Emeric Pressburger

Emeric Pressburger (born December 5, 1902 in Miskolc , Hungary , † February 5, 1988 in Saxstead , Suffolk , Great Britain ; actually Imre József Pressburger ) was a Hungarian-British screenwriter , film director and film producer . In his long-term partnership with the film director Michael Powell , influential film classics such as Life and Death of Colonel Blimp , Error in the Hereafter and The Red Shoes were created .

Life

Memorial plaque for Powell and Pressburger at their old office

Imre József Pressburger was born in Hungary as the only child of a Jewish land manager. He first studied mathematics and engineering at the universities of Prague and Stuttgart , but had to give up his studies after the death of his father. Instead, Pressburger began working as a journalist before working as a screenwriter for UFA in Berlin in the late 1920s . After the National Socialist seizure of power, Pressburger fled first to Paris and later to London . The film producer Alexander Korda got him work as a screenwriter. While working on the film The Spy in Black (1939) Pressburger met the film director Michael Powell . The two founded the production company The Archers and produced 19 films together over the next 20 years. Since the Powell-Pressburger team always worked as directors, scriptwriters and producers in personal union, they were some of the few representatives of the auteur film to which this term really applies.

Pressburger also wrote a number of shorter stories as well as the novels Killing a Mouse on Sunday (1961; Ger. Don't come to Pamplona , 1963) and The Glass Pearls (1966).

Emeric Pressburger was married to Agí Donáth from 1938 to the divorce in 1941 and from 1947 to 1971 in second marriage to the Englishwoman Wendy Orme . This marriage, which was also divorced, had two children. Pressburg's grandsons are Andrew Macdonald (* 1966) and Kevin Macdonald (* 1967), who are also filmmakers.

Awards

• 1943 Academy Award for the best original story for 49th Parallel (1941), as well as an additional nomination for the best script based on a template for this film
• 1949 Academy Award nominations as producer for Best Picture and for Best Original story for The Red Shoes ( The Red Shoes , 1948)

Filmography

• 1930: The great longing - screenplay
• 1930: Farewell - screenplay
• 1931: Ronny - screenplay
• 1931: The Disgust - screenplay
• 1931: The Little Affair - Screenplay
• 1931: Emil and the detectives - screenplay
• 1931: I'd rather cod liver oil - history
• 1932: Reluctant hero - screenplay
• 1932: La Belle aventure - screenplay
• 1932: Le petit écart - screenplay
• 1932: Lumpenkavaliere - screenplay
• 1932: The beautiful adventure - screenplay
• 1932: who still pays today? - script
• 1932: Sehnsucht 202 - screenplay
• 1932: Une jeune fille et un million - screenplay
• 1932: A Vén gazember - screenplay
• 1933: Une femme au volant - screenplay
• 1933: Incognito - screenplay
• 1934: My heart calls for you - script
• 1935: Monsieur Sans-Gêne - Original The Satyr and screenplay
• 1936: La vie parisienne - screenplay
• 1936: One Rainy Afternoon - original
• 1939: The Spy in Black ( The Spy in Black ) - Screenplay
• 1940: Spy for a Day screenplay
• 1940: Contraband - original
• 1941: Atlantic Ferry - screenplay
• 1941: 49th Parallel - template and screenplay
• 1942: Breach of Promise - template Victorious Defeat and screenplay
• 1942: One of Our Aircraft Is Missing - directed, produced, and written
• 1943: Squadron Leader X - Four Days in a Hero's Life and screenplay
• 1943: The Silver Fleet - Original Remember Jan de Wit , screenplay and production
• 1943: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp ( The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp ) - directing, production, screenplay
• 1943: The Volunteer - directed, produced, and written
• 1944: A Canterbury Tale - directed, produced and written
• 1945: I know where I'm going ( I Know Where I'm Going! ) - Director, production and screenplay
• 1946: Wanted for Murder - screenplay
• 1946: Errtum im Jenseits ( A Matter of Life and Death ) - Direction, production and screenplay
• 1947: Black Narcissus ( Black Narcissus ) - directing, production, screenplay
• 1947: Adventure in Brazil ( The End of the River ) - production and screenplay
• 1948: The Red Shoes ( The Red Shoes ) - directing, production, screenplay
• 1949: The Small Back Room - Directed, produced and written
• 1950: Das Dunkelrote Siegel ( The Elusive Pimpernel ) - Director, production and screenplay
• 1950: The Black Vixen ( Gone to Earth ) - Director, production and screenplay
• 1951: Hoffmanns Erzählungen ( The Tales of Hoffmann ) - direction, production and screenplay
• 1952: The Wild Heart - directed, produced, and written
• 1953: Twice Upon a Time - directed, produced, and written
• 1955: Fledermaus 1955 ( Oh ... Rosalinda! ) - Director, producer and screenplay
• 1956: Panzerschiff Graf Spee ( The Battle of the River Plate ) - direction, production and screenplay
• 1957: Men Against Britannia - screenplay
• 1957: Ill Met by Moonlight - Direction, production and screenplay
• 1957: A Bride on Every Street ( Miracle in Soho ) - production, screenplay and based on the novel The Miracle of St. Anthony's Lane
• 1963: Your time is up ( Behold a Pale Horse ) - novel Killing a Mouse on Sunday
• 1965: Operation Crossbow - screenplay
• 1966: They're a Weird Mob - screenplay
• 1972: The Boy Who Turned Yellow - production, template and screenplay

literature

• Hans-Michael Bock , Rainer Rother : Emmerich Pressburger. In: Hans-Michael Bock (Ed.): CineGraph - Lexicon for German-language film. LG. 27. edition text + kritik, Munich 1996, B 1-6, F 1-20.
• Ian Christie: Arrows of Desire. The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger . Waterstone, London 1985.
• Roland Cosandey : Rétrospective Powell & Pressburger. 35ème Festival international du film de Locarno 1982 . Editions du Festival, Locarno 1982.
• Fritz Göttler (Ed.): Living Cinema: Powell & Pressburger . Munich 1982.
• Wolfgang Jacobsen:  Pressburger, Imre. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , pp. 701 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Kevin Macdonald : Emeric Pressburger. The Life and Death of a Screenwriter . Foreword by Billy Wilder . Faber and Faber, London 1996, ISBN 0-57116853-1 (hardcover) or ISBN 0-57117829-4 (paperback).
• Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. P. 401 f., ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8

Film documentaries

• The Making of an Englishman , TV documentary by Kevin Macdonald , Great Britain 1995
• A Matter of Michael & Emeric , TV documentary by Dario Poloni , UK 1997

Web links

• Literature by and about Emeric Pressburger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Emeric Pressburger in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Powell & Pressburger Pages (English)