Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger formed one of the greatest creative partnerships in the history of British cinema - The Archers. Their films were often controversial - Churchill tried to suppress the release of "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp". Later, "The Red Shoes" and "The Tales of Hoffman" startled and enchanted cinema audiences with their use of colour, form amd music. However, in the last ten years the magic, poetry and passion of their work has been acknowledged around the world and they are firmly in the pantheon of film masters. This book is a comprehensive analysis of their films and is a useful guide to their work.
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Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known collectively as "The Archers," wrote, produced, and directed nearly 20 films, some of the most opulent and imaginative movies of all time. And though the makers of The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, I Know Where I'm Going, and A Matter of Life and Death deserve to sit in the pantheon of great filmmakers, they wallow in relative obscurity. Moving effortlessly between biography and analysis, Ian Christie reveals how the Archers created their spellbinding films. After reading this book, you'll be ready to rent some of the best movies you've never heard of. The volume opens with a forward by Martin Scorsese, who describes the deep influence the Archers' movies and Powell's friendship has had over his own films.
About the Author
Ian Christie is a well-respected lecturer on film who has co-edited Scorsese on Scorsese, edited Gilliam on Gilliam and is the author of a study of the films of Powell and Pressburger, Arrows of Desire. Born in Queens, New York, in 1942, Martin Scorsese seriously contemplated the priesthood but finally embraced cinema and, following Mean Streets (1973) emerged as the pre-eminent American director of his generation. Taxi Driver won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1976; Raging Bull (1980) is considered the greatest American film of its decade. During the 90s, he made GoodFellas (1990) and Casino (1995). In the past decade he has made, Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004) and Shutter Island (2010). He received an Oscar of Best Director for The Departed in 2007.
Product Details
Paperback: 184 pages
Publisher: Ian Christie with Martin Scorsese (January 11, 2002)
I am a film historian, curator, broadcaster and consultant, as well as Anniversary Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck College, University of London, since 1999. I've written and edited books on early film, Powell and Pressburger, Russian cinema, Scorsese and Gilliam (full details elsewhere on this site); and worked on exhibitions ranging from Film as Film (Hayward, 1979), Eisenstein: His Life and Art (MoMA Oxford, 1988) and Twilight of the Tsars (Hayward, 1991) to Spellbound: Art and Film (Hayward, 1996) and Modernism: Designing a New World (V&A, 2006).
I have chapters in a number of recent books, including Fantastic Voyages of the Cinematic Imagination: Georges Méliès's Trip to the Moon, edited by Matthew Solomon (SUNY Press, winner of the Kraszna-Krausz Award 2010); and Conjuring the Real: The Role of Architecture in Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Edited by Rumiko Handa and James Potter (Nebraska, 2011). Forthcoming are chapters on production design in film (Framing Film, Intellect), early music and accompaniment in British cinema, on The Red Shoes (Norton Film Reader). And my next book, an edited collection on Audiences should appear from Amsterdam UP in October 2012.
I write regularly for the film journal Sight and Sound. I also contribute frequently to radio and television programmes on cinema - in recent years: an essay on Harold Pinter as screenwriter and on J S Bach as a film composer, both for BBC Radio 3; a contribution on Lenny Henry's favourite film (guess which?) on BBC Radio 2; and on TV, interviews for The Thirties in Colour (BBC4), Scotland on Screen, Dive. Dive, Dive!, The History of British Pathe, Rex Appeal (dinosaurs on screen!), and Epics. Coming next: boxing on film.
