Editing Michael Powell (section)

==Film career==
Powell entered the film industry in 1925 through working with director [[Rex Ingram (director)|Rex Ingram]] at the [[Victorine Studios]] in [[Nice]], France (the contact with Ingram was made through Powell's father, who owned a hotel in Nice). He first started out as a general studio hand, the proverbial "[[gofer]]": sweeping the floor, making coffee, fetching and carrying. Soon he progressed to other work such as stills photography, writing titles (for the silent films) and many other jobs including a few acting roles, usually as comic characters. Powell made his film début as a "comic English tourist" in ''[[The Magician (1926 film)|The Magician]]'' (1926).

Returning to England in 1928, Powell worked at a diverse series of jobs for various filmmakers including as a stills photographer on [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s silent film ''[[Champagne (1928 film)|Champagne]]'' (1928). He also signed on in a similar role on Hitchcock's first "[[talkie]]", ''[[Blackmail (1929 film)|Blackmail]]'' (1929). In his autobiography, Powell claims he suggested the ending in the [[British Museum]] which was the first of Hitchcock's "monumental" climaxes to his films.<ref name="ALIM">Powell 1986</ref> Powell and Hitchcock remained friends for the remainder of Hitchcock's life.{{#tag:ref|It was Hitchcock who suggested using Kim Hunter in ''A Matter of Life and Death''.|group=N}}

After scriptwriting on two productions, Powell entered into a partnership with American producer Jerry Jackson in 1931 to make "[[Cinematograph Films Act 1927|quota quickies]]", hour-long films needed to satisfy a legal requirement that British cinemas screen a certain quota of British films. During this period, he developed his directing skills, sometimes making up to seven films a year.<ref name="Powell Early Years">Duguid, Mark. [http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/598751/index.html "Early Michael Powell."] ''Screenonline''. Retrieved: 28 September 2009.</ref>

Although he had taken on some directing responsibilities in other films, Powell had his first screen credit as a director on ''[[Two Crowded Hours]]'' (1931). This thriller was considered a modest success at the box office despite its limited budget.<ref name="Powell Early Years"/> From 1931 to 1936, Powell was the director of 23 films, including the critically received  ''[[Red Ensign (film)|Red Ensign]]'' (1934) and ''[[The Phantom Light]]'' (1935).<ref name="Powell Early Years"/>

In 1937 Powell completed his first truly personal project, ''[[The Edge of the World]]''. Powell gathered together a cast and crew who were willing to take part in an expedition to what was then a very isolated part of the UK. They had to stay there for quite a few months and finished up with a film which not only told the story he wanted but also captured the raw natural beauty of the location.

By 1939, Powell had been hired as a contract director by [[Alexander Korda]] on the strength of ''The Edge of the World''. Korda set him to work on some projects such as ''Burmese Silver'' that were subsequently cancelled.<ref name="ALIM" /> Nonetheless, Powell was brought in to save a film that was being made as a vehicle for two of Korda's star players, [[Conrad Veidt]] and [[Valerie Hobson]]. The film was ''[[The Spy in Black]]'', during pre-production of which Powell first met [[Emeric Pressburger]] in 1939.

===Meeting Emeric Pressburger===
[[File:P+P BluePlaque.jpg|thumb|upright|[[English Heritage]] [[blue plaque]] at [[Dorset House, Marylebone|Dorset House]] in [[Marylebone]], central London]]
The original script of ''The Spy in Black'' followed the book quite closely, but was too verbose and did not have a good role for either Veidt or Hobson. Korda called a meeting where he introduced a diminutive man, saying, "Well now, I have asked Emeric to read the script, and he has things to say to us."<ref name="ALIM" />

Powell then went on to record (in ''A Life in Movies'') how:
<blockquote>Emeric produced a very small piece of rolled-up paper, and addressed the meeting. I listened spellbound. Since talkies took over the movies, I had worked with some good writers, but I had never met anything like this. In the silent days, the top [American] screenwriters were technicians rather than dramatists ... the European cinema remained highly literate and each country, conscious of its separate culture and literature, strove to outdo the other. All this was changed by the talkies. America, with its enormous wealth and enthusiasm and its technical resources, waved the big stick. ... The European film no longer existed. ... Only the great German film business was prepared to fight the American monopoly, and Dr. Goebbels soon put a stop to that in 1933. But the day that Emeric walked out of his flat, leaving the key in the door to save the storm-troopers the trouble of breaking it down, was the worst day's work that the clever doctor ever did for his country's reputation, as he was soon to find out. As I said, I listened spellbound to this small Hungarian wizard, as Emeric unfolded his notes, until they were at least six inches long. He had stood Storer Clouston's plot on its head and completely restructured the film.<ref name="ALIM" /></blockquote>

They both soon recognised that although they were total opposites in background and personality, they had a common attitude to film-making and that they could work very well together. After making two more films together, ''[[Contraband (1940 film)|Contraband]]'' (1940) and ''[[49th Parallel (film)|49th Parallel]]'' (1941), with separate credits, the pair decided to form a partnership and to sign their films jointly as "Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger."<ref name="ALIM" />

===The Archers===
Working together as co-producers, writers and directors in a partnership they dubbed "[[Powell and Pressburger|The Archers]]", they made 19 feature films, many of which received critical and commercial success. Their best films are still regarded as classics of 20th-century British cinema. The [[BFI Top 100 British films|BFI 100]] list of "the favourite British films of the 20th century" contains five of Powell's films, four with Pressburger.<ref>[http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/bfi100/ "Features: The BFI 100."] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080701090244/http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/bfi100/ |date=1 July 2008}}, BFI, 19 February 2008. Retrieved: 28 September 2009.</ref> Thomson writes that Powell and Pressburger "struggle with great, clashing virtues—with marvelous visual imagination and uneasy, intellectual substance. [[I Know Where I'm Going!|''I Know Where I'm Going'']] is a genuinely superstitious picture; [[49th Parallel (film)|''49th Parallel'']] is a strange war odyssey, with escaping Germans wandering across Canada—naïve, very violent, at times unwittingly comic, but possessed by a primitive feeling for endangered civilization; an interesting sequel is ''[[One of Our Aircraft is Missing]]''—English fliers getting out of Holland; [[A Matter of Life and Death (film)|''A Matter of Life and Death'']] is pretentious in its way, yet very funny and absolutely secure in its dainty stepping from one world to another ... [[The Thief of Bagdad (1940 film)|''The Thief of Bagdad'']] is delightful, ''[[The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp]]'' a beautiful salute to Englishness ... ''[[Black Narcissus]]'' is that rare thing, an erotic English film about the fantasies of nuns."<ref name="Thomson"/>

Although admirers would argue that Powell ought to rank alongside fellow British directors [[Alfred Hitchcock]] and [[David Lean]], his career suffered a severe reversal after the release of the controversial psychological [[thriller film]] ''[[Peeping Tom (1960 film)|Peeping Tom]]'', made in 1960 as a solo effort.<ref name=FT.com/> The film was excoriated by mainstream British critics, who were offended by its sexual and violent images; Powell was ostracized by the film industry and found it almost impossible to work thereafter.<ref name="Golden"/>

The film did, however, meet with the rapturous approval of the young critics of ''[[Positif (magazine)|Positif]]'' and ''[[Midi Minuit Fantastique]]'' in France, and those of ''Motion'' in England, and in 1965 he was subject of a major positive revaluation by [[Raymond Durgnat]] in the auteurist magazine ''Movie'', later included in Durgnat's influential book ''A Mirror for England''.

===Zoetrope Studios===
In 1982, [[Francis Ford Coppola]] invited Powell to be 'senior director in residence' at his [[Zoetrope Studios]].<!-- https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-02-22-ca-4899-story.html https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/154725%7C111805/Michael-Powell https://powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/Micky/CinemaPapers.html https://theartsdesk.com/film/michael-powell-interview-i-had-no-idea-critics-were-so-innocent https://powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/MichaelPowell.html   --><!-- 6311 Romaine St. Los Angeles, CA ( @13:12 - Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger) --> There, Powell "pottered around", including starting to write his autobiography.<!-- https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/martin-scorsese-red-shoes-director-michael-powell-career-1235023862/ --> Powell's films came to have a cult reputation, broadened during the 1970s and early 1980s by a series of retrospectives and rediscoveries, as well as further articles and books. By the time of his death, he and Pressburger were recognised as one of the foremost film partnerships of all time – and cited as a key influence by many noted filmmakers such as [[Martin Scorsese]]<!-- https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/martin-scorsese-red-shoes-director-michael-powell-career-1235023862/ --> and [[Brian De Palma]].<ref name=FT.com/><!-- he'd go on to make two films in Australia -->