in Powell's films and Powell and Pressburger's films is reminding the viewer that even the worst human beings are still human beings. And Peeping Tom, it seems to me, is a perfect example of that. Mark in Peeping Tom, you're presented with a monster,

but you're also shown the monster is not born but made. And that seems to me, re-watching several of these films before recording this, this is an ongoing thing. We'll come on to this when we talk about our individual films. But time and again, you meet bad people who are not inherently bad. They've made choices or choices have been made on their behalf or a mixture of the two. And what I love about Pallin pressburger is they exploit that idea for drama and comedy and pathos and you know it's it's the full range of human

experience is is explored through that simple uh principle john can you remember the first time you saw a film of the archers i think that was around that the in the middle of the 80s they started to restore the films and there was i think a restored colonel blimp for the first time people said nobody's seen this film for ages in a cinema and i in my head i went to the rio cinema in dalston uh while i was still at college i got the train down to london i did that twice when i was at college in very short order once to see The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp which changed my life and the other time to see Andrei Rublev by Tarkovsky which also changed my life but they became for me like the two greatest movies in the history of

the world ever and I sort of there's still part of me that thinks that might be that might be a sound judgment and then Michael Powell's book was published in 1986 and I bought it. And I just remember it was just an astonishing thing that this, this, these filmmakers have become interested in. He was not only was he still alive, he'd written this massive 700 page book with all the information you could possibly want about his life,

probably more information than you really needed about his life. But it's, it's, I mean, it's still, when people say to you your favorite memoirs it will always be in my top two or three favorite it's really interesting looking at the reviews of it from the time this book because several reviewers it's not widely

reviewed that's the first thing right and the second thing is at least two reviewers are kind of disgruntled it's sort of presumptuous they feel of michael powell to pay himself this much attention you know that's which is not an attitude i think that we would have now and one of the things i found one of the reasons i'm asking you about when you first found this is um context chat has changed a lot you know when we all came to Powell and Pressburger in the 80s or early 90s they were not perhaps seen venerated in the way that they are now and the criticism of Powell's autobiography How Dare He is sort of similar to many of the criticisms that the archers faced for their films.

People were going, but why do you feel entitled to make a film about this subject or not have a clear message in this film? You know, it's a recurring theme. It's only as, you know, we talk about on it, once one generation of critics dies, that we can clear them out the way and see things a bit more plainly.

It's almost emotional for me, James, that you brought this today. Completely. It's like some of my favourite work is in their films, but also this memoir. I've read this memoir several times and the follow-up Million Dollar Movie, which he didn't quite finish but was published several years after Michael Powell's death. She didn't quite finish, but was published several years after Michael Powell's death.

And to me, those books are expressions of ego, for better or worse. What does the artist require to keep going? Belief, self-belief. Which he's not short of. No. But you need it because all these people are telling him he's, you know, their films are too wacky or too esoteric or not commercial enough. But you need that to be a film director.

I mean, there's a very certain sort of personality. Very few people can do it. And he does. He probably wasn't that easy to work with, although he had a really loyal sort of band of brothers, he called them, the top people across all the departments. But, you know, he admitted that he could be, you know, rude and blunt. In fact, as I was reading through this time, I started to collect a list of words,

of adjectives, of how he described himself. Selfish, dreamy, cultivated, impulsive, snobbish, reckless, silly, serious, shy, arrogant, quick, impatient, rude. I gave up at that point. You know, he was a nice bunch of guys, but he had a he had a he had an ego on him

you know and rightly so because he he talks about being a great artist and there's no real score settling I felt in the book but he could

there was a sort of tone of indication that crept in towards the end but you know by rights he could have had much more of a sense that he'd been completely... I mean, he was unemployed for the whole of the 70s.

Yeah. Melanie, in A Life in Movies, as Jane suggests, Powell isn't backwards in coming forwards about his own achievements. No. Do we find that endearing? No. Do we find that endearing? Well, I think that what offsets that kind of sense of egotism is the self-awareness and the self-reflexivity. And I think it's a really interesting book on the making of a filmmaker and what you need to be

and to do in order to do this job. And yeah, he's clearly a complete idiot at certain points, but he also kind of reflects on that idiocy. So when he's being awful to his future wife, Frankie, when she comes on location for the edge of the world, he's quite sort of self-lacerating about why was I being such a pig to her? What, you know, what was going on? Why was I such a fool? So there is this this kind of self-analysis as well as self-justification. And he kind of needed that advocacy from Scorsese and from Coppola and from critics like Ian Christie,

because he was a kind of prophet without honour in his own land. He was neglected. How true. It's striking that the contemporary reviews of the Archer's films are often, they're not bad. They're not often terribly good either. They're mostly bemused. producing in quick succession a series of masterpieces. And listeners, if you haven't seen A Matter of Life and Death or The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp or Black Narcissus or I Know Where I'm Going or The Red Shoes or A Canterbury Tale or Peeping Tom or maybe half a dozen more,

please stop this podcast now and go and find them and watch them and have your head turned upside down. But it seems to me another extraordinary part of their achievement that they produced so many quintessentially English films from a position of outsiderdom, even as those films were being made. You know, John, it's the public, actually, who ensure Pallon Pressburg's ongoing popularity, not critics.

Critics tend to say, what's this film trying to say? It's the public who who it's like my mum because she liked films about ballet loved the red shoes she didn't necessarily need to see the archetypal um tragic structure within it what she saw was somebody in pal's case responding to the passion and vibrancy of dance and seeking to translate it to the screen and similarly my my dad you know my dad didn't you know my dad was not down at the front of the new Fellini you know but but he could see a sensitive exploration of life and death of matters of life and death and so it's the public who do a lot of the carrying for their reputation for many many years right and you know yeah i think

completely and i think pal says you know he mirrored the English to the English. I think he kind of mirrored the Scots to the Scots as well. And I know where I'm going. Often when I have conversations with people about Englishness and what Englishness now means, and people often talk about Powell and Pressmogum movies, they'll talk about, they'll talk about Blimple, they'll talk about Matter of Life and Death, or they'll talk about, there's some, there's some kind of emotional, death or they'll talk about there's some there's some kind of emotional they touch some sort of deep emotional core which a lot of in a way that you know the cleverness and brittleness and americanness of hitchcock doesn't quite do to to do what they did with with blimp in the middle of a war you know having to have churchill kind of watching it was extraordinary. It's a film, in the end,

about how friendship is more important than political conflicts, even though they were both very clear at how evil Nazism is. It's extraordinary. So I think they're very wrapped up. If this country is still obsessed with the Second World War, and there is some evidence this country is still obsessed with the second world war and there are there is some

evidence that it is still then Powell and Pressburger are kind of the best kind they're the best part of that obsession the relationship between Powell and Pressburger and the war effort is seems to me absolutely crucial to understanding how they got to do what they did. Why don't we hear a bit, this is a clip of Michael Powell, I believe, reading the very start of A Life in Movies, the memoir. So let's hear the voice of the man himself now. All my life I have loved running water. One of my passions is to follow a river downstream until it reaches the sea.

Today that sea lies before me in plain view, and it's time to start the story of my life. To remount it to its source, before I swim out, leaning behind the land I love so much, into the grey, limitless ocean. Yet although I love grass and trees and woods and forests, with the passionate love of an Englishman for his island, I shall not be afraid to swim out over those awesome depths. I've seen men and women far better and cleverer than I, crippled by illness, killed by chance.

I've been allowed to reach the summit of which I aim, in a profession that never existed until we invented it. Whoa. And there was humility there. There was humility in what he was saying. You know, he wasn't just the sort of the film director that actors thought were trying to kill them. It's just also reminded me just very quickly that the start,

for the first 200 pages, it's, you know, when he's growing up on the hop farm in Kent, there's nature writing in there that is great. I mean, there's travel writing later in the book that is great, but there's all sorts of things going on in this memoir. I mean, Pressburger doesn't appear, does he, until sort of 300 pages in. We will meet him later, James. Don't worry.

I mean, I think this is one of the things about both Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressburger. Let's not forget, and it's a basic thing, they're writers. Yeah, yeah. They write. They write books. In fact, we talked about Emmerich Pressburger's novel, The Glass Pearls, his second and final novel, way, way, way back.

Episode 16 of Backlisted, which time that that novel has been republished and justifiably so because it's terrific um the glass plus he wrote his first book killing a mouse on sunday is very good but michael powell as well michael powell's willingness to fuse um a literary sensibility with a filmic one is one of the most important things, Melanie, that he or him and Pressburger bring to cinema. Certainly British cinema, I would say world cinema. Absolutely, yeah.

I mean, and one of the things that really comes across, particularly in the earlier part of a life in movies, is this sense of someone who's absolutely embedded in this kind of forgotten now, but he kind of makes reference to their works and the kinds of characters that they have, expecting us to kind of keep up with him. But it absolutely fixes him as a man of a certain period and cultural formation. And it's a beautiful kind of unpacking of all of that. Yes. And also, presumably presumably it's very valuable Melanie is it as a repository of information about how films were made in the in the early Hitchcock era and the early era of British cinema. Yeah it's funnily enough the first time that I read the book it was because I was I was filleting it because I was preparing a lecture and teaching on Paul and Pressburger. So it's a very particular kind of reading experience where you're not necessarily in it for the lovely kind of descriptions.

You're like, right, let's get to this bit that tells us about how they did this particular film. So it was very nice to revisit it and actually spend time with the kind of earlier part of Powell's life, about which he's, you know, so fascinating and eloquent. Yeah. James, one of the things that struck me, reading this book here in the year 2024, in the future, is that it feels so much more valuable as testimony than perhaps it did when it was published you know when it was published and Powell was still alive there's a kind of sense of uh he's finally getting his dues we love Michael Powell you know Kate Bush visits him in

New York famously you know he's having his moment again with his wife, Thelma Schoonmaker, and Martin Scorsese. He's being rediscovered. But coming to it now, the idea that people would criticise it for being too self-regarding seems insane. It seems – I can't find the word. It seems absurd, doesn't it? It's interesting because, yes, you know, he was being rehabilitated in that time.

And he touches on his friendship with Martin Scorsese at times. And so people were starting to come round to the archers. But it is strange reading it now because all you've got to do is just, you can click on IMDB or Wikipedia, you can find out everything you want to, you know, you can binge of this stuff. Back in the early 90s, you couldn't. You know, you'd basically have to stay up late to watch the films or set the video recorder.

And it was very hard to find information. So it's a very different experience reading it now. Yes. Was Powell writing for people who had seen the films or in the hope that as a result of reading the book, they would see the films, you know, because or seek them out because it was hard as James, exactly as you remember, I remember exactly the same thing. I remember reading the book and thinking, but I want to see.

Do you seem to remember even a Canterbury Tale was relatively hard to get to see? It's much more on the telly. A film which now we would think of as canonical was so hard to find. It wasn't like A Matter of Life and Death or The Red Shoes. It wasn't, you know, just on the telly in the afternoon. There was some TV. I mean, there was the arena thing that he did

while he was still alive. And then there was a South Bank show, which you can find. A a south bank show which you can find just a couple of years before he died there's also a great thing on uh the late show from 92 you've got this slightly dotty old man talking about about films yeah for those in the know these were the only ways of finding out and and of course, his book. It's not so much that you liked them. It's that you liked them, but you couldn't find out much about them. There was a scarcity of information.

So any sort of, you know, in a life in movies, when you're plunged into these stories, everything you always wanted to know about the making and the casting of the Red Shoes, you know, it's just glorious. He's so engaging, too. I mean, that little clip from the red shoes. You know, it's just glorious. And he's so engaging too. I mean, that little clip from the South Bank show we heard, he was obviously quite old. But one of the extraordinary things,

I don't know if anybody's seen Return to the Edge of the World where he goes back with his wife, Frankie. Do you see what he's got on when he arrives? He's literally got a full deer stalker and a cape. Yes. And then a few scenes later, he's got the most incredible deer stalker and a cape i mean and then for a few a few scenes later he's got the most incredible fair oil sweater i've ever seen i mean and and in the south bank show as well amazing waistcoats and crazy combinations of tie i mean he's kind he

was real dandy even even in his 80s yeah michael powell never phoned it in i think i can i think we can be sure of that so i'm just going to read a bit from the book now which um will dovetail with the film i'm going to talk about very briefly this is a pal's description of his first meeting with his collaborator and friend emmerich pressburger and what i would like um to point out in within this is first of all how much like a pal and pressburger film it is. And second of all, the technique that Powell uses when he describes Emmerich in the second section.

So the first time is this. They're having a meeting with Alex Korda, the producer, about a script which isn't working called The Spy in Black. We four gathered on Thursday in the ante room outside Alex Corder's office. It was usually crowded, but today there was only a small man making notes on a piece of paper. Irving arrived, accompanied by the author of the screenplay. We nodded to each other. The author was bristling.

He had obviously heard something to his disadvantage. Irving was ready to fight for the script too, but looked a bit uncertain, like a champion who doesn't know from which direction the attack is coming. Alex had this effect on people. Irving said to me, have you ever heard of Emmerich Pressburger? I said that I hadn't. As a matter of fact, I had seen the name on a screen treatment of Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata. I'd been asked to read it and had reported favourably and had remembered the name. He's one of Alex's contract writers, Irving went on. Of course, in a large organisation like London Films films with many hundreds of people working there it was

perfectly possible for two people under contract not to know each other at this point the character in the corner who had continued making notes unnoticed by any of us stood up and introduced himself excuse me i am press burger he made a little bow. We shook hands all round. With perfect timing, the door opened. Alex, we'll see you now, gentlemen. We trooped in. minutes about the faults with the screenplay with the writer in the room making it clear that he knows how to fix it he knows how to create a vehicle that will work for their contract star conrad veidt in the spy in black and their other contract star valerie hobson he's turned the idea inside out this is the thing mickey powell says about press burger over and over again how does he approach an idea he turns it inside out and it's the beginning as they say of a beautiful friendship

so after the meeting they go into the restaurant to find conrad veit together this is what happens conrad veit was seated alone at the table by the window drinking coffee when Emmerich and I arrived at the studio restaurant. Emmerich and I exchanged a glance. This magnificent animal was reserved for us. Then we looked at each other. I saw a short compact man with beautiful and observant eyes and a broad intellectual forehead formally and neatly dressed. He was a Hungarian Jew which meant that he was witty, ingenious, creative and sports loving. I learned later that he had been a runner himself over a distance of 440 meters. He had also been a professional violinist and had played in theater orchestras although small in stature he looked well made and strong both in person

and in his convictions and he obviously feared nobody not even alex corder emmerich saw a young lean englishman for the burmese trip had brought me down to about 148 pounds and the sun had burnt me black with a toothbrush moustache and piercing blue eyes at the moment they had a look of veneration in them they had seen a marvel a screenwriter who could really write I was not going to let him get away in a hurry I had always dreamt of this phenomenon, a screenwriter with the heart and mind of a novelist who would be interested in the medium of film and who would have wonderful ideas which I would turn into even more wonderful images and who only used dialogue to make a joke or to clarify the plot. I congratulated him on the conjuring trick he had pulled with poor Stora Cluston's plot.

Let's talk to Connie Veidt before Irving gets at him, I said. I was learning rapidly from the Hungarians. I mean, Mel, what I love about that is you've got a filmic sense of Powell's shot he's got a shot on Pressburger which he describes and then he has another shot in which he describes Pressburger looking at him he doesn't just describe how he looked he has what is Emmerich seeing and seeing is one of the recurring motifs in Powell and Pressburger films I I mean, that moment is like a sort of, it's halfway between a sort of rom-com meet cute,

these people who are destined for each other coming face to face. But it's also a bit like the sort of Terminator sort of scanning and working out who somebody is. This idea of like, okay, I've sussed out exactly what kind of person you are and that that process is reciprocal. And then this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, to quote a different film. James, does it matter if Powell and Pressburger were or weren't friends?

I think it really does. It really matters for their partnership. One thing that Powell insists on is that they get 50-50 billing. And he says that his agent was appalled. He said, what are you doing? You know, he's just the writer. The writers didn't have, you know, much cachet. But he said, no, you've got to understand what we're trying to do here.

And, you know, to get a Beatles reference in, it was a sort of Lennon and McCartney partnership. And they were friends. He speaks very tenderly about Emmerich. I don't think they had many disagreements if they if they did that he doesn't really go into them you know um and they did have this thing i mean um it's interesting you were saying about um you know the the uh the sensibility of a novelist and they did they, you know, Powell did sort of help

or they went sort of Lennon-McCartney sort of style with the dialogue. So that famous line from A Matter of Life and Death, one is starved of technicolour up there. In Pressburger's script, it was one is starved of colour up there. And Powell said, well, let's put in Technicolour, and there you go. You've got the joke that let everybody into the film.

I was going to say, everybody laughs. The twinkle, right? The twinkle, right? It's of a piece with, you know, the film I'm advocating for is The Spy in Black, which is the first Powell and Pressburger collaboration. Now, listen, that's not a masterpiece. But just because something isn't a masterpiece doesn't mean it isn't full of lovely little details or themes or performances that will come to be the things by which we define the Archer's films.

the archers films. And one of the things I didn't know until, or I've forgotten until I reread this book is that the script for the spy in black was worked up, not just between Powell and Pressburger, but in fact, between Powell, Pressburger, Conrad Veidt,

and Valerie Hobson. The reason why it leaps off the screen now is because they collaborated with, it's a collaboration between filmmakers, writers, and actors. In other words, Powell's Catholic approach to the sources that he would draw on for his work is right there in the method. How do you make this bad script that they were handed come alive?

You workshop it with the people you're going to be collaborating with. And then you fuse it with Powell's visual sense. It's such a fun film. I think it's really underrated, The Spy in Black. I agree. I know it's minor, but hey it you know that's okay that's fine don't you think there's a connection with hitchcock's he was a huge admirer of hitchcock's 39 steps pal and i just feel there's a sort of you know he because the use of landscape

which obviously um is this make this was made after edge of the world as well wasn't it he'd done it yes it was it's 39 yeah of course it's so there's there's that sensibility that he brings to it which i think kind of also obviously resurfaces in a major way a few years later in um in uh i know where i'm going it does remind me smile blackmail does remind me as john say it does remind me of the 39 Steps. It has that kind of, I hate the word quirky, but you know what I mean. It's taking a thriller and finding ways to give it character. Exactly.

Hitchcock invents a girl that isn't in the John Buchan novel, which is, of course, the great Madeleine Carroll being handcuffed. It's what makes the movie. That and Mr. Memory is what makes, that's what everybody remembers about the 39 steps and um in a life in movies there's a wonderful kind of a portrait of of hitchcock as well at that point where pal's working um has managed to kind of inveigle himself into British international pictures as a sort of stills photographer. And he describes Hitchcock's kind of this kind of Buddha type figure. And, you know, who's completely in control and doesn't miss a trick and is quite inscrutable, but is already a kind of supreme director.

And there's a nice kind of saluting there, I think, of a kind of fellow filmmaker. I would like to just finish this little discussion of The Spy in Black and of Powell and Pressburger. When Million Dollar Movie, the second volume of Powell's memoir was published, it was reviewed by various people, including the film, the great British filmmaker, Lindsay Anderson.

And this is what Lindsay Anderson wrote about the difference between the two of them. He said, Pressburger was very much a European intellectual. He subscribed to Time magazine and he worried for hours when he missed the six o'clock news. Whereas Powell read the TLS and couldn't have cared less what happened so long as they didn't tell me about it. He cared about art, even if his taste was erratic. it he cared about art even if his taste was erratic he scorned davis and his rank films non-entities quote as for tact a bull in a pasture has more tact but i have learned to hold my tongue

it took a long time though and over the years powell's caustic expression of convictions I mean, Lindsay Anderson knows of what he speaks, right? I mean, that seems projection in the filmic sense and otherwise of a character trait, at least. Listen, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back in a moment with not merely matters of life and death, but a matter of life and death. So see you after the break. And we're back. We're talking about Michael Powell's life in movies. And I'm turning now to, I'm doing this slightly out of chronological order,

but I feel we should move to a film, which is one of the jewels of British cinema, a matter of Life and Death. James, you've already told us you saw it when you were young. You were going to tell us a bit about it now as well in relation to a life in movies. Yeah, so it's Michael Powell's favourite film of the ones that they did. I believe Emmerich Pressburgers was Blimp.

And it's also my favourite film of all time I'd probably say I must have seen it like you Andy I tried to work out how many times

I'd seen it so I think if I watched it twice a year for the last 30 years that's 60 times okay

wow it's just a perfect film perfect in the sense of those films that are they're complete sort of accidents really that everything is perfect the music the casting powell says something like there's no such thing as a big or a small part. There are only shorter or longer ones. And so every face, every last character in A Matter of Life and Death is perfect. You've also got the fact that most people know that it's visually outrageous. It's playful. The whole film is just…

From the first line, yeah. Yeah, it's just, I i mean it's packed with great one-liners but you've got this sense of you've got these two master craftsmen at the very top of their game you know like the beatles this would be my last beatles reference i promise um in an imperial phase you're among friends here you're're safe here. 60, 60, 70, whatever it was, you know, they've learnt their craft. They've mastered rock and roll. They've mastered the ballad form. They're going to have some fun.

And this is exactly what Powell and Pressburger do. They're going to have some fun with the form. So these in-jokes will start with Technicolor up there. You know, these meta-jokes start to creep in and it's just playful. It's just, it's all the humour and fun of american films but with this english sensibility the line near the start of the film this is the universe big isn't it that's douglas adams avant la lettre isn't it it sounds like a

modern dialogue you know it's it sounds like again it's all the sensibilities of a modern film right from the start you've got this yes like the tone is very, it's playful, you know, and that's one of the reasons I think it's survived despite all its other qualities. James, do you have anything? I know you've got an essay you want to talk about in relation to A Matter of Life and Death. This is from the middle 90s and it's from an essay, a lovely personal essay by the late great writer David Kavanagh, who was mainly a music writer, but he wrote this for Empire magazine.

It was free with Empire magazine in 1995. And it just gives a sense of how obsessive and protective Powell and Pressburger fans were at that point where you couldn't really access their films that easily. When I hear Michael Powell's name, and to be frank, it's usually me he's mentioning it, I get a series of rapid images and words. I visualise the word Kent, his birthplace. I see the date, 1905, his year of birth.

I see lustrous reds, deep greens and creamy whites. It goes quickly now. Technicolour, fantasy, airmen, nuns. Technicolour, fantasy, airmen, nuns. I'm really not interested if some people think the Archers made fanciful films about stiff upper lip characters or celebrated a back to basics England or ignored four fifths of human society in their plots or had a pretty creaky sense of humour. I care about the fact that I haven't yet seen their 1949 film The Small Back Room. I care that you don't get Technicolour in real life.

I'm bluffing monstrously here, but technicolor is more than a process of primary colors and half tones. It's a kaleidoscope, a one that a planet as prosaic as Earth doesn't altogether deserve. Powell's autobiographies talk about the facts, the technicolor magician Dr. Herbert Kalmas, his wife Natalie, and the invention they sweetly called natural color. But Michael Powell's use of Technicolour is unique and perfect. You can see the difference in Powell-a-colour with, well, pick any other Technicolour movie. Rope, by Alfred Hitchcock, will do. It's exactly the same invention. In fact, in the opening credits of Rope, Natalie Calmas is listed as Technicolour colour director.

But Rope doesn't talk or dress like an archer's film. It's probably the best film about a dead guy in a box there's ever been. But it isn't Kent, it isn't 1905, and it isn't Technicolor fantasy airmen nuns. Gosh, that's good. Isn't it? Oh, Dave. Dave Cabana.

Superb. Well, picking up on the Technicolor thing okay in the wall there was no technicolor and they had to make some movies which they weren't able to use technicolor blimp was technicolor i know where i'm going was written very quickly pressburger had an idea about he said he always wanted to make a film about a girl who wants to go to an island but can't get there and by the time she can get there her life has changed in some mysterious way he said in the way a young girl's life sometimes do and that was that's how it started Frankie Michael Powell's wife suggested the the the title on the

bus between I think Hyde Park Corner and Green Park saying what you should call it I know where I'm going and he said why he said because it's a great song this thing i know where i'm going i know who'll go with me yeah i know who i love but i dear knows who i'll marry which is the song he she's so middle class girl in the war from manchester her dad's a bank manager has become uh engaged to a very rich man who owns who is renting a scottish. She goes up there to get married. She gets almost to the island and then can't because there's a storm. And she spends three days trying to get to the island. And in the course of that, she falls in love with the true owner of the island,

the Laird of Culloran. Why do I love this film? Because two reasons. One is it's just, it's beautifully made and complex and it has amazing Scottish scenery. He said, given this scenario, he says, listen, this is the way that Powell and Pressburger work brilliantly together. He said, once Emmerich had manoeuvred his people into a situation where they're committed to try to reach the island, it was up to me to create about 25 minutes of spectacular action to prevent them from doing so,

which he does brilliantly by bringing in the real whirlpool, Koriv Reckon, which he had scoped when he went up to Jura, very nearly meets Eric Blair, who is writing 1984 as this film is being made. In my heart, this this film because it's also a film I think that comes out of the energy of the 1945 election it's about we need more than materialism love matters more than than money and capitalism but also there is a deep deep love and respect for traditionally Cayley sequence in this film is one of the great bits

of traditional folk in a British film ever. I love this film so much that I've been to Killoran. I mean, I sit honestly, I have to say, I sat last night with Rachel, we both sat, literally cried all the way through it. We got a

wolfhound because of Pamela Brown's wolfhounds in this film yeah that this this is how mad my my love for this and the beautiful film so let me just tell you the final thing and then i'll shut up about that because everybody ought to go and watch it i went to see it at the ica in much 1986 87 michael powell was there okay at the end of the film the lights go up and Michael Powell is sitting with tears streaming down his face and he just says I haven't seen that I haven't seen that film since we made it wow I'd forgotten how beautiful it is and I mean everybody I'm choking up here everybody in the audience just to be there to see this man who's been through,

had been through so much and to, you know, to be suddenly in front of an audience with everybody. I mean, you've got a standing ovation, obviously. A couple of little amazing facts about the film. Andy,

you must know there's a, there's a small cameo in this film that you should know about. The young girl, the Robinson, the, the bridge playing swatty kid. Do you know who that's played by is it paul mccartney no it's a girl it's a woman it's petula clark it's petula clark

oh wow petula clark oh of course petula clark one other thing he wanted to cast james mason as the lead of coloran and james mason basically said i know about you pal this is this involves a whirlpool and boats. And he said, no, I'm not doing it. So Roger Liversy, desperate to play it. He says he's too old. And also, you're in a stage play. You're not going to be able to.

Roger Liversy can't get out of the stage play. The whole of that film is made without Roger Liversy. Well, you know this. You've read the book. But Roger Liversy doesn't go to Scotland. It doesn't go near it. It's just incredible. It's mind-blowing, right?

Spy in Black is made, according to Powell in this book, in five weeks. And merely saying it's made in five weeks, to put it in real time, that all these incredible shots and these performances and things are just kind of done on the hoof, quickly, fast. That's the nature of film.

And then it's captured forever and caught forever. Melanie, that would be a lovely point to leave off with that triumphant, moving, Powell receiving the acclaim for which he's due. Tell us about Gone to Earth, though. Well, I mean, Gone to Earth is slightly beyond the scope of what Powell's talking about in the life of movies. So it comes beyond that moment of international triumph and acclaim with the Red Shoes. And obviously that's really kind of brought a lot of attention to Powell and Pressburger.

Powell and Pressburger. But it's also the kind of end of that very particular moment, special moment that they had of artistic freedom, kind of made possible by the rank organisation at that time. And like all great things, it seems it has to come to an end. it seems it has to come to an end. So it's what they do beyond that point. And Hollywood is interested. And specifically Selznick, David O. Selznick, famous producer of Gone With The Wind. At this point, he's kind of very much about creating star vehicles for his new partner, Jennifer Jones. Famously, this is where Jewel in the Sun, the kind of mega technicolor Western emerges from, or Lost in the Dust, as it was described.

as it was described. So this is kind of Selznick and Jennifer Jones and the kind of Hollywood mega budget kind of way of doing things meeting Powell and Pressburger, who are coming from a very different sensibility, a very different production context. And it's fair to say that it doesn't kind of work out brilliantly. Although there's lots of things in the film that are kind of magical and wonderful

and Jennifer Jones, even if her accent might be a bit wonky, does a wonderful job of playing Hazel Woodus, who's this kind of fake wild child in the Shropshire countryside. It's drawn from Mary Webb's novel, and it's all the kind of rural stuff that Cold Comfort Farm is kind of ripping it out of. Yes, right. But done with absolute sincerity and commitment.

So Hazel has this pet fox, Foxy, and she kind of talks affectionately to it. And in a kind of sub-Thomas Hardy way, there's a kind of tussle over her affections that's also to do with her sexual probity. You know, will she go with the good will or will she succumb to the wicked squire so we're kind of in this like rural victorian melodrama universe there are many beautiful shots on location in shropshire i mean it's just got some stunning in Shropshire. I mean, it's just got some stunning images, but it's also a film that was subject to kind of legal action.

Selznick took and re-edited the film and put it out as The Wild Heart. Yes, it comes out in the States, doesn't it, as a completely different title film. It films some fresh scenes and cuts others so it ends up with ram ramamoolian yes yeah steps up doesn't he who's a fine and wonderful filmmaker in his own right but it really then um kind of reorientates the film in a different way and for a long time that was the version of the film that was in circulation so it's also the one that um raymond durn yet the film critics sees on bbc television and he although he's a big advocate and fan of paul and press burger he sort of says oh this film's a bit

rubbish they kind of you know whenever there's anything a bit sexy happening they cut away to a harpist or you know a tree or something um and it's it you know it's full of cliches and and it's a shame it would be interesting to know what durnia would have thought had he seen the kind of yeah not butchered boulderized version that that had emerged from selznick's kind of not butchered, boulderised version that had emerged from Selznick's kind of fan edit, which took the film in a completely different direction. I mean, for me, Gone to Earth, I find Gone to Earth fascinating, more fascinating than good, as you suggest. One of the things I felt revisiting the material for this show

is I hadn't really appreciated how much the Second World War provides Powell and Pressburger with a focus and a financial possibility to get these films made and that when the Second World War ends, they are in trouble because there aren't patrons willing to fund their ambiguous, is it propaganda or isn't it, series of exercises with films that engage with issues raised by the war, such as fate and what we think of as good and evil. And suddenly they're out in

the cold. They're in the world of Selznick and box office. And I'd never really appreciated how much they needed the Second World War and the Second World War needed them, as we suggested earlier, that the films are not coincidentally the product of the war. They are directly the product of the war. There's definitely a moment after the war, and I think Powell talks about it, where they're like, okay, well, what do we do now? And, you know, one answer to that is crazy nuns and another answer to it is ballet.

But I suppose the overarching thing that they really begin to lean into is this idea of the composed film where it's all kind of, you know, meticulously put together and very much a kind of expression of that belief that all arts are one and Powell kind of repeats this across the book and across interviews yeah that you know all art forms converge and can be kind of understood as tributaries of the same thing and pushes it and pushes it as far as he can go with peeping tom which is a kind is a kind of a composed film it's a remarkable um bit of work but that cost him his career yeah so like peeping tom as we know ruins powell's reputation and career for a while though it subsequently comes back to enhance it um that film appears in 1960 i promised you listeners earlier that i had something to share with you um that uh had not been circulated since 1959 okay so here we go this is while michael While Michael Powell was making Peeping Tom, he spotted a newspaper story

which said that officials of the Rabbit Clearance Advisory Council are reported to have complained that Beatrix Potter's books encourage children to think of rabbits as little darlings and that no attempt is being made to present the rabbit as little darlings and that no attempt is being made to present the rabbit as a fictional criminal right and so michael powell responded to this in verse in the july 1959 issue of country life magazine this has not been published since then.

It's a poem Michael Powell wrote called Fierce Bad Rabbit. Fierce Bad Rabbit being the original title of Peter Rabbit, the tale of the fierce bad rabbit. And Powell, in his quixotic, quirky way, decides to respond to the movement of the rabbit clearance advisory council in the following manner and i'm going to read you this poem as i say this is a extremely rare piece of powell's work which has not circulated for 65 years it's a poem called Fierce Bad Rabbit. Child, take a pull. Adjust your toys from teddy bears to teddy boys.

Drop warm and cuddly flopsy bunnies for rape and striptease in the funnies. An atom babe needs something hotter than fluffy tails by Beatrix Potter. Fixations on a fierce bad rabbit in later life become a habit kids that are happy cuddling pets can only be described as wets you need to cure this deep neurosis by literary mix metosis flopsy mopsy and cotton tail are characters beyond the pale benjamin bunny peter rabbit as childhood images have had it a complex sewn by pigling bland is something that we understand we know too well the freudian laws of tiggy winkles pinafore. We trace the conflicts in your house to tattle of Mrs. Tittlemouse. We spot unconscious ideations in squirrel-nutkins imitations and find fulfillment for the wish-a

reading inspires of Jeremy Fisher. Be warned, in time, don't trust your luck to dread jemima puddle duck relax don't think we'll save you yet from sublimation with your pet pet no your pest our members cry you know how rabbits multiply so when we've emptied hill and dale of flopsy mopsy cotton tail and every nursery tale is told and every rabbit hutch is cold, then we will wander hand in hand through England's green and pleasant land. So green and pleasant when it's planned. Michael Powell. Fabulous. Brilliant. pleasant when it's planned michael powell fabulous brilliant don't you think that's astounding yeah yeah it'll make a great great band name as well fierce bad rabbit that's my new favorite band name also the do you know why i know that's michael powell because apart from the mischievous and splenetic tone it's a Freudian

reading of Peter Rabbit which indeed we will come to see him peeping Tom which he's making at that time what an incredible find anyway we will put that poem unless the estate stops us doing so we will put the poem on the website so you can see it um John I think we have to wrap oh it's time time to bring up the house lights and to repair to the bar so yeah huge thank you to james and to mel for help really enabling us to spend an hour and a bit talking about one of our favorite modern artists and also to nikki for being a audio version of film machine maker thank you nikki thank Nicky. If you want show notes with clips, links and suggestions for further reading for this show and the 205 we've already recorded,

please visit our website at batlisted.fm. If you want to buy the books discussed in this or any of our other shows, visit our shop at bookshop.org and choose Batlisted as your bookshop. And we're still keen to hear from you on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky and wherever else you feel

compelled to write from. If you want to hear Backlisted early and ad-free, subscribe to our Patreon, www.patreon.com forward slash Backlisted. Your subscription brings other benefits if you subscribe at the lot listener level. For a monthly fee that's half the cost of getting married in the Hebrides in 1948, you'll get

not one but two extra exclusive podcasts every month. Features the three of getting married in the hebrides in 1948 you'll get not one but two extra exclusive podcasts every month features the three of us talking and recommending the books films and music we've enjoyed in the previous fortnight for those of you who enjoyed our what have you been reading slot that's where you'll now find it it's an hour of tunes musings and superior book chat plus a lot of listeners get their names read out accompanied by lashings of praise like this. Caroline, thank you. Andrew Lear, thank you. Michael Fountain, thank you. Margaret Einarsson, thank you. Bob Bradshaw, thank you. Tim Arding, thank you. Steve Carnaby, what an excellent surname, Steve. Thank you. Tanya Spooner, thank you. Martin Arbour, thank you. Thank you.

Tanya Spooner, thank you. Martin Arbour, thank you. Anne Corden, thank you. Briefly, James, is there anything you would like to add on the subject of Michael Powell's life in movies that we have not had time to cover? I'd just like to say that there's a line in A Matter of Life and Death, which is probably the most backlisted line in all of film. When Roger Livesey says to David Niven,

he invites him to stay at his house. They're in the library and Niven says, can I stay in here, Doc? I just want to be near all these books. And that's my favourite line from the film. Andy Marvel, what a marvel. I can't hear the name Andrew

Marvell since 1985 without thinking of that line. Andy Marvel, what a marvel. Well, that's not how you spell Shakespeare. Who are you? He's aging. Sorry, I watched it last night, so I've got all the lines. Wonderful. It's wonderful.

Melanie, is there anything you would like to add on the subject to these wonderful people? I can't think of anything. I know where I'm going. On Saturday, I'm going to watch I Know Where I'm Going. Wow. Recursive loop yes

fantastic there's a great story that he tells at the end of I Know Where I'm Going where they're throwing water into Wendy Hiller's face

pretending she's on a boat David Niven is standing just off and this is great he just turns in and says is this a private fight

or can anyone get in on it it was at that very instant i cast him for peter the hero of a matter of life and death and the rest well listen everybody thanks so much uh thank you melanie thank you james thank you uh what what a pleasure joy what a marvel to have you join us If you haven't seen at least 20 of these films, get on it. Do it now. Make it happen.

And we'll see you in a couple of weeks' time, won't we, Johnny? We will. All right. Thanks, guys. That was brilliant. See you soon. Bye.