Those who believe that filmmaking is inherently collaborative know that the movies written, produced and directed by the Englishman Michael Powell and the Hungarian Emeric Pressburger prove as much, brilliantly. Their 1940s classics — a wartime-to-peacetime stretch of visionary teamwork that includes “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,” “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” — are timeless enchantments that cracked open the art form in ways that were deeply human, subversive and undeniably magical. One rapt convert was Martin Scorsese, an asthmatic child glued to the family‘s TV, especially spellbound by the opera fantasia “Tales of Hoffman,” even when fuzzily transmitted through a tiny black-and-white set.
Since becoming a director himself (and befriending Powell in the 1970s), Scorsese has made championing their films a lifelong mission, in recognition of their subconscious inspiration on his own work. Clearly there’s no better narrator than an obsessive like Scorsese for an archival dive into the duo’s unusual and extraordinary oeuvre. It’s his heartfelt analysis as host of filmmaker David Hinton’s documentary “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger” that puts this rewarding, personalized master class above most movies about movies.
(Its release also wonderfully coincides with the Academy Museum’s current restoration-packed retrospective, “Tellers of Tales,” running through Aug. 19.) Both Powell and Pressburger apprent.