10 February 2015 (Series 30:3) Michael Powell and Emeric

10 February 2015 (Series 30:3)
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, ‘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 Allan Gray
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
Wendy Hiller ... Joan Webster
Walter Hudd ... Hunter
Duncan MacKechnie ... Captain 'Lochinvar'
Ian Sadler ... Iain
Roger Livesey ... Torquil MacNeil
Finlay Currie ... Ruairidh Mhór
Murdo Morrison ... Kenny
Margot Fitzsimons ... Bridie
C.W.R. Knight ... Colonel Barnstaple
Pamela Brown ... Catriona
Donald Strachan ... Shepherd
John Rae ... Old Shepherd
Duncan McIntyre ... His Son
Jean Cadell ... Postmistress
Norman Shelley ... Sir Robert Bellinger
Michael Powell (director, writer, producer) (b. Michael
Latham Powell, September 30, 1905 in Bekesbourne, Kent,
England—d. February 19, 1990 (age 84) in Avening,
Gloucestershire, England) directed 60 films and television
shows, including1978 Return to the Edge of the World, 1972 The
Boy Who Turned Yellow, 1969 Age of Consent, 1964
“Espionage” (TV Series), 1961 The Queen's Guards, 1960
Peeping Tom, 1959 Honeymoon, 1956 Pursuit of the Graf Spee,
1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1951 The Tales of Hoffmann, 1950 The
Fighting Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth, 1949 Hour of Glory,
1948 The Red Shoes, 1947 Black Narcissus, 1946 Stairway to
Heaven, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 A Canterbury
Tale, 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1942 One of
Our Aircraft Is Missing, 1941 49th Parallel, 1940 The Thief of
Bagdad, 1940 Blackout, 1939 The Lion Has Wings, 1939 The
Spy in Black, 1937 The Edge of the World, 1936 The Brown
Wallet, 1936 Her Last Affaire, 1935 The Murder Party, 1935 The
Girl in the Crowd, 1934 Something Always Happens, 1932
Rynox, 1932 My Friend the King, and 1931 Two Crowded Hours.
He also wrote 36 films and television shows, which are
1959 Honeymoon, 1957 Night Ambush, 1956 Pursuit of the Graf
Spee, 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1952 The Wild Heart, 1951
“Robert Montgomery Presents” (TV Series), 1951 The Tales of
Hoffmann, 1950 The Fighting Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth,
1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The Red Shoes, 1947 The End of the
River, 1947 Black Narcissus, 1946 Stairway to Heaven, 1945 'I
Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 A Canterbury Tale, 1944 The
Volunteer, 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1942 One
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
of the World, 1935 Oh, Daddy!, 1934 The Medium, 1934 Strike!,
1934 The Fire Raisers, 1933 Perfect Understanding, 1932 Entre
noche y día, 1932 Rynox, 1932 The Rasp, 1931 77 rue Chalgrin,
1931 Two Crowded Hours, 1931 77 Park Lane, 1930 Caste, and
1929 Blackmail. In addition, he produced 30 films, which are
1983 Pavlova: A Woman for All Time, 1978 Return to the Edge
of the World, 1969 Age of Consent, 1968 Sebastian, 1966 They're
a Weird Mob, 1961 The Queen's Guards, 1960 Peeping Tom,
1959 Honeymoon, 1957 Night Ambush, 1956 Pursuit of the Graf
Spee, 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1952 The Wild Heart, 1951 The
Tales of Hoffmann, 1951 Aila, Pohjolan tytär. 1950 The Fighting
Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth, 1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The
Red Shoes, 1947 The End of the River, 1947 Black Narcissus,
1946 Stairway to Heaven, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1944
A Canterbury Tale, 1944 The Volunteer, 1943 The Life and
Death of Colonel Blimp, 1943 The Silver Fleet, 1942 One of Our
Aircraft Is Missing, 1941
49th Parallel, 1941 An
Airman's Letter to His
Mother, and 1935 The Price
of a Song.
Emeric Pressburger
(director, writer, producer)
(b. Imre József Pressburger,
December 5, 1902 in
Miskolc, Austria-Hungary—
d. February 5, 1988 (age 85)
in Saxstead, Suffolk,
England) won the 1943
Academy Award for Best
Writing, Original Story for
49th Parallel (1941). He
wrote 70 films and TV
shows, among them 1972 The Boy Who Turned Yellow, 1965
Operation Crossbow, 1957 Night Ambush, 1956 Pursuit of the
Graf Spee, 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1952 The Wild Heart, 1951
The Tales of Hoffmann, 1950 The Fighting Pimpernel, 1950
Gone to Earth, 1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The Red Shoes, 1947
Black Narcissus, 1946 Stairway to Heaven, 1946 A Voice in the
Night, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 A Canterbury Tale,
1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1942 One of Our
Aircraft Is Missing, 1941 49th Parallel, 1940 Blackout, 1940 Spy
for a Day, 1939 Continental Express, 1939 The Spy in Black,
1938 The Challenge, 1936 Parisian Life, 1934 Incognito, 1932 A
Girl and a Million, 1932 Gilgi: One of Us, and 1930 Die große
Sehnsucht. In addition, he produced 21 films—1972 The Boy
Who Turned Yellow, 1957 Miracle in Soho, 1957 Night Ambush,
1956 Pursuit of the Graf Spee, 1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1953
Twice Upon a Time, 1952 The Wild Heart, 1951 The Tales of
Hoffmann, 1950 The Fighting Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth,
1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The Red Shoes, 1947 The End of the
River, 1947 Black Narcissus, 1946 Stairway to Heaven, 1945 'I
Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 A Canterbury Tale, 1944 The
Volunteer, 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1943 The
Silver Fleet, and 1942 One of Our Aircraft Is Missing—and
directed 17: 1957 Night Ambush, 1956 Pursuit of the Graf Spee,
1955 Oh... Rosalinda!!, 1953 Twice Upon a Time, 1952 The Wild
Heart, 1951 The Tales of Hoffmann, 1950 The Fighting
Pimpernel, 1950 Gone to Earth, 1949 Hour of Glory, 1948 The
Red Shoes, 1947 Black Narcissus, 1946 Stairway to Heaven,
1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1944 A Canterbury Tale, 1944
The Volunteer, 1943 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and
1942 One of Our Aircraft Is Missing.
Erwin Hillier (cinematographer) (b. September 2, 1911 in
Berlin, Germany—d. January 2, 2005 (age 93) in London,
England) was the cinematographer for 56 films, among them
1969 The Valley of Gwangi, 1968 The Shoes of the Fisherman,
1966 The Quiller Memorandum, 1965 Sands of the Kalahari,
1965 Operation Crossbow, 1963 A Boy Ten Feet Tall, 1962 Go
to Blazes, 1961 The Naked Edge, 1960 School for Scoundrels,
1959 Shake Hands with the Devil, 1958 Girls at Sea, 1958 The
Naked Earth, 1957 The Mark of the Hawk, 1957 Casino de Paris,
1957 Let's Be Happy, 1956 Now and Forever, 1952 Where's
Charley?, 1952 Castle in the Air,
1951 Happy Go Lovely, 1950
Shadow of the Eagle, 1949 Private
Angelo, 1948 The Weaker Sex,
1947 The Mark of Cain, 1946
London Town, 1946 They Knew
Mr. Knight, 1945 'I Know Where
I'm Going!', 1945 Great Day, 1944
Welcome, Mr. Washington, 1944 A
Canterbury Tale, 1943 Rhythm
Serenade, 1942 Lady from Lisbon,
and 1936 Some Waiter!.
Wendy Hiller ... Joan Webster
(b. Wendy Margaret Hiller,
August 15, 1912 in Bramhall,
Cheshire, England—d. May 14,
2003 (age 90) in Beaconsfield,
Buckinghamshire, England) won the 1959 Academy Award for
Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Separate Tables (1958).
She appeared in 55 films and television shows, including 1992
“Screenplay” (TV Series), 1989 “Ending Up” (TV Movie), 1988
“A Taste for Death” (TV Mini-Series, 6 episodes), 1987 The
Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, 1986 “All Passion Spent” (TV
Series), 1983 “The Comedy of Errors” (TV Movie), 1982
“Witness for the Prosecution” (TV Movie), 1980 The Elephant
Man, 1978 “Richard II” (TV Movie), 1978 The Cat and the
Canary, 1976 Voyage of the Damned, 1974 Murder on the Orient
Express, 1972 “Clochemerle” (TV Series, episodes), 1970
“When We Dead Awaken” (TV Movie), 1966 A Man for All
Seasons, 1966 “Knock on Any Door” (TV Series), 1963 Toys in
the Attic, 1960 Sons and Lovers, 1958 Separate Tables, 1957
How to Murder a Rich Uncle, 1957 Something of Value, 1951
Outcast of the Islands, 1947 “Hindle Wakes” (TV Movie), 1945
'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1941 Major Barbara, 1938
Pygmalion, and 1937 Lancashire Luck.
Roger Livesey ... Torquil MacNeil (b. June 25, 1906 in Barry,
Wales—d. February 4, 1976 (age 69) in Watford, Hertfordshire,
England) appeared in 63 films and television shows, among them
1975 “The Lives of Benjamin Franklin” (TV Mini-Series), 1974
“The Pallisers” (TV Series, 18 episodes), 1969 Hamlet, 1968
Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—3
“The Man in the Iron Mask” (TV Series, 7 episodes), 1968
Oedipus the King, 1965 The Amorous Adventures of Moll
Flanders, 1964 Of Human Bondage, 1960 “On Trial” (TV
Series), 1960 The Entertainer, 1960 The League of Gentlemen,
1959 “The Life and Death of Sir John Falstaff” (TV Series, 7
episodes), 1958 The Stowaway, 1951 Green Grow the Rushes,
1950 “The Master Builder” (TV Movie), 1949 “The Winslow
Boy” (TV Movie), 1949 If This Be Sin, 1946 Stairway to Heaven,
1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', 1943 The Life and Death of
Colonel Blimp, 1940 Spies of the Air, 1938 The Rebel Son, 1938
“Spring Meeting” (TV Movie), 1938 Drums, 1936 Rembrandt,
1935 Midshipman Easy, 1934 Lorna Doone, 1933 A Cuckoo in
the Nest, 1931 East Lynne on the Western Front, 1923 Married
Love, and 1921 The Four Feathers.
Pamela Brown ... Catriona (b. Pamela Mary Brown, July 8,
1917 in London, Englan—d. September 18, 1975 (age 58) in
London, England) appeared in 60 films and TV shows, including
1975 “Spy Trap” (TV Series), 1975 “In This House of Brede”
(TV Movie), 1974 “Fall of Eagles” (TV Mini-Series), 1974
“Bram Stoker's Dracula” (TV Movie), 1972 Lady Caroline
Lamb, 1971 The Road Builder, 1970 On a Clear Day You Can
See Forever, 1970 Wuthering Heights, 1968 Secret Ceremony,
1966 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1965
“Six Shades of Black” (TV Series), 1964 Becket, 1963
Cleopatra, 1960 “Maigret” (TV Series), 1959 The Scapegoat,
1956 Lust for Life, 1955 Richard III, 1955 Two Grooms for a
Bride, 1953 Personal Affair, 1951 The Tales of Hoffmann, 1949
Alice in Wonderland, 1945 'I Know Where I'm Going!', and 1942
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing.
Powell & Pressburger, from The St. James Film Directors
Encyclopedia ed. Andrew Sarris. Visible Ink Press, NY 1998
[combined entry signed by Stephen L. Hanson]
POWELL. Nationality British Born Michael Latham Powell at
Beckesbourne, near Canterbury, Kent, 30 September 1905.
Family Married 1) Frances Reidy. 1943 (died 1983), two sons,
2) Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, 1984. Career Worked in various
capacities on films of Rex Ingram, Léonce Perret, Alfred
Hitchcock, Lupu Pick, from 1922, director, from 1931; Senior
Director in Residence, Zoetrope Studios, 1981. Died in
Goucestershire, 19 February 1990
PRESSBURGER. Nationality Hungarian/British. Born Imre
Pressburger in Miscolc, Hungary, 5 Decmember 1902.
Education Studied at Universities of Prague and Stuttgart
Career Contract writer for UFA, Berlin, 1930, later in France
and, from 1935, in England, for Alexander Korda’s London
Films.Powell and Pressburger began collaborating on The Spy
in Black, 1939, formed “The Archers,” as producing, directing
and writing team, 1942(disbanded 1956), also set up Vega
Productions Ltd. Awards British Film Institute Special Award,
1978; Fellowship, BAFTA, 19981; Felowship, British Film
Institute, 1983; (Powell) honorary doctorate, University of East
Anglia, 1978; Golden Lion. Venice Festival. 1982. Died In
Suffolk, 5 February 1988.
Films by Powell and Pressburger: (Powell as director,
Pressburger as scriptwriter) 1939:
The Spy in Black (Uboat). 1940: Contraband (Blackout). 1941
49th Parallel (The Invaders). 1942 One of Our Aircraft is
Missing. 1972 The Boy Who Turned Yellow.[a prize-winning
children’s film]
Produced, directed and scripted by “The Archers”) 1943: The
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Volunteer. 1944: A
Canterbury Tale. 1945: I Know Where I’m Going 1946: A
Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven). 1947: Black
Narcissus. 1948: The Red Shoes 1949: The Small Back Room
(Hour of Glory). 1950: Gone to Earth (The Wild Heart), The
Elusive Pimpernel (The Fighting Pimpernel). 1951: The Tales of
Hoffman. 1955: Oh! Rosalinda (Fledermaus ’55). 1956: The
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. The Star Reporter. 1932:
Hotel Splendide, C.O.D., His Lordship, Born Lucky. 1933: The
Fire-Raisers(+co-sc). 1934: The Night of the Party, Red Ensign
(+co-sc). Something Always Happens .The Girl in the Crowd.
1935: Lazybones, The Love Test The Phantom Light. The Price
of a Song. Someday. 1936: The Man Behind the Mask, Crown
Versus Stevens, Her Last Affair, The Brown Wallet. 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)
Other Films Written by Pressburger: 1955: Twice Upon a
Time (+d,pr). 1957: Miracle in Soho(Amyes) (+pr).
Between the years 1942 and 1957, English director Michael
Powell and his Hungarian partner, Emeric Pressburger, formed
one of the most remarkable partnerships in cinema. Under
the collaborative pseudonym “The Archers,” the two created a
series of highly visual and imaginative treatments of romantic
and supernatural themes that have defied easy categorization
Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—4
by film historians. Although both were listed jointly as director,
screenwriter, and frequently as producer, and the extent of each
one’s participation on any given film is difficult to measure, it is
probably most accurate to credit Powell with the actual
visualization of the films while Pressburger functioned primarily
as a writer. The latter, in fact, had no background as a director
before joining Powell. He had drifted through the Austrian,
German, and French fiim industries as a screenwriter before
traveling to England in 1936.
Many of the gothic, highly expressionistic
characteristics of the films produced by the partnership seem to
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
motifs. In doing so, a technological mythology is created in
which these objects take in near-demonic proportions.
Finally, the use of color, which most critics cite as a
trademark of the Powell-Pressburger partnership, is shaped into
an expressionistic mode. Powell chose his hues from a broad
visual palette, and brushed them onto the screen with a calculated
extravagance that became integrated into the themes of the films
as a whole. In the better films, the visual and technological
aspects complement each other in a pattern of symbolism. The
mechanical staircase which descends from the celestial vortex in
A Matter of Life and Death, for example, blends technology and
fantasy as no other image has. Similarly, when the camera
replaces the young pilot’s eye in the same film and the pink and
violet lining of an eyelid descends over it, the effect is
extravagant, even a bit bizarre, but it effectively serves notice
that the viewer is closing his eyes to external reality and entering
another world. The audience is left to decide whether that world
is supernatural or psychological….
Thematically, Powell and Pressburger operate in a limbo
somewhere between romance and realism. The former,
characterized by technical effects, camera angles and
movements, and the innovative use of color, often intrudes in the
merest of details in fundamentally naturalistic films. In the eyes
of some, this weakens the artistic commitment to realism. On the
other hand, the psychological insights embodied in serious
fantasies like A Matter of Life and Death are too often dismissed
as simply entertainment. Most of the Powell-Pressburger efforts
are, in fact, attempts at fundamental reconciliations between
modern ideas and the irrational, between science and savagery,
or between religion and eroticism.
Although such mergings of reality and fantasy met with
approval by the moviegoing public, Powell and Pressburger were
less successful with the British film establishment. In a sense
they were alienated from it through their exercise of a decidedly
non-British flamboyance.
“Michael Powell,” From World Film Directors V.I, ed. John
Wakeman, H.H. Wilson Co., NY 1987
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
work of Buñuel and Dali and “that lot, involved in
surrealism,” as he put it to an interviewer, adding that “of course,
all films are surrealist . . .
because they are making something that looks like a real world
but isn’t.” He entered the film industry the same year when his
father introduced him at a party to Harry Lachman, an artist and
filmmaker then working with Rex Ingram on Mare Nostrum at
the Nice studio.
Powell joined the unit and “worked all through” Mare Nostrum,
an extravagant spy story. He says “it was a great film to come in
on because, being a spectacular film, full of enormous tricks with
a great theme and an international cast, it gave you ideas which
stayed with you all through your life. . . .My first job was really
to stick around—that was how Harry Lachman put it. Then I was
a grip, but I was unofficially attached to Lachman as the strange,
cultured young Englishman who had a remarkable gift for falling
over things.”
The Archers had more success with I Know Where I’m Going!
(1945), in which Wendy Hiller goes to the Western Isles of
Scotland to marry a millionaire but falls under the spell
Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—5
of Celtic mysticism and winds up in the arms of the haunted
young laird (Roger Livesey). Pamela Brown gives an
extraordinary performance as an aristocratic sorceress. It was
clear to Raymond Durgnat that “Powell’s film reveals a serious
belief in the wayward natural forces. Their fierce power is
asserted in constant hints and jabs (a close-up of the eagle’s beak
ripping off a rabbit’s ear) which sees nature as a Nietzschean
whirl of blood and death. . . .But the hero, sailing. . . [the
heroine’s ] boat through the treacherous whirlpool, overcomes
these forces with that protective manliness which. . .is itself a
force of nature.” This is one of the most personal and original of
Powell’s films, and one of the best loved–Nora Sayre has
recalled that she was almost deprived of her allowance when she
was twelve because she went to see it week after week.
Durgnat suggests that Powell
“remains un upholder, through its
lean years, of the Méliès tradition. .
.a school of ‘Cinema’ which is
always exquisitely conscious of not
only its cinematic
effects but its cinematic nature.”
From Michael Powell. James
Howard. B T Batsford Ltd.
London, 1996
He [Michael Powell], “Carol Reed
and Hitchcock were the greats of the
British cinema.” Stewart Granger
He was undoubtedly one of our most innovative and brilliant
motion picture directors. He combined very human stories with
extraordinary imagination and flair.
Powell said, “We were guessing a year ahead what the general
position of the war would be and what would be the propaganda
message. After all, films take a year to make and get out. . .and
so we had to be good guessers.”
It was during the making of One of Our Aircraft is
Missing that Powell and Pressburger took the logical step of
forming their own production company, The Archers. Future
productions would carry the joint credit title: Written, Produced
and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. . . . For
the next 15 years, Powell would not enter into any major film
project without Pressburger at his side, and although Emeric
would occasionally work on an ‘outside’ screenplay such as the
1946 Wanted for Murder, Christopher Challis confirms that
‘They were incredibly loyal to each other. I couldn’t think of two
more unlikely people on surface values to form a partnership, but
they were perfect foils for each other, and are the only two who
I’ve never heard say one bad thing about the other.’
from Emeric Pressburger The Life and Death of a
Screenwriter. Kevin Macdonald, Faber & Faber, 1994
The finest compliment came a few years later. In 1947,
while on a trip to Hollywood, Emeric visited his old friend
Anatole Litvak at Paramount. Having lunch in the studio
restaurant Emeric was introduced to the head of the script
department. Paramount, he said, owned its very own print of
IKWIG. Whenever his writers were stuck for inspiration, or
needed a lesson in screenwriting, he ran them the film, as an
example of a perfect screenplay. He had already screened it a
dozen times.
The partners had been taken aback by the strength of
feeling aroused by Blimp, and set about to make something in a
less combative register. Instead of challenging the status quo, A
Canterbury Tale and I Know Where I’m Going reinforce it. They
are celebrations of the oddities, the irrationalities, the mysteries
of British life. They are intimate films, stories of self-discovery,
about individuals finding the correct
values to live by. No longer were the
Archers interested in how to win the
war (by 1943 an American-aided
victory seemed assured sooner or later),
but in the moral health of the country.
They were asking the population to
remember the values they had fought
for, and to think about what sort of
brave new world they would like postwar Britain to be. The film-makers had
turned from propagandists into
preachers.
Emeric called A Canterbury
Tale the Archers’ first blow in a
‘crusade against materialism.’ Its roots lay in a conversation he
had had with Michael during the filming of One of our Aircraft is
Missing at Denham: ‘We often used to sit in a car when we
wanted to be alone.
The provisional title was ‘The Misty Island’. Sc‘ At the
end of the journey she is so near that she can clearly see the
people on the island, but a storm stops her getting there, and by
the time the storm has died down, she no longer wants to go
there, because her life has changed quite suddenly in the way
girls’ lives do.’
‘Why does she want to go to the island?’ asked Michael.
Emeric smiled. ‘Let’s make the film and find out.’
[the script] ‘It just burst out, you couldn’t hold it back,’
he remembered. ‘I wrote the script in four days
The front page bore an epigraph from Marlowe’s Hero
and Leander:
It lies not in our power to love, or hate,
For Will in us is over-ruled by fate.
The values espoused in I Know Where I’m Going hardly
seem to differ from those of the standard Hollywood romanticcomedy: love conquers all, and money isn’t everything. But the
love is not of the saccharine variety, it is passionate, physical, at
times almost destructive. As for the anti-materialism, it can be
seen as part of a nationwide disgust at the black-marketeers and
war profiteers. Sir Robert Bellinger, it is insinuated, is one of
these.
Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—6
In October, the crew returned to Denham for the
interiors. A huge tank was constructed by Rank’s art department
head, David Rawnsley, in which an imitation whirlpool was
created, using a technique of jellied water learned from Cecil B.
de Mille’s classic ‘parting of the waves’ in The Ten
Commandments. Back projections shot by Erwin Hillier–‘myself
and the operator went out in a boat and
almost got ourselves drowned in the
whirlpool collecting the stuff!’
completed the illusion. It was the kind
of technically challenging task which
made the best technicians in the
business want to work with The
Archers.
[re Black Narcissus] Emeric
was in sympathy with the novel and,
thematically, at least, it has something in
common with his own work. Like I
Know Where I’m Going and Blimp, it
dwells on the brute power of sexuality to shape our lives.
from A Life in Movies An Autobiography. Michael Powell,
Knopf, 1987
Roger Livesey, playing Torquil MacNeil in I Know
Where I’m Going, never came within five hundred miles of the
Western Isles. I know that those of you who have seen the film
won’t believe it, but it’s true.
I’m not sure, but I think it’s one of the cleverest things I
ever did in movies. Of course, in quota-quickies you were always
doubling somebody, and in 49th Parallel I doubled about half a
dozen well-known personalities, but to double the leading man in
all the exterior scenes of the film and intercut them with studio
close-ups with such a distinctive person as Roger Livesey, was a
miracle. We tested twenty young men before we found one who
had Roger’s height and could copy his walk, which was very
distinctive. Roger came to the studio and took endless trouble
teaching him to walk and run and, hardest of all, stand still. Then
there was the little matter of wearing the kilt. No two men walk
the same way in a kilt. We had six weeks of exteriors in front of
us and Torquil was in all of them. The secret of doubling an actor
is not to run away from the camera or turn your back on it; on the
contrary, you walk straight up to it. The camera is just as easily
fooled by calm assurance as people are. Erwin Hillier and I
would work out the scene and rehearse it, and the script-girl
would make notes of the places where we proposed later to cut in
medium shots and close-ups of Roger filmed in the studio. Then
we would shoot the scene exactly as if Roger was playing the
part. Of course, there were all sorts of tricks: sudden cuts and
turns and masking pieces in the foreground, which we used to
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.
What a pity that James Mason didn’t trust me more. He
need never have gone on location at all, and the rest of us could
have played Boy Scouts to our hearts’ content. In the weeks that
I had been travelling around, I had read everything that I could
lay my hands on about the Western Isles. I was determined to
make the film as authentic as possible in every detail. Every face
was chosen by me, and every voice. I persuaded Malcolm Mac
Kellaig of Morar, where the sands are
as white as the sands of Kiloran are
golden, that he had to come and be my
Gaelic dialogue director and he came,
besides playing a small part in the
film. I engaged Ian MacKenzie and his
powerful great diesel motorboat to be
with us permanently throughout the
film, so that I could always be sure of
transport, or of taking advantage of a
change in the weather. Ian had his big
motorboat undocked, because he used
it in the spring for transporting cattle
to the uninhabited isles, for instance
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
markets, fattened up at no expense to himself. He knew the
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
without him. Once, when we had been shooting all day at
Lochbuie Castle a few miles along the coast of Mull, he brought
the whole unit back in his boat, cameras and all. I remember
how, as we sailed up the coast, the wind got up and became a
strong headwind. We were so heavily laden that there was very
little freeboard, and I began to wonder what would happen if the
wind got stronger and the bog open boat ran under. I stood up by
the foremast, and every now and then glanced back at Ian. He
was completely unmoved. A tall, lean, handsome man with eyes
like a deer’s, he always wore the kilt and a battered mackintosh,
and an even more battered Highland bonnet. He was a man you
could trust. He had a wicked sense of humor.
The black and white cinematography on I Know Where
I’m Going was inventive, poetic, miraculous. Only Johnny Seitz,
Rex Ingram’s cameraman, who taught me to appreciate romantic
photography was his (Erwin Hillier’s) equal. Erwin has done
many wonderful films since then, but his work on A Canterbury
Tale and I Know Where I’m Going was original and
unforgettable.
Alfred Junge was again our art director and spent a week or two
with the film unit when we started shooting the Isles. He was
now known to one and all as Uncle Alfred, and blossomed out
amazingly. Except for Finlay Currie, who was as patriarchal and
solid as an oak, Alfred was the oldest of us, as well as being the
veteran of countless great films, German. American and British.
Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—7
We had brought back with us the actual open motorboat
which we used in the film. I was determined to construct a
machine with two iron hands which could grip the keel of the
boat, and mount it on an eccentric screw with variable speeds
worked by a motor, which would toss the boat about in a realistic
manner, or at least in a manner to which we were all accustomed.
For we had spent many dozens of hours in an open boat and
knew what it was like. Later on, such machines were common
for scenes involving acrobatics and for small boats, but at the
time this was quite a new idea and our machine shop became
really interested in it, and gave
me what I wanted. The actors
were able to work in a real
boat, surrounded by wind and
water machines, a working
close up against a back
projection screen, so close that
they could almost feel the
whirling waters of
Corryvreckan.
But in 1945, our distributors
were cautious. We had all of us
had the stuffing knocked out of
us by the reception given A
Canterbury Tale. We had
mistimed that picture and I had
an
uneasy feeling that they felt we
had mistimes this one too.
They weren’t very sure that the public
wanted a strange wayward story loaded with Celtic sounds and
voices, and which seemed to them to have no relation to the facts
of 1945. I think they thought we were an unpredictable
couple. Today, of course, the picture stands on its own legs as a
romantic and moving farewell to a European culture that was
vanishing. It was also a wry salute to the materialism which was
fast taking over Europe after the war.
IKWIG has had its admirers among the professionals. Only
another writer can appreciate the skill with which Emeric plots
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.
It’s the sweetest film we ever made.
Allan turned in one of his best scores. Not even the most touchy
Scotsman has ever protested at his orchestral simulation of the
pipes. I persuaded Sir Hugh Robertson and the Glasgow
Orchestra, men and women this time, to take part in the
recording, and actually to appear on the screen in the Ceilidh
sequence. We recorded some of their famous Mouth Music and
we had three pipers of the Black Watch.
from Million Dollar Movie Michael Powell. Random House,
1992
In our collaboration, whenever I became mystic, he
became nervous. He had disapproved of the unspoken link
between Torquil and Catriona in I Know Where I’m Going! and
he was not going to stand for any hanky-panky (an obscure
Hungarian phrase) on my part over Hoffman and Nicklaus.
Corryveckran is the name given the tidal race off the
Scottish island of Scarba, which produces the whirlpool in I
Know Where I’m Going! By lashing himself to the mast of a
motorboat, Michael managed to film the whirlpool forming,
which was later combined with special effects footage created in
the studio. Pamela accompanied him on the dangerous boat ride.
I had been of two minds
about seeing Hitch on this trip.
In wartime, when Emeric and I
needed his help, it was a
different matter. But now we had
gone one way and he had gone
another, although he still
cherished his strange dream of
doing a film of Barrie’s Mary
Rose in Scotland and asked my
advice about locations, which
was very unlike Hitch. This was
delicate ground because of my
feelings about I Know Where
I’m Going! and I held my
tongue. Between two craftsmen,
criticism is best unspoken. If
Hitch and I saw each other’s
pictures, it was to steal an actor,
an idea, or a technical trick—not that Hitch needed to steal any
more than I did.
I had known and loved Hitch, as a friend and fellow
craftsman, for forty years. At first glance, each recognized in the
other the same confidence, the same mastery of the medium.
I spent some time in the story department [at
Paramount], where the writers welcomed us and told us that
when they had a spiritual flat they ran I Know Where I’m Going!
So far they had run it nine times. I told this, later on, to Emeric.
“Not enough,” he said.
Emeric says that there is always a right way and a
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
tolerant about it: “No, Michael, you see people don’t always
know what they want, especially female people.”
“When you told me the story about the girl and the
island, you said that she did know what she wanted.”
“She did, but she was mistaken. That is what the story
is all about.”
“You really want to start the film with a little girl, who can
hardly walk, in a comfortable, middle-class nursey, crawling
across the floor in a straight line?”“
“Yes, Michael.”
“Are you sure it won’t empty the cinema?”
Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—8
“Yes, Michael. We will mix shots of the baby and the little girl
with the credit titles of the film. I Know Where I’m Going! is a
good title. The audience will get the idea.”
Erwin [Hillier] was always very polite, a true
Continental, a true
artist. I think that
his photography on
I Know Where I’m
Going! is a highwater mark of
black-and-white
photography in the
1930s and ‘40s. It’s
so delicate and
emotional, and he
has complete
control of every
inch of the screen.
“On Knowing and
Not Knowing,
Going and Not
Going, Loving and Not Loving: I Know Where I’m Going! And
Falling in Love Again” Tom Gunning. In The Cinema of Michael
Powell International Perspectives on an English Film-Maker.
Edited by Ian Christie and Andrew Moror. bfi publishing,
London, 2005.
Pam Cook and Ian Christie, and, I would wager, most viewers of
IKWIG, spot a mythical dimension once Joan has arrived at the
Port Erraig. Both compare the first strikingly backlit, silhouetted
shot of Catriona Potts (née MacLaine, played by the magnificent
Pamela Brown), returning form the hunt with her hounds on
leash, to Diana, Goddess of the hunt. When Joan arrives at Port
Erraig, strange archaic powers do seem to emerge to greet her, in
a cluster of images that contrast sharply with the images of
modernity in the film’s opening journey-such as the clichéd
Gothic imagery of the fog-shrouded ruined castle of Moy and its
curse. Mythic animals also appear, not only Catriona’s hounds,
but Colonel Barnstaple’s falcon (not to mention his missing
eagle), the exotic oxen Bridie herds through the fog-enveloped
streets of Port Erraig and the uncanny sound coming from the sea
that the locals tell Joan is ‘the seal’s signal’.
But we must catch the complex nuance of these images
and their role in marking the space—and process—of
transformation. Like the appearance of the goatherd in the
opening of A Matter of Life and Death, the ‘timeless’ aspect of
these images has a deceptive and ironic aspect. Port Erraig never
really becomes a realm of classical mythology, nor even of
traditional folklore; rather, the film presents something of a
parody of these realms, a carnivalesque mixture of high and low.
Catriona’s dramatic backlit ‘Diana’ must be balanced by her
subsequent entrance into Erraig house—stunning, dramatic and
filled with energy, but hardly a goddess, with her wet tousled
hair, her kilt-like plaid skirt and the leather coat she flings to the
floor like an eight-year-old home from school. Barnstaple’s
sudden entry to welcome Joan, with his hunting garb and falcon
on his wrist, while startling and at first unsettling, quickly settles
down into a traditional comedy of manners, evoking eccentricity
rather than ancient mystery. The space of transition remains a
space of minor gods and demons, tricksters and shape-shifters,
who oddly carry a numinous aura into domestic circumstance.
With this mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar, these figures
embody Freud’s
concept of the
‘uncanny’. The
unheimlich, rather than
the more stable
meanings of the sacred
or of myth.
From Michael Powell
Interviews. Edited by
David Lazar.
University Press of
Mississippi, Jackson,
2003.
What was the starting
idea for I Know
Where I’m Going?
MP:
After A Canterbury Tale, we came up with the idea to
make A Matter of Life and Death and we had already finished the
first stage of the script. But not the last! Except, it was
impossible to get the Technicolor film. Because Technicolor
films were requisitioned for aerial combat training. And it was
impossible to make A Matter of Life and Death without it,
because the entire basic idea was grounded in color: the earth in
color and the sky monochrome.
Yet at that time, Laurence Olivier did Henry V.
MP: He was the only one to get a dispensation. At the end of
1944, it was no longer possible. So we were stuck for six to eight
months, in the best case scenario. And Emeric got worried:
“What are we going to do now?” and I asked: “Don’t you have
an idea in your pocket we could use?”” And he told me that he
had been thinking for a long time about a film subject in which a
girl wanted to go to an island. An island whose inhabitants you
could see from the opposite coast: but because of storms, of the
raging sea, you could never reach it. It was an interesting idea.
But why did she want to go to the island? And he answered:
“That’s precisely why I want to write the story: to find out!”
(Laughs.) I thought it was possible to introduce things that were
worth saying. On the war. It was the beginning of 1945 and we
could maybe talk about the reasons why we had thrown ourselves
in combat. Immaterial values? And Emeric told me: “I’m sure
it’s possible. Give me a few weeks.” He left and I saw him six
days later with the script! With the script, with the dialogues,
ready to shoot!”
And the girl never gets to the island!
MP: Never. I read it and I found the script extraordinary. And I
left right away,,,to find the island.
It's a magnificent work. Very bewitching.
M: Yes. You never forget it. I’m often asked to present the film.
Powell and Pressburger—‘I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING’—9
SCORSESE:
You have to understand that, let’s see, Colonel
Blimp was made the year I was born, so when I saw The Red
Shoes, it was one of the great events for me: I was eight years old
I guess. It was the first time I was aware of the logo—“A Film of
The Archers”—in color. It was extremely vivid. As I mentioned
to you earlier, the only other film that I remember from that
period that was as vivid was Jean Renoir’s The River. It was a
beautiful film. But it also turns out that Brian DePalma, having
seen The Red Shoes, decided to become a director.
You see, what I’m trying to get at, I guess, is that
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
much so that eventually, when I got to know Michael well—
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
was telling me, “Oh. You must see it. It’s wonderful, it’s
wonderful and you must see it.” Quite honestly, I was afraid to
see it because I had become friendly with Michael and I felt,
what if I didn't like it? Eventually he’s going to ask me, you see.
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
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
picture that I’d missed in the past that really would be considered
a masterpiece. In other words, a new film to enjoy. Seriously
enjoy. I didn’t think I’d ever see another one from the past. But
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
was at the Campbell’s birthday party, when they’re playing
bagpipes, and she asks Roger Livesey to translate the Gaelic in
the song, and it’s a medium shot of him, and he begins to
translate ending with the phrase, “You’re the one for me,” and
the camera moves in quickly, and the sound of the bagpipes
comes up, and it was absolutely frightening in the sense that, in a
way, you understood they were in love with each other, you
understood that they were about to go through something
wonderful, and absolutely terrible and frightening at the same
time. It was quite remarkable. I was very, very moved by the
picture. And also the wonderful ending.
POWELL: It’s the skirl of the pipes that does it.
SCORSESE: Really? I thought it was the camera move and, of
course, Levesy and Wendy Hiller’s face.
PRESSBURGER: I was flabbergasted the first time you invited
me and you said, “You will find something which belonged to
you.” I didn’t know what he meant, but for heavens sake his
home was full of our posters and a lot of other things, But Powell
and Pressburger couldn’t believe it! [Laughter]
SCORSESE: I became obsessed with the films…
CHRISTIE: Something else which you said once that I thought
was very striking was that you always thought of Michael and
Emeric as the two experimental filmmakers who got away with
making experimental films inside the commercial framework.
SCORSESE: Totally. They’re the only ones, I feel who really
succeeded. Twenty films, I feel, all totally experimental
.
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
CONTACTS:
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The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center
and State University of New York at Buffalo
with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News