Poll

Your Favorite Powell and Pressburger Film Is...

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
9 (13.2%)
A Canterbury Tale
4 (5.9%)
'I Know Where I'm Going!'
3 (4.4%)
A Matter of Life and Death (aka. Stairway to Heaven)
7 (10.3%)
Black Narcissus
8 (11.8%)
The Red Shoes
18 (26.5%)
The Small Back Room (aka. Hour of Glory)
0 (0%)
The Elusive Pimpernel (aka. The Fighting Pimpernel)
0 (0%)
Gone to Earth (aka. La Renarde, aka. The Wild Heart)
1 (1.5%)
The Tales of Hoffmann
0 (0%)
Oh... Rosalinda!!
0 (0%)
The Battle of the River Plate (aka. Pursuit of the Graf Spee)
0 (0%)
I'll Met by Moonlight (aka. Night Ambush)
0 (0%)
haven't seen any
17 (25%)
don't like any
1 (1.5%)
other
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 67

Author Topic: Powell and Pressburger  (Read 14941 times)

sdedalus

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Re: Powell and Pressburger - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #40 on: July 02, 2011, 01:20:35 AM »
If the studio thing bugged you, I'd recommend their location films: A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going!, Edge of the World, etc.
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MartinTeller

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Re: Powell and Pressburger - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #41 on: July 02, 2011, 01:56:19 AM »
MartinT: Would you consider adding Peeping Tom to your Marathon of revisits? Looks like you like not love, time for another look?

It doesn't fit the parameters of my marathon (I gave it a 7, the marathon is for less than 7) but I'll probably give it another go if it ever comes out on Blu-Ray here.

goodguy

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Re: Powell and Pressburger - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #42 on: July 02, 2011, 02:12:05 AM »
If the studio thing bugged you, I'd recommend their location films: A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going!, Edge of the World, etc.
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. It wasn't the studio per se, but that they seemed to aim for a sort of realism with their fake vistas etc instead of the deliberate expressionism in The Red Shoes. The stylized approach in The Red Shoes also soaked up some of the melodrama and made it perfectly valid whereas in Black Narcissus it gets magnified by the falseness of the surroundings.

verbALs

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Re: Powell and Pressburger - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #43 on: July 02, 2011, 02:58:52 AM »
I can understand your point on Black Narcissus about a hyper(sur)realism, which I think is intentional. If you view it as a horror film (which I am doing with a lot of films these days it seems, especially Kubrick) that false sense, or your senses failing you, works extremely well.
The films sdedalus mentions all add context to P&P's choices in BN. They handle location and the spirituality of locations (cliffs, the sea, hills) extremely well, so that artificiallity seems a deliberate choice- that vertiginous cliff would be hard to find in real-life.

I would add Powell's Age Of Consent (which I know sd will approve of) and even Ill Met By Moonlight (Cretan Mountains) & Chesil Beach in The Small Back Room to the list of films shaped by location.
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Kilroy'sCarnival

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Re: Powell and Pressburger - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #44 on: July 02, 2011, 10:27:55 AM »
I haven't seen them all, but I think I have the most fondness for "I Know Where I'm Going!" - although the exquisite cinematography of Red Shoes and Narcissus are more memorable visually. 

As I noted in the marathon section, The 49th Parallel is being shown on Turner Classic Movies on this Friday, July 8, 2011, at 3:15pm. (Eastern US time)

Side question: is TCM available internationally?

These are the P&P films I've managed to see this far:
A Matter of Life and Death
Peeping Tom
Black Narcissus
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
I Know Where I'm Going!
The Red Shoes
The 49th Parallel
The Edge of the World
A Canterbury Tale
The Tales of Hoffman

verbALs

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Re: Powell and Pressburger - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #45 on: July 02, 2011, 12:02:54 PM »
We get TCM in the UK, probably different programming tho'.
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1SO

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Re: Powell and Pressburger
« Reply #46 on: July 15, 2011, 01:39:43 PM »
1. A Matter of Life and Death
2. The Red Shoes

3. Black Narcissus
4. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
5. A Canterbury Tale

6. The Tales of Hoffmann
7. The Small Back Room
8. I Know Where I'm Going!
9. 49th Parallel
10. Gone to Earth
11. Night Ambush
« Last Edit: December 27, 2020, 10:11:00 PM by 1SO »

roujin

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Re: Powell and Pressburger - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #47 on: August 16, 2011, 09:38:34 PM »
A Matter of Life and Death Archers, 1946

A bizarre mishmash of a whole different things (courtroom sequences, heavenly visions, melodrama) that probably shouldn't work at all, but somehow does. David Niven is the one dude who's supposed to die, somehow doesn't, and then has to fight for his right to stay on Earth. Complicating matters is the beautiful Kim Hunter who this roujin thinks is worth staying alive several lifetimes for. Powell's camera is so wonderfully expressive and inventive - camera movements suggesting all kinds of emotion and thoughts - that I sometimes forgot to pay attention to the scenes themselves and what actually happens in them. That's no big deal, though. I have these tears as proof.

Oh, in the copy I watched there seemed to be some other movie stuck in there around the courtroom sequence. Something about America/England relations. It was very jarring and boring. Thankfully it went back to the actual movie and to the awesomeness.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2020, 12:19:57 AM by 1SO »

Totoro

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Re: Powell and Pressburger - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #48 on: November 11, 2011, 04:16:49 PM »
01- BLACK NARCISSUS (A)
02- THE RED SHOES (B+)
03- A CANTERBURY TALE (C+)

verbALs

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Re: Powell and Pressburger - Directors Best Poll
« Reply #49 on: November 12, 2011, 12:08:07 AM »
Did we get A Canterbury Tale review, T? Such a weird/interesting/just plain different film, be good to hear what you didn't like.
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy