Michael Powell
Michael Powell, (1905-90). British film-maker, best known for the movies he wrote and- directed with Emeric Pressburger (1902-88). Powell directed several films before attracting attention with The Edge of the World (1937). His first film with Pressburger, a Hungarian emigré, was the melodrama The Spy in Black (1938). The war years saw the production of some of the pair’s most remarkable films, notably The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), a gentle satire on the British military establishment that enraged Churchill, and A Canterbury Tale (1944). Equally ambitious and imaginative were the metaphysical drama A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and The Red Shoes (1948), a tragedy set in the world of the ballet. After the break-up of the partnership in 1956, Powell made relatively few films. Press vilification of his Peeping Tom (1960), a disturbing movie about a sadistic murderer who films his victims, effectively ended his career in Britain. The film has influenced a number of later directors, notably Martin Scorsese. After several years working in Australia, Powell returned to Britain for a last collaboration with Pressburger, The Boy Who Turned Yellow (1972). He published two highly praised volumes of memoirs, A Life in Movies (1986) and A Million Dollar Movie (1992).
