So, MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER is good. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t heard all Scorsese’s stories before, seen all Powell & Pressburger’s films before, and seen all the interviews with Powell before (though some of them not for years).
It’s directed by David Hinton, maker of numerous TV arts docs, who doesn’t exactly push the boat out stylistically but does a solid job. I was questioning his use of freeze-frames, which didn’t seem very Archers-like, until we got to A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH and the whole time-stop bit, and then I had to admit the freezeframes were bang on. The splitscreen effects, however, have no precedent in Powell’s work and didn’t seem to add anything. And if I were to make one more criticism it would probably be the odd use of home movies and like archive — it seems that every time Powell hit a low ebb in his career, we’d cut to him grinning away on a Scottish walking holiday, happy as a clam at high tide, and when we learn of his joyous late-life rediscovery and celebration there’s a shot of him walking where he looks sunk in a slough of respond.
I would have liked to have seen some of P&P’s collaborators (there’s plenty of archive of them too) and heard more about them. At two hours, the film is already long, and there was nothing I wanted to lose. But hearing from more people might have made it seem shorter, especially when you have such jolly people as Jack Cardiff and Christopher Challis to choose from, and maybe a search could have turned up some Alfred Junge, Brian Easdale, Allan Gray, or Hein Heckroth? But I don’t know.
It’s certainly an excellent introduction to the Archers’ work.
What slightly spoiled my viewing at the Cameo was seeing a certain executive producer’s name in the credits. Someone I’d worked with and had a simply terrible time with. I’ve dealt with execs who weren’t on absolutely the same page as me, and it usually worked out fine, but this was very different. I have never rid myself of the suspicion that she was trying to break me. Which is an extraordinary experience to have as a director making a film for a new talent scheme.
Of course I’d quite like to have directed a feature film about Powell & Pressburger myself, but I’d have been able to overlook that if not for seeing that name up there. If I’d blinked and missed it I’d have had a much better time.
I think I’ve written before about how, when Moira Shearer leaps into the red shoes in THE RED SHOES, the very quick shot of her landing and the laces tying up magically by themselves is run in reverse — Moira is being lifted OUT of the shoes (probably clinging to a horizontal pole wielded by a couple of burly assistant) and the laces are being UNtied by threads, which are very visible when you freezeframe the DVD or Blu-ray — I’m very glad these haven’t been painted out by some overzealous restorer or algorithm, you can’t see them at all at normal speed so being able to capture them by hitting PAUSE is just a bonus.
One reason this works so well is speed of cutting. ALL the close shots and inserts in the ballet are incredibly quick, often just a few frames, whereas the wide shots tend to be fairly length so you can appreciate the dancing. This makes for an extremely effective contrast, it keeps the audience on its toes far more than constant fast cutting would.
I decided to investigate the moment when Shearer, handed a tiny knife by the sinister shoemaker, tries to cut off the straps of her ruby slippers, only for the blade to turn into an ineffectual sprig. First, though, I was dumbfounded by his actual arrival —
Powell and his editor cut almost directly in from an extreme high-angle longshot, as choreographer Robert Helpmann as the priest (who was very bitchy about Leonide Massine on set: “The old boy hasn’t got it anymore”) departs with his congregation. The new shot size constitutes a bit of a jolt because the angle itself barely changes, but what’s more startling is that Leonid Massine’s shoemaker is ALREADY in the shot, leaping into position, even though the preceding shot clearly established his absence. This ought to be a totally unacceptable jump cut but of course it fits with the character’s magickal nature. I think SOMEHOW the jumpiness of the cut-in adds to the sense that this continuity error is not an error but a daring and deliberate coup de cinema. Nobody questions it.
But I was watching for the moment of transformation when the knife changes to a twig. And again, the change happens BETWEEN SHOTS.
Again, a flurry of very quick shots — Massine offers the knife (WS), Shearer takes it (insert), raises it as Massine leaps away (a tighter WS), slashes twice at her slippers (MS) — and in the last medium shot, the knife is ALREADY transformed. The fast movement of Moira’s hand and arm stops us seeing this until she does.
But the next transformation — twig or sprig back into knife — happens before our eyes.
We tilt up to Moira’s horrified face as she raises the branch, then she throws it from herself. Mills waits until the sprig has almost landed before cutting to the knife JUST hitting the ground and sticking there, quivering slightly (and with Jack Cardiff’s lighting arranged for it to cast a long, sinister shadow and to GLEAM enticingly.
AMAZING STUFF
shadowplay 