Powell and Pressburger: The Matter of Britain
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- World War Two set British filmmakers a challenge: to be relevant and entertaining and to inspire without patronising. Did Powell and Pressburger succeed?
A lecture by Ian Christie, Visiting Professor of Film and Media History
11 November 2019 6PM GMT
www.gresham.ac...
World War Two set British filmmakers a challenge: to be relevant and entertaining and to inspire without patronising. Powell and Pressburger brought wit and imagination to their task, questioning what Britain stood for, warts and all. Notoriously, Churchill hated The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. But many ordinary cinema-goers were grateful for The Archers’ poetic patriotism, in this as well as in A Matter of Life and Death. Britishness redefined in the stress of war is the theme of this lecture.
Wonderful lecture. My experience with P & P started some years ago with the 49th Parallel. They have in the last 10 years helped me through some very difficult times-and still do. I don't think I got Blimp initially but it is now at the top of my P&P favorites list- yet all of them are so rich to be always rewarding to view. I'm 68 (American) and being a film buff since high school I'm surprised it took me this long to discover and appreciate them - but better late than never.
My very favourite film of all time. I recollect seeing the 90 mins version on television without. Only when catching the first restored version for the first time did I discover just how brilliant it is.
Mine too. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen it, and each viewing is rewarded with something previously unnoticed. A marvel.
David Lean, who edited One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing, told Powell & Pressburger that the scene with GodfreyTearle reproaching the younger airmen about youth and age, was a great scene unto itself, but didn't work in the film as a whole. Lean said that an entire film could be made from this scene, which was cut. This gave Pressburger the idea for Blimp.
The letter! Amazing. How Britain has changed. Fantastic lecture. Thank you for posting. Great insight into Blimp & Powell and Pressburger. What a great body of work they have and how far ahead of their time they were.
Livesey and Walbrook's performance is superb in this brilliant film......👍
Don't forget Kerr - she was amazing (and very beautiful) in her three roles.
this film captivated me when i first saw it on BBC 2 on a cold Saturday afternoon in November about 15 years ago, such great performances from the three main actors, Livesey, Walbrook and Kerr.
IIRC, I first saw this great film on Channel 4 one Thursday afternoon. In 1983 or 84, C4 had started an incredibly engaging series, curated and presented by Leslie Halliwell, showing wartime propaganda films, usually including a big screen feature film of some sort as part of the afternoon's menu.
'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' in what I gather is its full, remastered version is a true classic.
A great analysis of a great film by a great teacher. Look forward to seeing it in its newly restored version.
5:25 - Saw the tapestry at the Museum of the Moving Image in 1989. It's now closed! Sad that 'no-one seems to know where it is today.'
'The Matter of Britain'. Interesting label in view of the almost contemporary P & P movie title to the 'Blimp' movie: 'A Matter of Life and Death'. Other enigmatic 'Archers' titles were 'I know where I'm going (with Wendy Hiller) and 'A Canterbury Tale'.
As a younger Canadian (cusping on 40) of American, Jewish and Scotch-Welsh descent I have had a complicated relationship with the idea of “British-ness”. In one breath I cherish Bowie, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Beatles and the Who, while at the same time l am tormented by the legacy of the colonial treatment of Indigenous people in North America.
However, this film and lecture left me with a profound respect and admiration for what Britains endured throughout the war and the complexities they themselves worked though in that time. Imperfect a Union as it may have been, the UK was indeed a bastion of hope in a truly bleak period for free people like Pressberger and many Europeans fleeing repression on the continent.
In the current context of the Ukraine-Russia conflict I now especially appreciate Britain’s steadfastness to the Ukrainian cause, having a memory of the brutality of the blitz and so much more that we In the Shires of the Americas have long forgotten. My sincere thanks to Prof. Christie for his well researched and thoughtful remarks. I am truly grateful for it. 🇨🇦🇬🇧
excellent comment Jay. I'm English, though my father was from the town of Lviv in Ukraine, his entire family was ethnically cleansed by the Russians in 1940, .. history is repeating itself .. it's terrible what is happening over there.
Please don’t go round carrying the burden of things that happened before you were born. That was nothing to do with you. It’s a shame people these days aren’t able to look at history, appreciate it and learn from it.
Very good lecture, spoiled by having to endure two advertisements every few minutes.
As a brit ,im proud that the government couldnt apparently stop the production and the distribution of the film, but somewhat surprised, censorship was obliviously in existence during the war, and if Churchill had really believed it was anti British and against rhe national interest in time of war , even if this was just a government invention , rhen surely the government could have found a way to close it down?
Excellent lecture about a truly great film!👍
These are my favorite films bar none , great review of these treasures
I wish they show the movie
Its on eBay...
@@mikethebloodthirsty Just watched it on You Tube.
@@amraceway Thanks.
BLIMP makes an interesting comparison with Germany's MUNCHHAUSEN(1943), also with a flashback structure.
Blimp........ perhaps my favourite Archers' film.
Interesting, if very rambling.