Michael Powell (director)

Name	Michael Powell
Birth date	September 30, 1905
Birth place	Bekesbourne, Kent, England
Birth name	Michael Latham Powell
Death date	February 19, 1990
Death place	Avening, Gloucestershire, England
Spouse	Gloria Mary Rouger (1927-1927)Frankie Reidy (1943-1983)Thelma Schoonmaker (1984-1990)

Michael Latham Powell (30 September 1905 – 19 February 1990) was an English film director, renowned for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. They worked together under the name of "The Archers" and produced a series of classic British films.

Early life

Powell was the second son and younger child of Thomas William Powell, a hop farmer, and Mabel, daughter of Frederick Corbett, of Worcester, England. Powell was born in Bekesbourne, Kent, and educated at The King's School, Canterbury and then at Dulwich College. He started work at the National Provincial Bank in 1922 but quickly realised he was not cut out to be a banker.

Film career

Powell entered the film industry in 1925 through working with director Rex Ingram working 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 debut as a "comic English tourist" in Mare Nostrum (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). He also signed on in a similar role on Hitchcock's first "talkie", 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. Powell and Hitchcock remained friends for the remainder of Hitchcock's life.

After scriptwriting on two productions, Powell entered into a partnership with American producer Jerry Jackson in 1931 to make "quota quickies", Powell began to direct hour-long films needed to satisfy a legal requirement that British cinemas screen a certain quota of British movies. During this period, he developed his directing skills, sometimes making up to seven films a year.

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.

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, made in 1960 as a solo effort. The film was excoriated by 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. However, his reputation was restored over the years, and 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 and Francis Ford Coppola.

Personal life

In 1927 Powell married Gloria Mary Rouger, an American dancer; they were married in France and stayed together for only three weeks. During the 1940s, Powell had love affairs with actresses Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron

1957: BAFTA Award nominated for The Battle of the River Plate as Best British Screenplay. Shared with Emeric Pressburger.

1959: Cannes Film Festival nominated for Luna de Miel for Golden Palm.

1978: Awarded Hon DLitt, University of East Anglia

1978: Awarded Hon DLitt, University of Kent

1981: Made fellow of BAFTA

1982: Awarded Career Gold Lion from the Venice Film Festival

1983: Made fellow of the British Film Institute (BFI)

1987: Awarded Hon Doctorate, Royal College of Art

1987: Awarded Akira Kurosawa Award from San Francisco International Film Festival

Legacy

Cited as a major influence on many film-makers such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George A. Romero and Bertrand Tavernier. Said Thelma Schoonmaker (Scorsese's long-time film editor and Powell's third wife) of Scorsese, "Anyone he meets, or the actors he works with, he immediately starts bombarding with Powell and Pressburger movies." The Michael Powell Award for the Best New British Feature was instigated in 1993 at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and is sponsored by the UK Film Council and is "named in homage to one of Britain's most original filmmakers".

Pinewood Studios, where Powell made many of his most notable films, has named a mixing theatre in the post-production department after him: The Powell Theatre. A giant picture of the director covers the door to the theatre, where many well-known films are mixed.

References

;Notes ;Citations ;Bibliography

Christie, Ian. Arrows of Desire: The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. London: Waterstone, 1985. ISBN 0-947752-13-7, later edition, 1994. ISBN 0-571-16271-1 (pbk).

Christie, Ian. Powell, Pressburger and Others. London: British Film Institute, 1978. ISBN 0-85170-086-1.

Christie, Ian and Andrew Moor, eds. The Cinema of Michael Powell: International Perspectives on an English Filmmaker. London: BFI, 2005. ISBN 1-84457-093-2.

Darakhvelidze, George. Landscapes of Dreams: The Cinema of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Part 1) (in Russian). Vinnitsa, Ukraine: Globe Press, 2009. ISBN 966-8300-34-3.

Esteve, Llorenç. Michael Powell y Emeric Pressburger (in Spanish). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Catedra, 2002. ISBN 978-84-376-1950-7.

Howard, James. Michael Powell. London: BT Batsford Ltd, 1996. ISBN 0-7134-7482-3.

Lazar, David, ed. Michael Powell: Interviews. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2003. ISBN 1-57806-498-8.

Macdonald, Kevin. Emeric Pressburger: The Life and Death of a Screenwriter. London: Faber & Faber, 1994. ISBN 0-571-16853-1

Moor, Andrew. Powell and Pressburger: A Cinema of Magic Spaces. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. ISBN 1-85043-947-8.

Powell, Michael. A Life in Movies (autobiography). London: Heinemann, 1986. ISBN 0-434-59945-X, later edition, 1993. ISBN 0-571-20431-7 (pbk).

Powell, Michael. Million Dollar Movie (The second volume of his autobiography). London: Heinemann, 1992. ISBN 0-434-59947-6, later edition, 2000. ISBN 0-7493-0463-4 (pbk).

Thiéry, Natacha. Photogénie du désir: Michael Powell et Emeric Pressburger 1945-1950 (in French). Rennes, France: Presse Universitaires de Rennes, 2009. ISBN 2-7535-0964-6.

External links

Michael Powell at the Powell & Pressburger Pages.

Essay, Filmography, Bibliography, Links at Senses of Cinema

BFI Filmography

NFT interviews (audio clips)

Articles about :

* early work

* sense of landscape

* work with Pressburger

* classic Powell & Pressburger

* the war years

* later years

Michael Powell biography on BritMovie.co.uk

Category:1905 births Category:1990 deaths Category:Cancer deaths in England Category:English film directors Category:English film producers Category:English screenwriters Category:Old Alleynians Category:People from Bekesbourne