Fall under the spell of Powell and Pressburger
Brief Encounter, I really do. But if it came down to that or the other black-and-white British romance from 1945, I’d choose Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going every time.
There’s nothing in David Lean’s film—not even the famous scene at the train station—that can match the sheer life force of the low-angle shot of an open door, through which bound half a dozen barking dogs followed by Pamela Brown, hunting rifle in one hand, her hair wet and eyes shining, tossing a rabbit aside and embracing a delighted Roger Livesey. It’s one of my favourite character introductions in all of cinema.
Powell and Pressburger were well-known in their time, though not on the level of their countrymen Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean. Their star really rose across several cycles of reassessment.
The initial wave came via the young Americans who’d seen their work on TV growing up and were now making movies in 1970s Hollywood: Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma (George Romero, director of Night of the Living Dead, tells a story of how, in their student days, he and Scorsese would be the only ones renting a lone 16mm print of The Tales of Hoffmann). Subsequent generations found their work more easily on DVD, blu-ray and streaming, with the Criterion Collection—which has released most of their filmography—proving particularly consistent champions.
Scorsese’s enthusiasm for The Archers (Powell and Pressburger’s production company) is well known; his Film Foundation has restored some of their stunning colour works, and he never misses an opportunity to talk up their influence. It is, therefore, unsurprising to see Scorsese take the lead in David Hinton’s new documentary, Made in England: The Films of
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