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Home , Allan Gray (composer), A Canterbury Tale, Black Narcissus, Christopher Challis, Finlay Currie, His Lordship

10 February 2015 (Series 30:3) and , ‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’ (1945, 91 minutes)

Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Written by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Music by Cinematography by Erwin Hillier Film Editing by John Seabourne Sr. Falconry advising by C.W.R. Knight Catering for the eagle by Jimmy Robb

George Carney ... Mr. Webster ... Joan Webster Walter Hudd ... Hunter Duncan MacKechnie ... Captain 'Lochinvar' Ian Sadler ... Iain ... Torquil MacNeil ... Ruairidh Mhór Murdo Morrison ... Kenny Margot Fitzsimons ... Bridie C.W.R. Knight ... Colonel Barnstaple ... Catriona Heaven, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 A Donald Strachan ... Shepherd Tale, 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1942 One of John Rae ... Old Shepherd Our Aircraft Is Missing, 1941 49th Parallel, 1940 The Thief of Duncan McIntyre ... His Son Bagdad, 1940 Blackout, 1939 , 1939 The Jean Cadell ... Postmistress Spy in Black, 1937 , 1936 The Brown Norman Shelley ... Sir Robert Bellinger Wallet, 1936 Her Last Affaire, 1935 The Murder Party, 1935 The

Girl in the Crowd, 1934 , 1932 Michael Powell (director, writer, producer) (b. Michael , 1932 , and 1931 . Latham Powell, September 30, 1905 in Bekesbourne, , He also wrote 36 films and television shows, which are —d. February 19, 1990 (age 84) in Avening, 1959 Honeymoon, 1957 Night Ambush, 1956 Pursuit of the Graf Gloucestershire, England) directed 60 films and television Spee, 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1952 The Wild Heart, 1951 shows, including1978 Return to the Edge of the World, 1972 The “Robert Montgomery Presents” (TV Series), 1951 The Tales of Boy Who Turned Yellow, 1969 Age of Consent, 1964 Hoffmann, 1950 The Fighting Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth, “Espionage” (TV Series), 1961 The Queen's Guards, 1960 1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The Red Shoes, 1947 The End of the Peeping Tom, 1959 Honeymoon, 1956 Pursuit of the Graf Spee, River, 1947 , 1946 Stairway to Heaven, 1945 'I 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1951 The Tales of Hoffmann, 1950 The Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 , 1944 The Fighting Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth, 1949 Hour of Glory, Volunteer, 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1942 One 1948 The Red Shoes, 1947 Black Narcissus, 1946 Stairway to of Our Aircraft Is Missing, 1941 An Airman's Letter to His

Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—2

Mother, 1940 Blackout, 1939 What Men Live by, 1937 The Edge Heart, 1951 The Tales of Hoffmann, 1950 The Fighting of the World, 1935 Oh, Daddy!, 1934 The Medium, 1934 Strike!, Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth, 1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The 1934 The Fire Raisers, 1933 Perfect Understanding, 1932 Entre Red Shoes, 1947 Black Narcissus, 1946 Stairway to Heaven, noche y día, 1932 Rynox, 1932 , 1931 77 rue Chalgrin, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 A Canterbury Tale, 1944 1931 Two Crowded Hours, 1931 77 Park Lane, 1930 Caste, and The Volunteer, 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and 1929 Blackmail. In addition, he produced 30 films, which are 1942 One of Our Aircraft Is Missing. 1983 Pavlova: A Woman for All Time, 1978 Return to the Edge of the World, 1969 Age of Consent, 1968 Sebastian, 1966 They're Erwin Hillier (cinematographer) (b. September 2, 1911 in a Weird Mob, 1961 The Queen's Guards, 1960 Peeping Tom, Berlin, Germany—d. January 2, 2005 (age 93) in , 1959 Honeymoon, 1957 Night Ambush, 1956 Pursuit of the Graf England) was the cinematographer for 56 films, among them Spee, 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1952 The Wild Heart, 1951 The 1969 The Valley of Gwangi, 1968 The Shoes of the Fisherman, Tales of Hoffmann, 1951 Aila, Pohjolan tytär. 1950 The Fighting 1966 The Quiller Memorandum, 1965 Sands of the Kalahari, Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth, 1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The 1965 Operation Crossbow, 1963 A Boy Ten Feet Tall, 1962 Go Red Shoes, 1947 The End of the River, 1947 Black Narcissus, to Blazes, 1961 The Naked Edge, 1960 School for Scoundrels, 1946 Stairway to Heaven, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 1959 Shake Hands with the Devil, 1958 Girls at Sea, 1958 The A Canterbury Tale, 1944 The Volunteer, 1943 The Life and Naked Earth, 1957 The Mark of the Hawk, 1957 Casino de Paris, Death of Colonel Blimp, 1943 , 1942 One of Our 1957 Let's Be Happy, 1956 Now and Forever, 1952 Where's Aircraft Is Missing, 1941 Charley?, 1952 Castle in the Air, 49th Parallel, 1941 An 1951 Happy Go Lovely, 1950 Airman's Letter to His Shadow of the Eagle, 1949 Private Mother, and 1935 The Price Angelo, 1948 The Weaker Sex, of a Song. 1947 The Mark of Cain, 1946 London Town, 1946 They Knew Emeric Pressburger Mr. Knight, 1945 'I Know Where (director, writer, producer) I'm Going!', 1945 Great Day, 1944 (b. Imre József Pressburger, Welcome, Mr. Washington, 1944 A December 5, 1902 in Canterbury Tale, 1943 Rhythm Miskolc, Austria-Hungary— Serenade, 1942 Lady from Lisbon, d. February 5, 1988 (age 85) and 1936 Some Waiter!. in Saxstead, Suffolk, England) won the 1943 Wendy Hiller ... Joan Webster Academy Award for Best (b. Wendy Margaret Hiller, Writing, Original Story for August 15, 1912 in Bramhall, 49th Parallel (1941). He Cheshire, England—d. May 14, wrote 70 films and TV 2003 (age 90) in Beaconsfield, shows, among them 1972 The Boy Who Turned Yellow, 1965 Buckinghamshire, England) won the 1959 Academy Award for Operation Crossbow, 1957 Night Ambush, 1956 Pursuit of the Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Separate Tables (1958). Graf Spee, 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1952 The Wild Heart, 1951 She appeared in 55 films and television shows, including 1992 The Tales of Hoffmann, 1950 The Fighting Pimpernel, 1950 “Screenplay” (TV Series), 1989 “Ending Up” (TV Movie), 1988 Gone to Earth, 1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The Red Shoes, 1947 “A Taste for Death” (TV Mini-Series, 6 episodes), 1987 The Black Narcissus, 1946 Stairway to Heaven, 1946 A Voice in the Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, 1986 “All Passion Spent” (TV Night, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 A Canterbury Tale, Series), 1983 “The Comedy of Errors” (TV Movie), 1982 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1942 One of Our “Witness for the Prosecution” (TV Movie), 1980 The Elephant Aircraft Is Missing, 1941 49th Parallel, 1940 Blackout, 1940 Spy Man, 1978 “Richard II” (TV Movie), 1978 The Cat and the for a Day, 1939 Continental Express, 1939 , Canary, 1976 Voyage of the Damned, 1974 Murder on the Orient 1938 The Challenge, 1936 Parisian Life, 1934 Incognito, 1932 A Express, 1972 “Clochemerle” (TV Series, episodes), 1970 Girl and a Million, 1932 Gilgi: One of Us, and 1930 Die große “When We Dead Awaken” (TV Movie), 1966 A Man for All Sehnsucht. In addition, he produced 21 films—1972 The Boy Seasons, 1966 “Knock on Any Door” (TV Series), 1963 Toys in Who Turned Yellow, 1957 Miracle in Soho, 1957 Night Ambush, the Attic, 1960 Sons and Lovers, 1958 Separate Tables, 1957 1956 Pursuit of the Graf Spee, 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1953 How to Murder a Rich Uncle, 1957 Something of Value, 1951 Twice Upon a Time, 1952 The Wild Heart, 1951 The Tales of , 1947 “Hindle Wakes” (TV Movie), 1945 Hoffmann, 1950 The Fighting Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth, 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1941 Major Barbara, 1938 1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The Red Shoes, 1947 The End of the Pygmalion, and 1937 Lancashire Luck. River, 1947 Black Narcissus, 1946 Stairway to Heaven, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 A Canterbury Tale, 1944 The Roger Livesey ... Torquil MacNeil (b. June 25, 1906 in Barry, Volunteer, 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1943 The Wales—d. February 4, 1976 (age 69) in Watford, Hertfordshire, Silver Fleet, and 1942 One of Our Aircraft Is Missing—and England) appeared in 63 films and television shows, among them directed 17: 1957 Night Ambush, 1956 Pursuit of the Graf Spee, 1975 “The Lives of Benjamin Franklin” (TV Mini-Series), 1974 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1953 Twice Upon a Time, 1952 The Wild “The Pallisers” (TV Series, 18 episodes), 1969 Hamlet, 1968 —‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—3

“The Man in the Iron Mask” (TV Series, 7 episodes), 1968 PRESSBURGER. Nationality Hungarian/British. Born Imre Oedipus the King, 1965 The Amorous Adventures of Moll Pressburger in Miscolc, Hungary, 5 Decmember 1902. Flanders, 1964 Of Human Bondage, 1960 “On Trial” (TV Education Studied at Universities of Prague and Stuttgart Series), 1960 The Entertainer, 1960 The League of Gentlemen, Career Contract writer for UFA, Berlin, 1930, later in France 1959 “The Life and Death of Sir John Falstaff” (TV Series, 7 and, from 1935, in England, for ’s London episodes), 1958 The Stowaway, 1951 Green Grow the Rushes, Films.Powell and Pressburger began collaborating on The Spy 1950 “The Master Builder” (TV Movie), 1949 “The Winslow in Black, 1939, formed “The Archers,” as producing, directing Boy” (TV Movie), 1949 If This Be Sin, 1946 Stairway to Heaven, and writing team, 1942(disbanded 1956), also set up Vega 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1943 The Life and Death of Productions Ltd. Awards Special Award, Colonel Blimp, 1940 Spies of the Air, 1938 , 1938 1978; Fellowship, BAFTA, 19981; Felowship, British Film “Spring Meeting” (TV Movie), 1938 Drums, 1936 Rembrandt, Institute, 1983; (Powell) honorary doctorate, University of East 1935 Midshipman Easy, 1934 Lorna Doone, 1933 A Cuckoo in Anglia, 1978; Golden Lion. Venice Festival. 1982. Died In the Nest, 1931 East Lynne on the Western Front, 1923 Married Suffolk, 5 February 1988. Love, and 1921 The Four Feathers. Films by Powell and Pressburger: (Powell as director, Pamela Brown ... Catriona (b. Pamela Mary Brown, July 8, Pressburger as scriptwriter) 1939: 1917 in London, Englan—d. September 18, 1975 (age 58) in The Spy in Black (Uboat). 1940: Contraband (Blackout). 1941 London, England) appeared in 60 films and TV shows, including 49th Parallel (The Invaders). 1942 One of Our Aircraft is 1975 “Spy Trap” (TV Series), 1975 “In This House of Brede” Missing. 1972 The Boy Who Turned Yellow.[a prize-winning (TV Movie), 1974 “Fall of Eagles” (TV Mini-Series), 1974 children’s film] “Bram Stoker's Dracula” (TV Movie), 1972 Lady Caroline Lamb, 1971 The Road Builder, 1970 On a Clear Day You Can Produced, directed and scripted by “The Archers”) 1943: The See Forever, 1970 Wuthering Heights, 1968 Secret Ceremony, Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Volunteer. 1944: A 1966 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1965 Canterbury Tale. 1945: I Know Where I’m Going 1946: A “Six Shades of Black” (TV Series), 1964 Becket, 1963 Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven). 1947: Black Cleopatra, 1960 “Maigret” (TV Series), 1959 The Scapegoat, Narcissus. 1948: The Red Shoes 1949: 1956 Lust for Life, 1955 Richard III, 1955 Two Grooms for a (Hour of Glory). 1950: Gone to Earth (The Wild Heart), The Bride, 1953 Personal Affair, 1951 The Tales of Hoffmann, 1949 Elusive Pimpernel (The Fighting Pimpernel). 1951: The Tales of Alice in Wonderland, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', and 1942 Hoffman. 1955: Oh! Rosalinda (Fledermaus ’55). 1956: The One of Our Aircraft Is Missing. Battle of the River Plate (Pursuit of the Graf Spee). Ill Met by Moonlight (Intelligence Service, Night Ambush).

Other Films Directed by Powell: 1931: Two Crowded Hours. My Friend the King. Rynos, The Rasp. . 1932: Hotel Splendide, C.O.D., , Born Lucky. 1933: The Fire-Raisers(+co-sc). 1934: , Red Ensign (+co-sc). Something Always Happens .The Girl in the Crowd. 1935: Lazybones, . . Someday. 1936: , Crown Versus Stevens, Her Last Affair, . 1937: Edge of the World (+sc). 1939: The Lion Has Wings (+sc-sc). 1940: The Thief of Bagdad (co-d). 1941: An Airman’s Letter to His Mother (short). 1955: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (short). 1956: Luna de miel (Honeymoon) (+pr). 1960: Peeping Tom (+pr,role). 1961: Queen’s Guards (+pr). 1964: Bluebeard’s Castle. 1966: They're a Weird Mob (+pr)/ 1968: Return of theEdge of the Workd (doc for television) (+pr) Powell & Pressburger, from The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia ed. Andrew Sarris. Visible Ink Press, NY 1998 Other Films Written by Pressburger: 1955: Twice Upon a [combined entry signed by Stephen L. Hanson] Time (+d,pr). 1957: Miracle in Soho(Amyes) (+pr).

POWELL. Nationality British Born Michael Latham Powell at Between the years 1942 and 1957, English director Michael Beckesbourne, near Canterbury, Kent, 30 September 1905. Powell and his Hungarian partner, Emeric Pressburger, formed Family Married 1) Frances Reidy. 1943 (died 1983), two sons, one of the most remarkable partnerships in cinema. Under 2) Powell, 1984. Career Worked in various the collaborative pseudonym “The Archers,” the two created a capacities on films of Rex Ingram, Léonce Perret, Alfred series of highly visual and imaginative treatments of romantic Hitchcock, Lupu Pick, from 1922, director, from 1931; Senior and supernatural themes that have defied easy categorization Director in Residence, Zoetrope Studios, 1981. Died in Goucestershire, 19 February 1990

Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—4

by film historians. Although both were listed jointly as director, other hand, the psychological insights embodied in serious screenwriter, and frequently as producer, and the extent of each fantasies like A Matter of Life and Death are too often dismissed one’s participation on any given film is difficult to measure, it is as simply entertainment. Most of the Powell-Pressburger efforts probably most accurate to credit Powell with the actual are, in fact, attempts at fundamental reconciliations between visualization of the films while Pressburger functioned primarily modern ideas and the irrational, between science and savagery, as a writer. The latter, in fact, had no background as a director or between religion and eroticism. before joining Powell. He had drifted through the Austrian, German, and French fiim industries as a screenwriter before Although such mergings of reality and fantasy met with traveling to England in 1936. approval by the moviegoing public, Powell and Pressburger were less successful with the British film establishment. In a sense Many of the gothic, highly expressionistic they were alienated from it through their exercise of a decidedly characteristics of the films produced by the partnership seem to non-British flamboyance. trace their origins to Powell’s apprenticeship at Rex Ingram’s studio in Nice in the 1920s. There he performed various roles on at least three of the visionary director’s silent productions: Mare Nostrum (1926), The Magician (1926), and The Garden of Allah (1927). Working on these films and subsequently on his own features in the 1920s, Powell developed a penchant for expressionism that manifested itself in several rather unique ways. The most fundamental of these was in his use of the fantasy genre. As illustrated by A Matter of Life and Death, with its problematic juxtaposition of psychiatry and mysticism. Another manifestation was an almost philosophical sadism that permeated his later films, such as Peeping Tom, with a camera that impales its photographic subjects on bayonet-like legs. The mechanical camera itself, in fact, represents still another Powell motif: the use of machines and technology to create or heighten certain aspects of fantasy. For example, the camera obscura in A Matter of Life and Death and the German warship in the Pursuit of the Graf Spee (which is revealed through a slow camera scan along its eerie structure, causing it to turn into a metallic killer fish) effectively tie machines into each film’s set of symbolic “Michael Powell,” From World Film Directors V.I, ed. John motifs. In doing so, a technological mythology is created in Wakeman, H.H. Wilson Co., NY 1987 which these objects take in near-demonic proportions. In 1925, on his way to visit his father, who had acquired a hotel on the Riviera, he stopped off in Paris to catch up with the Finally, the use of color, which most critics cite as a work of Buñuel and Dali and “that lot, involved in trademark of the Powell-Pressburger partnership, is shaped into surrealism,” as he put it to an interviewer, adding that “of course, an expressionistic mode. Powell chose his hues from a broad all films are surrealist . . . visual palette, and brushed them onto the screen with a calculated because they are making something that looks like a real world extravagance that became integrated into the themes of the films but isn’t.” He entered the film industry the same year when his as a whole. In the better films, the visual and technological father introduced him at a party to Harry Lachman, an artist and aspects complement each other in a pattern of symbolism. The filmmaker then working with Rex Ingram on Mare Nostrum at mechanical staircase which descends from the celestial vortex in the Nice studio. A Matter of Life and Death, for example, blends technology and fantasy as no other image has. Similarly, when the camera Powell joined the unit and “worked all through” Mare Nostrum, replaces the young pilot’s eye in the same film and the pink and an extravagant spy story. He says “it was a great film to come in violet lining of an eyelid descends over it, the effect is on because, being a spectacular film, full of enormous tricks with extravagant, even a bit bizarre, but it effectively serves notice a great theme and an international cast, it gave you ideas which that the viewer is closing his eyes to external reality and entering stayed with you all through your life. . . .My first job was really another world. The audience is left to decide whether that world to stick around—that was how Harry Lachman put it. Then I was is supernatural or psychological…. a grip, but I was unofficially attached to Lachman as the strange, cultured young Englishman who had a remarkable gift for falling Thematically, Powell and Pressburger operate in a limbo over things.” somewhere between romance and realism. The former, characterized by technical effects, camera angles and The Archers had more success with I Know Where I’m Going! movements, and the innovative use of color, often intrudes in the (1945), in which Wendy Hiller goes to the Western Isles of merest of details in fundamentally naturalistic films. In the eyes to marry a millionaire but falls under the spell of some, this weakens the artistic commitment to realism. On the Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—5

of Celtic mysticism and winds up in the arms of the haunted Anatole Litvak at Paramount. Having lunch in the studio young laird (Roger Livesey). Pamela Brown gives an restaurant Emeric was introduced to the head of the script extraordinary performance as an aristocratic sorceress. It was department. Paramount, he said, owned its very own print of clear to Raymond Durgnat that “Powell’s film reveals a serious IKWIG. Whenever his writers were stuck for inspiration, or belief in the wayward natural forces. Their fierce power is needed a lesson in screenwriting, he ran them the film, as an asserted in constant hints and jabs (a close-up of the eagle’s beak example of a perfect screenplay. He had already screened it a ripping off a rabbit’s ear) which sees nature as a Nietzschean dozen times. whirl of blood and death. . . .But the hero, sailing. . . [the heroine’s ] boat through the treacherous whirlpool, overcomes The partners had been taken aback by the strength of these forces with that protective manliness which. . .is itself a feeling aroused by Blimp, and set about to make something in a force of nature.” This is one of the most personal and original of less combative register. Instead of challenging the status quo, A Powell’s films, and one of the best loved–Nora Sayre has Canterbury Tale and I Know Where I’m Going reinforce it. They recalled that she was almost deprived of her allowance when she are celebrations of the oddities, the irrationalities, the mysteries was twelve because she went to see it week after week. of British life. They are intimate films, stories of self-discovery, about individuals finding the correct Durgnat suggests that Powell values to live by. No longer were the “remains un upholder, through its Archers interested in how to win the lean years, of the Méliès tradition. . war (by 1943 an American-aided .a school of ‘Cinema’ which is victory seemed assured sooner or later), always exquisitely conscious of not but in the moral health of the country. only its cinematic They were asking the population to effects but its cinematic nature.” remember the values they had fought for, and to think about what sort of From Michael Powell. James brave new world they would like post- Howard. B T Batsford Ltd. war Britain to be. The film-makers had London, 1996 turned from propagandists into preachers. He [Michael Powell], “Carol Reed Emeric called A Canterbury and Hitchcock were the greats of the Tale the Archers’ first blow in a British cinema.” Stewart Granger ‘crusade against materialism.’ Its roots lay in a conversation he had had with Michael during the filming of One of our Aircraft is He was undoubtedly one of our most innovative and brilliant Missing at Denham: ‘We often used to sit in a car when we motion picture directors. He combined very human stories with wanted to be alone. extraordinary imagination and flair. The provisional title was ‘The Misty Island’. Sc‘ At the Powell said, “We were guessing a year ahead what the general end of the journey she is so near that she can clearly see the position of the war would be and what would be the propaganda people on the island, but a storm stops her getting there, and by message. After all, films take a year to make and get out. . .and the time the storm has died down, she no longer wants to go so we had to be good guessers.” there, because her life has changed quite suddenly in the way girls’ lives do.’ It was during the making of One of Our Aircraft is ‘Why does she want to go to the island?’ asked Michael. Missing that Powell and Pressburger took the logical step of Emeric smiled. ‘Let’s make the film and find out.’ forming their own production company, The Archers. Future productions would carry the joint credit title: Written, Produced [the script] ‘It just burst out, you couldn’t hold it back,’ and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. . . . For he remembered. ‘I wrote the script in four days the next 15 years, Powell would not enter into any major film project without Pressburger at his side, and although Emeric The front page bore an epigraph from Marlowe’s Hero would occasionally work on an ‘outside’ screenplay such as the and Leander: 1946 Wanted for Murder, confirms that It lies not in our power to love, or hate, ‘They were incredibly loyal to each other. I couldn’t think of two For Will in us is over-ruled by fate. more unlikely people on surface values to form a partnership, but they were perfect foils for each other, and are the only two who The values espoused in I Know Where I’m Going hardly I’ve never heard say one bad thing about the other.’ seem to differ from those of the standard Hollywood romantic- comedy: love conquers all, and money isn’t everything. But the from Emeric Pressburger The Life and Death of a love is not of the saccharine variety, it is passionate, physical, at Screenwriter. Kevin Macdonald, Faber & Faber, 1994 times almost destructive. As for the anti-materialism, it can be seen as part of a nationwide disgust at the black-marketeers and The finest compliment came a few years later. In 1947, war profiteers. Sir Robert Bellinger, it is insinuated, is one of while on a trip to Hollywood, Emeric visited his old friend these. Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—6

What a pity that James Mason didn’t trust me more. He In October, the crew returned to Denham for the need never have gone on location at all, and the rest of us could interiors. A huge tank was constructed by Rank’s art department have played Boy Scouts to our hearts’ content. In the weeks that head, Rawnsley, in which an imitation whirlpool was I had been travelling around, I had read everything that I could created, using a technique of jellied water learned from Cecil B. lay my hands on about the Western Isles. I was determined to de Mille’s classic ‘parting of the waves’ in The Ten make the film as authentic as possible in every detail. Every face Commandments. Back projections shot by Erwin Hillier–‘myself was chosen by me, and every voice. I persuaded Malcolm Mac and the operator went out in a boat and Kellaig of Morar, where the sands are almost got ourselves drowned in the as white as the sands of Kiloran are whirlpool collecting the stuff!’ golden, that he had to come and be my completed the illusion. It was the kind Gaelic dialogue director and he came, of technically challenging task which besides playing a small part in the made the best technicians in the film. I engaged Ian MacKenzie and his business want to work with The powerful great diesel motorboat to be Archers. with us permanently throughout the film, so that I could always be sure of [re Black Narcissus] Emeric transport, or of taking advantage of a was in sympathy with the novel and, change in the weather. Ian had his big thematically, at least, it has something in motorboat undocked, because he used common with his own work. Like I it in the spring for transporting cattle Know Where I’m Going and Blimp, it to the uninhabited isles, for instance dwells on the brute power of sexuality to shape our lives. the Isles of the Sea; he left them there all summer to get fat on the good grazing, and then fetched them in September for the from A Life in Movies An Autobiography. Michael Powell, markets, fattened up at no expense to himself. He knew the Knopf, 1987 islands and the cliffs and the currents and the tides, and was not afraid to go anywhere. I could never have got half the shots Roger Livesey, playing Torquil MacNeil in I Know without him. Once, when we had been shooting all day at Where I’m Going, never came within five hundred miles of the Lochbuie Castle a few miles along the coast of Mull, he brought Western Isles. I know that those of you who have seen the film the whole unit back in his boat, cameras and all. I remember won’t believe it, but it’s true. how, as we sailed up the coast, the wind got up and became a I’m not sure, but I think it’s one of the cleverest things I strong headwind. We were so heavily laden that there was very ever did in movies. Of course, in quota-quickies you were always little freeboard, and I began to wonder what would happen if the doubling somebody, and in 49th Parallel I doubled about half a wind got stronger and the bog open boat ran under. I stood up by dozen well-known personalities, but to double the leading man in the foremast, and every now and then glanced back at Ian. He all the exterior scenes of the film and intercut them with studio was completely unmoved. A tall, lean, handsome man with eyes close-ups with such a distinctive person as Roger Livesey, was a like a deer’s, he always wore the kilt and a battered mackintosh, miracle. We tested twenty young men before we found one who and an even more battered Highland bonnet. He was a man you had Roger’s height and could copy his walk, which was very could trust. He had a wicked sense of humor. distinctive. Roger came to the studio and took endless trouble teaching him to walk and run and, hardest of all, stand still. Then The black and white cinematography on I Know Where there was the little matter of wearing the kilt. No two men walk I’m Going was inventive, poetic, miraculous. Only Johnny Seitz, the same way in a kilt. We had six weeks of exteriors in front of Rex Ingram’s cameraman, who taught me to appreciate romantic us and Torquil was in all of them. The secret of doubling an actor photography was his (Erwin Hillier’s) equal. Erwin has done is not to run away from the camera or turn your back on it; on the many wonderful films since then, but his work on A Canterbury contrary, you walk straight up to it. The camera is just as easily Tale and I Know Where I’m Going was original and fooled by calm assurance as people are. Erwin Hillier and I unforgettable. would work out the scene and rehearse it, and the script-girl was again our art director and spent a week or two would make notes of the places where we proposed later to cut in with the film unit when we started shooting the Isles. He was medium shots and close-ups of Roger filmed in the studio. Then now known to one and all as Uncle Alfred, and blossomed out we would shoot the scene exactly as if Roger was playing the amazingly. Except for Finlay Currie, who was as patriarchal and part. Of course, there were all sorts of tricks: sudden cuts and solid as an oak, Alfred was the oldest of us, as well as being the turns and masking pieces in the foreground, which we used to veteran of countless great films, German. American and British. help the editor of the film. But so perfect is the illusion that I couldn’t tell myself, now, which is Roger and which is his double in certain scenes. Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—7

We had brought back with us the actual open motorboat between Torquil and Catriona in I Know Where I’m Going! and which we used in the film. I was determined to construct a he was not going to stand for any hanky-panky (an obscure machine with two iron hands which could grip the keel of the Hungarian phrase) on my part over Hoffman and Nicklaus. boat, and mount it on an eccentric screw with variable speeds worked by a motor, which would toss the boat about in a realistic Corryveckran is the name given the tidal race off the manner, or at least in a manner to which we were all accustomed. Scottish island of Scarba, which produces the whirlpool in I For we had spent many dozens of hours in an open boat and Know Where I’m Going! By lashing himself to the mast of a knew what it was like. Later on, such machines were common motorboat, Michael managed to film the whirlpool forming, for scenes involving acrobatics and for small boats, but at the which was later combined with special effects footage created in time this was quite a new idea and our machine shop became the studio. Pamela accompanied him on the dangerous boat ride. really interested in it, and gave me what I wanted. The actors I had been of two minds were able to work in a real about seeing Hitch on this trip. boat, surrounded by wind and In wartime, when Emeric and I water machines, a working needed his help, it was a close up against a back different matter. But now we had projection screen, so close that gone one way and he had gone they could almost feel the another, although he still whirling waters of cherished his strange dream of Corryvreckan. doing a film of Barrie’s Mary Rose in Scotland and asked my But in 1945, our distributors advice about locations, which were cautious. We had all of us was very unlike Hitch. This was had the stuffing knocked out of delicate ground because of my us by the reception given A feelings about I Know Where Canterbury Tale. We had I’m Going! and I held my mistimed that picture and I had tongue. Between two craftsmen, an criticism is best unspoken. If uneasy feeling that they felt we Hitch and I saw each other’s had mistimes this one too. pictures, it was to steal an actor, They weren’t very sure that the public an idea, or a technical trick—not that Hitch needed to steal any wanted a strange wayward story loaded with Celtic sounds and more than I did. voices, and which seemed to them to have no relation to the facts I had known and loved Hitch, as a friend and fellow of 1945. I think they thought we were an unpredictable craftsman, for forty years. At first glance, each recognized in the couple. Today, of course, the picture stands on its own legs as a other the same confidence, the same mastery of the medium. romantic and moving farewell to a European culture that was vanishing. It was also a wry salute to the materialism which was I spent some time in the story department [at fast taking over Europe after the war. Paramount], where the writers welcomed us and told us that when they had a spiritual flat they ran I Know Where I’m Going! IKWIG has had its admirers among the professionals. Only So far they had run it nine times. I told this, later on, to Emeric. another writer can appreciate the skill with which Emeric plots “Not enough,” he said. his love story, by word and look, until both lovers are caught in the net. We played it straight, Wendy and Roger and I masking every emotion and refusing any tell-tale intonations. It worked. Emeric says that there is always a right way and a It’s the sweetest film we ever made. wrong way to start a story. To quote Wendy Hiller in I Know Where I’m Going!, I only know the wrong way. Emeric was Allan turned in one of his best scores. Not even the most touchy tolerant about it: “No, Michael, you see people don’t always Scotsman has ever protested at his orchestral simulation of the know what they want, especially female people.” pipes. I persuaded Sir Hugh Robertson and the Glasgow “When you told me the story about the girl and the Orchestra, men and women this time, to take part in the island, you said that she did know what she wanted.” recording, and actually to appear on the screen in the Ceilidh “She did, but she was mistaken. That is what the story sequence. We recorded some of their famous Mouth Music and is all about.” we had three pipers of the Black Watch. “You really want to start the film with a little girl, who can hardly walk, in a comfortable, middle-class nursey, crawling from Million Dollar Movie Michael Powell. Random House, across the floor in a straight line?”“ 1992 “Yes, Michael.” “Are you sure it won’t empty the cinema?” In our collaboration, whenever I became mystic, he became nervous. He had disapproved of the unspoken link Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—8

“Yes, Michael. We will mix shots of the baby and the little girl down into a traditional comedy of manners, evoking eccentricity with the credit titles of the film. I Know Where I’m Going! is a rather than ancient mystery. The space of transition remains a good title. The audience will get the idea.” space of minor gods and demons, tricksters and shape-shifters, who oddly carry a numinous aura into domestic circumstance. Erwin [Hillier] was always very polite, a true With this mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar, these figures Continental, a true embody Freud’s artist. I think that concept of the his photography on ‘uncanny’. The I Know Where I’m unheimlich, rather than Going! is a high- the more stable water mark of meanings of the sacred black-and-white or of myth. photography in the 1930s and ‘40s. It’s so delicate and From Michael Powell emotional, and he Interviews. Edited by has complete David Lazar. control of every University Press of inch of the screen. Mississippi, Jackson, 2003. “On Knowing and Not Knowing, What was the starting Going and Not idea for I Know Going, Loving and Not Loving: I Know Where I’m Going! And Where I’m Going? Falling in Love Again” Tom Gunning. In The Cinema of Michael MP: After A Canterbury Tale, we came up with the idea to Powell International Perspectives on an English Film-Maker. make A Matter of Life and Death and we had already finished the Edited by Ian Christie and Andrew Moror. bfi publishing, first stage of the script. But not the last! Except, it was London, 2005. impossible to get the Technicolor film. Because Technicolor films were requisitioned for aerial combat training. And it was Pam Cook and Ian Christie, and, I would wager, most viewers of impossible to make A Matter of Life and Death without it, IKWIG, spot a mythical dimension once Joan has arrived at the because the entire basic idea was grounded in color: the earth in Port Erraig. Both compare the first strikingly backlit, silhouetted color and the sky monochrome. shot of Catriona Potts (née MacLaine, played by the magnificent Pamela Brown), returning form the hunt with her hounds on Yet at that time, did Henry V. leash, to Diana, Goddess of the hunt. When Joan arrives at Port MP: He was the only one to get a dispensation. At the end of Erraig, strange archaic powers do seem to emerge to greet her, in 1944, it was no longer possible. So we were stuck for six to eight a cluster of images that contrast sharply with the images of months, in the best case scenario. And Emeric got worried: modernity in the film’s opening journey-such as the clichéd “What are we going to do now?” and I asked: “Don’t you have Gothic imagery of the fog-shrouded ruined castle of Moy and its an idea in your pocket we could use?”” And he told me that he curse. Mythic animals also appear, not only Catriona’s hounds, had been thinking for a long time about a film subject in which a but Colonel Barnstaple’s falcon (not to mention his missing girl wanted to go to an island. An island whose inhabitants you eagle), the exotic oxen Bridie herds through the fog-enveloped could see from the opposite coast: but because of storms, of the streets of Port Erraig and the uncanny sound coming from the sea raging sea, you could never reach it. It was an interesting idea. that the locals tell Joan is ‘the seal’s signal’. But why did she want to go to the island? And he answered: But we must catch the complex nuance of these images “That’s precisely why I want to write the story: to find out!” and their role in marking the space—and process—of (Laughs.) I thought it was possible to introduce things that were transformation. Like the appearance of the goatherd in the worth saying. On the war. It was the beginning of 1945 and we opening of A Matter of Life and Death, the ‘timeless’ aspect of could maybe talk about the reasons why we had thrown ourselves these images has a deceptive and ironic aspect. Port Erraig never in combat. Immaterial values? And Emeric told me: “I’m sure really becomes a realm of classical mythology, nor even of it’s possible. Give me a few weeks.” He left and I saw him six traditional folklore; rather, the film presents something of a days later with the script! With the script, with the dialogues, parody of these realms, a carnivalesque mixture of high and low. ready to shoot!” Catriona’s dramatic backlit ‘Diana’ must be balanced by her subsequent entrance into Erraig house—stunning, dramatic and And the girl never gets to the island! filled with energy, but hardly a goddess, with her wet tousled MP: Never. I read it and I found the script extraordinary. And I hair, her kilt-like plaid skirt and the leather coat she flings to the left right away,,,to find the island. floor like an eight-year-old home from school. Barnstaple’s sudden entry to welcome Joan, with his hunting garb and falcon It's a magnificent work. Very bewitching. on his wrist, while startling and at first unsettling, quickly settles M: Yes. You never forget it. I’m often asked to present the film. Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—9

the song, and it’s a medium shot of him, and he begins to SCORSESE: You have to understand that, let’s see, Colonel translate ending with the phrase, “You’re the one for me,” and Blimp was made the year I was born, so when I saw The Red the camera moves in quickly, and the sound of the bagpipes Shoes, it was one of the great events for me: I was eight years old comes up, and it was absolutely frightening in the sense that, in a I guess. It was the first time I was aware of the logo—“A Film of way, you understood they were in love with each other, you The Archers”—in color. It was extremely vivid. As I mentioned understood that they were about to go through something to you earlier, the only other film that I remember from that wonderful, and absolutely terrible and frightening at the same period that was as vivid was Jean Renoir’s The River. It was a time. It was quite remarkable. I was very, very moved by the beautiful film. But it also turns out that Brian DePalma, having picture. And also the wonderful ending. seen The Red Shoes, decided to become a director. You see, what I’m trying to get at, I guess, is that POWELL: It’s the skirl of the pipes that does it. whenever I saw the logo, later on, I knew there was something very special and magical about the film that I was to see. So SCORSESE: Really? I thought it was the camera move and, of much so that eventually, when I got to know Michael well— course, Levesy and Wendy Hiller’s face. actually I only met Emeric a few times in 1978 or ‘79—I was very worried about seeing I Know Where I’m Going!. Everybody PRESSBURGER: I was flabbergasted the first time you invited was telling me, “Oh. You must see it. It’s wonderful, it’s me and you said, “You will find something which belonged to wonderful and you must see it.” Quite honestly, I was afraid to you.” I didn’t know what he meant, but for heavens sake his see it because I had become friendly with Michael and I felt, home was full of our posters and a lot of other things, But Powell what if I didn't like it? Eventually he’s going to ask me, you see. and Pressburger couldn’t believe it! [Laughter] So I tried to worm my way out of it. But about two weeks before I started shooting Raging Bull, I decided I’d better look at it. And SCORSESE: I became obsessed with the films… I was very overwhelmed by the film. I guess I’ve seen a lot of films that have been made and I was wondering if there was any CHRISTIE: Something else which you said once that I thought picture that I’d missed in the past that really would be considered was very striking was that you always thought of Michael and a masterpiece. In other words, a new film to enjoy. Seriously Emeric as the two experimental filmmakers who got away with enjoy. I didn’t think I’d ever see another one from the past. But making experimental films inside the commercial framework. this was it. This was it for me. I was fascinated by how romantic it was and how mystical. I think the most striking moment for me SCORSESE: Totally. They’re the only ones, I feel who really was at the Campbell’s birthday party, when they’re playing succeeded. Twenty films, I feel, all totally experimental bagpipes, and she asks Roger Livesey to translate the Gaelic in .

The online PDF files of these handouts have color images

Coming up in the Spring 2015 Buffalo Film Seminars Feb 17 Carol Reed, Odd Man Out, 1947 Feb 24 Budd Boetticher, Seven Men from Now, 1956 March 3 Roger Vadim, Barbarella, 1968 Mar 10 Bob Fosse, All That Jazz, 1979 Mar 24 George Miller, Mad Max, 1979 Mar 31 Karel Reisz, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1981 Apr 7 Gregory Nava, El Norte, 1983 Apr 14 Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects, 1995 Apr 21 Bela Tarr, Werkmeister Harmonies, 2000 Apr 28 Sylvain Chomet, The Triplets of Belleville, 2003 May 5 Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men, 2007

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