The work of film-makers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is discussed with passion and authority by Martin Scorsese in this richly enjoyable documentary, for which he presents his thoughts and recollections directly to camera. When the British establishment shamed itself by turning its back on these homegrown masters, it took this Italian American film-maker to rediscover them in the 1970s – and now the Powell/Pressburger films almost cannot be seen except through the medium of Scorsese’s glorious evangelism; their movies and his have virtually become intertextual events.
As he takes us through the great Powell/Pressburger films such as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I’m Going!, Black Narcissus, Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffmann, Scorsese also plays clips of his own films, including Raging Bull and The Age of Innocence, showing how he had been influenced by these predecessors. How remarkable that a movie director who came of age in the era of gritty violent realism – precisely that movement which supplanted the romantic idealism of Powell and Pressburger – was to give them a second lease of life.
