Michael Powell

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Director Michael Powell during filming (1943)

Michael Latham Powell (born September 30, 1905 in Bekesbourne , Kent , † February 19, 1990 in Avening , Gloucestershire ) was one of the most important British film directors , also an actor, screenwriter and film producer. For many years he formed a highly successful filmmaker duo with the screenwriter Emeric Pressburger . Together they shot the renowned film classics Life and Death of Colonel Blimp , The Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes . In 1960 Powell directed the scandalous film Eyes of Fear , which damaged his career at the time but is now seen as an influential masterpiece.

life and work

Commemorative plaque at 8 Melbury Road, London, where Powell lived for 20 years

Michael Powell was born in a small village in Kent, the son of a farmer. He studied at Dulwich College and then initially worked as a bank clerk, but he found no pleasure in this job and wanted to leave it if possible. He came to film in 1925 through auxiliary work on the set of director Rex Ingram in France. However, Powell soon found better jobs in film, such as still photography or title card writer. He also took on acting roles, so he made a small appearance as an English tourist in the silent film The Magician from 1926. As a still film photographer, he worked on two films by his friend Alfred Hitchcock in the late 1920s , namely Champagne and Blackmail . Powell gained his first directorial experience in the early 1930s as a director of so-called quota quickies , cheaply and quickly produced films, of which he shot up to seven in a year. Powell learned to work quickly and economically, similar to the directors of the American B-movies . Powell first received critical attention for his work on Red Ensign (1934) and The Phantom Light (1935). The success of such films enabled Powell to shoot his first personal project, The Edge of the World , in 1937 . The film was shot on the remote island of Foula (Shetland Islands, Scotland). After The Edge of the World got good reviews, Powell was signed by producer Alexander Korda . In 1940 Powell had his greatest success to date with the adventure film The Thief of Baghdad .

Powell had already shot the war film The Spy in Black for Korda in 1939 with Conrad Veidt in the lead role. While working on this film, he also met the Hungarian-British screenwriter Emeric Pressburger , with whom he founded the production company "The Archers". The two worked together on nineteen films, many of which are now classics in British cinema. When the British Film Institute published a list of the 100 best British films of the 20th century around 1999, it contained five Powell and Pressburger films. The two shared direction, script and production. The most successful films by Powell and Pressburger include the war film 49th Parallel (1941) with Laurence Olivier , the almost three-hour epic Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), the fantasy comedy Irrtum im Jenseits (1946) with David Niven , the film drama The Black Narcissus (1947) about a nunnery in India, the internationally successful ballet film Die Roten Schuhe (1948) with Adolf Wohlbrück , and the music film Hoffmanns Erzählungen (1951) based on the opera of the same name by Jacques Offenbach . The partnership between Powell and Pressburger, which lasted with interruptions and individual solo works until 1972, was praised for their innovative, ironic scripts and their successful use of Technicolor colors.

In 1960 Michael Powell directed the scandalous film Eyes of Fear ( Peeping Tom , 1960) with Karlheinz Böhm in the lead role as a psychopathic killer who murders several people and films his victims. While the film is now known around the world as a masterpiece, Powell's work opportunities as a director have been severely impaired after this scandal. Few wanted to trust Powell, who had previously been one of the leading directors in British cinema, more a film. The same thing happened to the main actor Karlheinz Böhm, whose further career also suffered from Peeping Tom . In the 1960s and 1970s Powell was only able to make a few films that were at least notable successes, although he could no longer build on old successes with them.

Between 1928 and 1978 Powell directed a total of 61 films; He wrote the script for 35 films. In old age Powell was able to experience a rediscovery of his works , mainly through the commitment of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola . Powell's two-part autobiography, A Life In Movies (1986) and Million Dollar Movie (1992), received great acclaim .

Private life

Thelma Schoonmaker with Columba Powell, the younger son of Michael, in Cannes 2009

Powell married the American dancer Gloria Mary Rouger in France in 1927, but the couple only stayed together for 3 weeks. During the 1940s, Powell had love affairs with actresses Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron , who have leading roles in his film The Black Daffodil . On July 1, 1943, he married Frances May Reidy, with whom he had two sons, Kevin Michael Powell (born 1945) and Columba Jerome Reidy Powell (born 1951). The marriage officially lasted until Reidy's death on July 5, 1983. However, Powell also lived with actress Pamela Brown for many years until she died of cancer in 1975.

Through Martin Scorsese, Powell met his last wife, film editor Thelma Schoonmaker , 35 years his junior . He was married to her from 1984 until his death.

Filmography (selection)

  • 1937: The Edge of the World - written and directed
  • 1939: The Spy in Black (The Spy in Black) - Director
  • 1940: Contraband - screenplay and direction
  • 1940: The Thief of Baghdad (The Thief of Bagdad) - Director
  • 1941: 49th Parallel - Directed and produced
  • 1942: One of Our Aircraft Is Missing - directed, produced, and written
  • 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: Errtum im Jenseits (A Matter of Life and Death) - Direction, production and screenplay
  • 1947: The Black Narcissus - Director, production and 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
  • 1955: Fledermaus 1955 (Oh ... Rosalinda !!) - Director, production and screenplay
  • 1956: Panzerschiff Graf Spee (The Battle of the River Plate) - direction, production and screenplay
  • 1957: Ill Met by Moonlight - Direction, production and screenplay
  • 1960: Eyes of Fear (Peeping Tom) - direction and production
  • 1968: The Mysterious Mr. Sebastian (Sebastian) - Production
  • 1969: The Age of Consent (Age of Consent) - Director
  • 1972: The Boy Who Turned Yellow - director
  • 1978: Return to the Edge of the World - documentary, director

Awards

Own writings

literature

  • Ian Christie: Arrows of Desire. The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Faber, London 1994, ISBN 0-571-16271-1 .
  • Roland Cosandey : Rétrospective Powell & Pressburger. Editions du Festival de Locarno, 1982.
  • Fritz Göttler (Ed.): Living Cinema. Powell & Pressburger. Filmmuseum, Munich 1983.
  • David Lazar (Ed.): Michael Powell. Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Miss. 2003, ISBN 1-57806-498-8 .

Film documentaries

  • A Matter of Michael & Emeric. TV documentary by Dario Poloni , UK 1997.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Powell: A Life in Movies. To Autobiography. Heinemann, London 1986, ISBN 0-434-59945-X .
personal data
SURNAME Powell, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Powell, Michael Latham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British film director
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Bekesbourne , Kent
DATE OF DEATH 19th February 1990
Place of death Avening , Gloucestershire