Martin Scorsese, like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, has never made a sequel to any of his films. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger comes close, however, as it fits into a series of documentaries about cinematic bodies of work, all with Scorsese as the sole presenter:
- 1995’s A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies
- 1999’s My Voyage to Italy, about Italian cinema and its neorealism period
- 2010’s A Letter to Elia, about Scorsese’s reverence for Elia Kazan
Made in England, directed by David Hinton, might be the finest of the lot, not only due to modern technical precision in its editing and sound mixing, but because of how personal the Powell and Pressburger oeuvre is to Martin Scorsese.
If you study Scorsese’s films long enough, you’ll find out how many times he’s referenced or unabashedly ripped-off ideas, shots, and character tropes from The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I’m Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, or the solo-Powell work Peeping Tom. If you’re going to steal, steal from the best.
This documentary has Scorsese break down film-by-film almost all of Powell and Pressburger’s work (They’re a Weird Mob! is suspiciously absent) and the result is not only a personal expression of love and admiration from a dear friend of theirs, but a transcendent experience for the audience.
Seeing these iconic and singular films dance between realistic social dramas and fantastical epics of longing and despair over the decades will make you hunger to experience them all for yourself. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger tapped into and intimately understood the human experience, in all of its complexities and contradictions, and Hinton’s work as documentary director with his editors Margarida Cartaxo and Stuart Davidson allow the audience into their hearts and minds.
With Martin Scorsese as your teacher, this is the perfect film school in cinematic English romanticism and the art of the “composed film”, forms and techniques that should not fade away. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger is an honest, open, inviting, and reverent journey through the work of two masters of the craft, and is must-see viewing for anyone who considers themselves a lover of movies.
