A while back I promised to present the coveted Rear Window and Manhattan Awards to wind up my Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger retrospective, but with one thing and another it slipped my mind. Thanks to Steve Crook, who does a sterling job running the Powell and Pressburger Pages , for jogging my memory about this in an email.
The Rear Window Award for Most Critically Overrated P&P Film
Black Narcisssus
This comes right at the top of many critics' lists of the best Archers' films, but as far as I'm concerned it's a crashing bore. It also has the misfortune to star David Farrar as the male lead, possibly the Archers' least convincing leading man – although David Niven pushes him close (see below). Set in the Himalayan foothills, much has been made of the fact that the film was shot in the studio. This is apparently not obvious to some first time viewers, who obviously don't know their Darjeeling from their West Ealing.
A bunch of oestrogen-fuelled nuns try to set up shop on a windswept hill 8,000 feet above sea level, but are thwarted by a bare-chested British man and his pipe. Powell, inadvertently no doubt, put his finger on the film's main weakness when he said: "Sometimes in a film its theme or its colour are more important than the plot."
The Manhattan Award for Most Overvalued P&P Film
A Matter of Life and Death (AKA Stairway to Heaven)
I'm with Pressburger in preferringThe Life and Death of Colonel Blimp to this later effort starring the faintly annoying David Niven and his pencil moustache. (Powell – not the best judge of his own films – had them the other way round.) AMOLAD comes well below Blimp and A Canterbury Tale in the pecking order, the latter films actually dealing far more effectively with matters of life and death; more lyrically and wistfully too.
It is instructive that aparody of the famous opening scene of AMOLAD, which is set in a burning cockpit is actually very little different from the original , proving that you can't put more corn on an already crowded cob.
The Rear Window Award for Most Critically Overrated P&P Film
Black Narcisssus
This comes right at the top of many critics' lists of the best Archers' films, but as far as I'm concerned it's a crashing bore. It also has the misfortune to star David Farrar as the male lead, possibly the Archers' least convincing leading man – although David Niven pushes him close (see below). Set in the Himalayan foothills, much has been made of the fact that the film was shot in the studio. This is apparently not obvious to some first time viewers, who obviously don't know their Darjeeling from their West Ealing.
A bunch of oestrogen-fuelled nuns try to set up shop on a windswept hill 8,000 feet above sea level, but are thwarted by a bare-chested British man and his pipe. Powell, inadvertently no doubt, put his finger on the film's main weakness when he said: "Sometimes in a film its theme or its colour are more important than the plot."
The Manhattan Award for Most Overvalued P&P Film
A Matter of Life and Death (AKA Stairway to Heaven)
I'm with Pressburger in preferring
It is instructive that a
2 comments:
Frankie Boyle, eh? Did you know he plans giving up stand-up before his next (40th) birthday? Is this a subtle way of saying you'll be leaving us too?
I fear that, like the poor, I will be with you always.
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