Friday, September 25, 2009

1981 - A VERY BRITISH AFFAIR- short and sweet documentary on Powell and Pressburger


Filmed in 1981 while The Red Shoes was being reworked as a Broadway musical. This film is around 60 minutes and not bad. There are some interesting things in here for the film buff. Michael Powell says the character that he is the most like in his films is the nutty "glue man" from A Canterbury Tale. Hungarian, Emeric Pressburger seems like the perfect self deprecating English gentlemen, as he wanders around his cottage feeding the fish in a pond.

 

Powell and Pressburger actually still seem to like each other after a lot of career high and low points.



Towards the end of the film, the interviewer asks Powell if he felt he was sufficiently appreciated by the British public. Powell answers half mockingly "the public never appreciates it's great artists," at which point a very embarrassed Pressburger tells the cameraman to stop filming.


It was an amusing way to end the film.

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