Michael Powell

Michael Powell (Bekesbourne, September 30, 1905 – London, February 19, 1990), misunderstood in his time, is today a recognized figure, especially by new American directors such as Francis Ford Coppola , Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg . , to which they are largely indebted.

The son of a hotelier, he had a careful education in Canterbury and London. Of an individualistic nature, he began in the world of cinema in 1922, alongside Léonce Perret, Jacques Feyder and Ivan Mosjoukin. Assistant to Rex Ingram ( Mare Nostrum , 1925), his apprenticeship in the profession would be long: first as a collaborator with Alfred Hitchcock, editor and scriptwriter for various directors of early sound films, then director of forgotten second-rate films -the so-called ” Quotas Quickies”-. But with The Edge of the World (1937) is when Michael Powell can access more ambitious goals. Helped then by Alexander Korda, this pioneer of British cinema would not only finance several films, but also introduced him to what would be his valued collaborator, Emeric Pressburger . For more than 15 years, this cult Hungarian author would build the stories and the scripts, jointly signed.

However, what really launched Michael Powell’s career was World War II, as it would make him a prestigious director, who achieved artistic independence from the creation of his own production company, The Archers, also associated with Emeric Pressburger. Thus, this important creative pairing found in the war-propaganda cinema ( Spies at Sea , and above all, The Invaders ) the appropriate way to express his first concerns. It was a question of showing human attitudes in the face of an extreme situation, such as the confrontation of antagonistic ideas -Nazism and pacifism-, or reflecting the external reactions of personal obsessions, normally violent and justified by the war.

However, peace did not limit his imagination, since Powell-Presburger alternated fantastic stories, such as A Canterbury Tale (1944) and Life or Death (1946), with samples of irrational romanticism, especially his masterful Black Narcissus (1946) . ) and The Red Shoes (1948), where the use of color as an expressive element of the action makes Michael Powell a true visual experimenter. In this period, he cultivated various genres, but always with a marked personal touch, such as melodrama ( Wild Heart (1950) ), the adventure genre ( The Liberator ) or the musical ( Hoffman’s Tales ).

In the 1950s, this master of the Seventh Art entered a professional rut, but still managed to excel with new war films: The Battle of the Río de la Plata and Nocturnal Ambush . Then, Michael Powell left Emeric Pressburger and, at the end of the decade, he made his mythical The Panic Photographer (1959), a great horror film classic. It is a dramatically personal story that, with autobiographical hints, describes the pleasure of a visual artist in achieving his desires regardless of the ends to achieve it. This film is a moral reflection between the artist’s exaltation and self-blame about his work. A position that earned him the rejection of the general public and, practically, the end of his prolific film career.

Considered by his Spanish biographer, Llorenç Esteve, as one of the bravest directors of modern cinema, Michael Powell would manage to satisfy his obsessions, always guided by intuition and without following any rules.