Arrows of Desire

by Ian Christie, Martin Scorsese (Foreword by)

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger formed the greatest creative partnership in the history of British Cinema - The Archers.
Their films were often Churchill tried to suppress the release of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Later, The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman startled and enchanted cinema audiences with their use of colour, form and music. In the last ten years the magic, poetry and passion of their work has been acknowledged around the world and they are firmly in the pantheon of film masters.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published November 11, 1985

About the author

Ian Christie is Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finally finished this excellent study of the work of Powell and Pressburger today having started it last year and put it down. I love what work of Powell and Pressburger I've seen and this book does a grand job of looking at their whole careers so that I now realise I have only touched the surface of the work they did.

Christie does a fine job of contextualising their work, looking at their themes and their influence on modern film-makers - Martin Scorsese provides an introduction to the book. Indeed, I wasn't aware of how influential they were on the 70s American film-makers. Not just Scorsese, but Coppolla and others. There were some initial efforts for Powell to make a film version of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy through Coppolla's Zeotrope company but Coppolla's financial problems put an end to that idea.

An excellent and interesting read.

[Alex Sarll]

I'd still say Powell & Pressburger are underrated, and will continue to do so until the question 'so who were the best to ever do it?' comes as standard with the unspoken addendum 'you know, except the Archers, obviously'. But the situation is so very much better than it used to be. This is a 1994 revision of a 1985 book, which is to say, it originally came out roughly halfway between the pair's heyday and now. And it's shocking how often Christie talks about one or another of their masterpieces having only recently been restored after decades reduced to a truncated form or otherwise mistreated. In places you can tell he's still fighting running battles, right down to simply emphasising that it is Powell and Pressburger, even enthusiasts having been prone to bring Powell to the fore. Which, for all that you can blame some of it on an unappetising cocktail of auteur theory and xenophobia, remains something with which I have a little sympathy; the list of unrealised projects here is enough to make one weep and long for the film libraries of other, better timelines, but once the pair part ways, it's definitely Powell's phantoms which sound most tantalising. Videos for New Order and Kate Bush! An early eighties Earthsea with Coppola! The phantasmagoric James Mason Tempest! Still, regardless of specific weighting once they're apart, it was together that they were greatest. Christie hits on a brilliant analogy early on, with two writers already unfashionable when the book came out and more so now: Powell as Kipling, Pressburger as Chesterton. Even more impressive, he resists the urge to keep referring back to it, but it lingers, and not just in how perfectly "what do they know of England who only England know?" fits both the men and their films. Resisting the sillier suggestions that the Archers were prophets entirely without honour in their own time, Christie nevertheless has to wheel out some of the more idiotic responses, like the Observer critic who watched Colonel Blimp and asked "What is it really about?"*, apparently unaware that any film (or other work of art) where you can give a full and simple answer to that question wasn't worth making in the first place. But such is the British susceptibility to stultifying Leavisite orthodoxy that even now, with Powell & Pressburger themselves largely sanctified by time, plenty of critics continue to act like realism is the best and highest thing one can achieve with cinema, rather than using the Grail as a paperweight. Their kind, I fear, shall be ever with us, but well done Christie for firing such elegant arrows in their general direction.

*And then there's the film's most famous non-fan, Churchill, whose attempts to shut it down must stand as one of the black marks on the great man's record. Still, at least he understood it, even if he had his reasons for disagreeing.

[Campbell Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential overview of The Archers’ work and place in the British film industry… but only its original edition, with its expansive layout and liberal selections of stills.

[Scott Leffler · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars