Made in England

Celebration of the work of Powell and Pressburger ★★★★ 2hrs 11mins (12A)

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger have lately been so celebrated as “the very quintessence of British filmmaking that it is hard to imagine a time when they were largely forgotten”, said Jonathan Romney in the FT. “Yet for years they were” – which is why it is so welcome that this documentary is here to “remind us of their genius”. Directed by David Hinton, it offers a “reasonably comprehensive history of the two men”, who created “some of cinema’s most enduring and eccentric visions of British identity” in films such as A Matter of Life and Death (pictured) and A Canterbury Tale, but is also about their influence on Martin Scorsese. He narrates the film and describes the “profound effect” the pair’s work had on him as a sickly child, growing up in New York. There is perhaps a tad too much of Scorsese here; but it remains a “brisk, insightful guide to the masters”, led by a superfan who “knows their films inside out, has copied them avidly and doesn’t mind admitting it”.

As well as discussing the filmmakers and their creative partnership, Scorsese describes his meetings with Powell in the 1970s, said Tom Shone in The Sunday Times. Powell’s work had by then fallen out of favour; he was living in straitened circumstances in a cottage in Gloucestershire; and he was apparently “amazed” to hear that his films had been rediscovered by a younger generation of American filmmakers – not just Scorsese, but also Brian De Palma and Francis Ford Coppola. Made in England does make you want to rewatch Powell and Pressburger’s films, said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday. “But it is also somewhat overlong” and, towards the end, it runs out of steam.