Powell & Pressburger

Martin Scorsese's precious voice-over, combined with the magnificent images of Powell and Pressburger's films and unpublished archival footage, make this documentary an invaluable lesson for every cinephile and a fascinating journey through celluloid history for all big screen devotees. — Martin Scorcese honours the enduring legacy of visionary writer-directors Michael Powell and Emerick Pressburger - two of the greatest filmmakers in British cinema. With a treasure trove of footage and rare archive material, Scorcese examines the duo's bold genius and their colossal impact on film history.

Ever since 1948, people have called it the most beautiful film ever made. Ballerina Moira Shearer spent a year trying to get out of the role until Powell won her over, and she shines in a ballet sequence that runs unbroken for more than ten minutes, as a dancer whose art asks for everything she has. — On tour with a ballet company, young Victoria Page is about to become a star, and Boris Lermontov builds a new production around her. Only then does he discover that she has fallen in love with the composer who wrote its music. Lermontov isn’t prepared to share her, and sooner or later he will make her choose. — Best Set Decoration | Oscars | 1949 Best Original Score | Oscars | 1949 Nomination for Best Film | Oscars | 1949 Nomination for Best Screenplay | Oscars | 1949 Best Original Score | Golden Globes | 1949 Official Selection - International Competition | Venice Film Festival | 1948

One of the top British films of all time, a wartime romance by Powell and Pressburger, features Deborah Kerr in a triple feature and one of the most impressive uses of flashbacks we've ever seen in cinema. It remains highly impactful. — General Candy, who oversees a British platoon in 1943, is a veteran leader who lacks the respect of the men he trains and is seen as out of touch with what it takes to win a war. But in looking back at his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a daring young officer whose life has been shaped by three different women and a lasting friendship with a German soldier.

Less well known than Powell and Pressburger's other films, but just as masterful, this tribute to the mysterious beauty of the Scottish landscape is an unforgettable combination of romance and mystery. And if you don't believe us, it's Tilda Swinton's favourite film. — A stubborn young woman travels to the remote Hebridean islands to marry a wealthy lord. Bound by the stormy weather, she meets a handsome naval officer who threatens to thwart her carefully laid plans for her future.

Powell and Pressburger (“The Red Shoes”) shot their famous Himalayan convent film nowhere near a mountain, with painted peaks and a convent built at Pinewood, and still won Oscars for cinematography and art direction. Five English nuns, one agnostic, and a faith that loses out to the flesh. — Five English nuns, led by the young Sister Clodagh, arrive at a palace on a Himalayan cliff to open a school and a dispensary in what was once a harem and now belongs to the Church. The air is thin and peace never comes. Mr Dean, the only Englishman for miles around, doesn’t pretend to believe in anything, and Sister Ruth can’t stop looking at him. — Best Cinematography | Oscars | 1948 Best Set Decoration | Oscars | 1948 Best Cinematography | Golden Globes | 1948

The British government commissioned it to mend ties with the US, and Powell and Pressburger, looking for humanity in the ruins of the Second World War, built a stairway to heaven and put an RAF airman on trial at the top. Earth gets Technicolor, which heaven, as one of the dead complains, does not. — The burning bomber over the English Channel has run out of parachutes, so British pilot Peter Carter spends what he takes to be his last minutes on the radio with June, an American radio operator, and then he jumps. He wakes up on a beach, still alive, and when the other world notices its mistake, it sends someone down to take him where he belongs.