Powell & Pressburger's most bizarre moments | BFI video essay

Part of the enduring majesty of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's cinema comes from their ability to undercut the prim and proper sensibility of war-time filmmaking with moments that are deeply strange, sometimes even disturbing.

In this video essay director Will Webb highlights scenes from Powell + Pressburger films - including The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I'm Going and Black Narcissus - that tilt us off-balance, shaking what we thought we knew about the world's that one of cinema's greatest filmmaking partnerships created.

This video essay is part of an ongoing season celebrating Powell + Pressburger's work, Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger.

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[baltoman]

They were simply geniuses! Their films can be enjoyed on so many levels, and there always seems to be more to be grasped and understood. thanks for this wonderful essay!

[keithplant]

Such great filmmakers. So ahead of their time and so innovative!

[dq]

For me, the films of Powell and Pressburger can rank with the greatest by anyone from anywhere, yet somehow they have never quite managed to become household names. I can't understand this, because their films are exciting examples of art that is uncompromising yet accessible to anyone with imagination and eyes.

[jlasf]

Kerr is pronounced like "car" not "cur." In Hollywood press releases, it was explained, "Kerr - like star."

[Bondoz]

So great YouTube suggested this vid to me. I have seen The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus but really enjoyed learning more about their work.

[FranssensM]

You get a thumbs up for the work matching a humorous explanation of the film with their original titles. That’s commitment to your art

[christophedevos]

Visionary would be more appropriate. They made stunningly beautiful films.

[Riordan]

There's something about Powell and Pressburger films. Like the work of Wes Anderson, even if you don't know WHAT you're watching, just a few seconds in and you know WHO you're watching.

[DevonMiniFlicks]

A Matter of Life and Death is now on BBC iplayer and The Black Narcissuss is on ITVX at the moment.

[euansmith]

Roger Livesey's voice is so lovely.

[richardenglish]

Great video, but 'bizarre' is such a carelessly reductive word to describe visual inventiveness.

[kamandi]

You left out the yellow tube train (and passengers) in The Boy Who Turned Yellow.

[Autostade]

One point of disagreement: I would not describe the plot of 'A Canterbury Tale' as 'otherwise light" - its actually a deeply spiritual film and a meditation on the nature of fate versus destiny, blessings versus absolutions and miracles in the face of accepted realities - hardly the stuff of lightness, don't you agree?

[marcus]

was just thinking about the red shoes again. amazing!

[patrickweyland-smith]

How does the BFI mispronounce one of Britain’s greatest exports the Scottish born Deborah Kerr? Did no one subedit this? It’s embarrassing

[TheSaltydog]

No one talks about Powell's fabulous use of color. 🌈

[Autostade]

And, used the laziest 'bon mot' ever at the end of your presentation: 'very much films of their time'...sorry, darling, this is the presentist's easy way out...yet the problem happens to be that it's NOT the easy way out but demands that you qualify such an erroneously breezy statement with backing critical, theoretical, historical, sociological and cultural evidence. 'The Shining' is very much a film of its time, as are 'Battleship Potemkin, ', 'Pandora's Box', 'Citizen Kane', 'Vertigo', 'Last Year at Marienbad', 'Meshes of the Afternoon', 'Nashville', 'Taxi Driver', 'The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant', 'Not Reconciled', 'Rashomon', 'Persona', "All About My Mother', 'Breaking the Waves' and 'Russian Ark'...to name just a few...so..I'm not quite sure what you mean.

[SpringerA]

The Glue Man is sssoo lucky he didn't do that now. He'd get a pounding he wouldn't like at all.