The Archers (Powell & Pressburger): S/D

Is anyone aware of any really strong essays on The Thief of Bagdad? I need some supplementary material to give to my class when I show the film at the end of October.

there's this one from Criterion

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/496-the-thief-of-bagdad-arabian-fantasies

Excited about the Tales of Hoffmann restoration:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/tales-hoffmann-exclusive-materials-making-powell-pressburger-masterpiece

Nice!

nice indeed, but still waiting for bluebeard's castle :)

Spotted this in Marylebone when I was down in London at the weekend:

http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa362/Andrew_Littlefield/P1010457_zpsd79f9259.jpg

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/17/english-heritage-blue-plaque-archers-scorsese

nice!

a few of these guys' movies are my favorite things ever

canterbury tale
small back room
matter of life and death
49th parallel (particularly the last reel)

Yeah, those are all aces. Particularly enjoyed Small Back Room.

yeah, it's a really heady mix of tones--like six movies in one! sometimes with their movies i just want to stand up and fucking clap at various points. they have everything; visual inventiveness, narrative ingenuity, juicy acting, sex, suspense, literate dialogue, political smarts...

uh forgot emotion

last time i watched matter of life and death, went to the theater alone. started crying about four seconds into the movie, took me minutes to stop. the whole first few minutes are harrowing. what a way to start a movie.

well actually i guess it was after the stuff about the universe and once we see david niven resigning himself to dying

agreed. I watched the opening on YouTube and immediately bought the DVD a few years ago. I really need to see 49th Parallel again--I went in not expecting much and became totally absorbed in it pretty quickly.

hey i wrote about The Small Back Room and never linked it.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/the-small-back-room

as a person who struggles with a lot of Great Music, Oh... Rosalinda!! and Tales of Hoffmann could never be among my favorites, tho I apprec the bursting color and visual rhythms.

as a person who struggles with a lot of Great Music

That explains why you defend Bob Dylan.

oh you

I watched "the edge of the world" on mubi recently... what a weird film! some utterly mindboggling camerawork and directorial touches but major narrative disconnect in the editing and a story that went nowhere fast
worth it for the images and the scenery tho. moving paintings.

the weirdness and tensions in that film feel fully Archers-esque to me but it does have a loveable documentary/soap opera confusion

I've liked every film I've seen except Peeping Tom (don't remember why -- for once the tonal clashes didn't work?) but am rarely tempted to rewatch. Never having seen'em in a theater hasn't helped.

eric h, i don't know who you are, but you sure are grumpy

Peeping Tom is Powell alone

Pepping Tom is great (for years it was possibly the only Powell-related thing I had seen) and really quite a diff thing altogether.

a masterpiece indeed

fuck i need to rewatch all of these. i tried getting my ex to watch black narcissus unsuccessfully for TWO YEARS

I bought BN Blu-ray for my sister and her husband two Christmases ago. And there it lies.

even more frustrating as we watch the red shoes together and he loved it

watched*

when you visit for the holidays distract them and steal it. I'd love it.

well, I'm going to demand it back for me, they aren't going to watch it til the daughter is out of the house or at least in adolescent exile.

Or in a nunnery.

Peeping Tom is on TCM in a couple of hours btw.

It doesn't have the Pressburger or production magic of the others and I used to resist the overly obvious symbolism, if that's the right way to describe it, and the fish out of water, Peter Lorre on the skids German accent, but I eventually got past the film professor arguments and found my own reasons to like it, which turned out to be mostly the same anyway.

karl bohm's accent was real if that's what yr'e referring to

Hah, yeah I know. I've seen the Fassbinder picture with the sunburn, Martha.

He's great in Fox and His Friends.

"Happy bersssday."

I've tried to watch Small Back Room twice now and got utterly confused both times about 40 minutes in. I should stop drinking.

I watched it again this weekend and loved it. It might help not to drink during the scene when the protagonist isn't drying out.

I also rewatched Peeping Tom. There is something to letting the lead show all his cards from the start; the actor's pretty obvious though.

*uring the scene when the protagonist IS drying out

That guy is so great in Small Back Room and Black Narcissus. Was he ever in anything else of note? Am I blanking?

also in their Gone to Earth

seems to have retired from the screen in the early '60s

peeping tom is great but in such a different register from the Archers classics!

Just watched A Canterbury Tale for the first time – so wonderful.

I do wonder where that was filmed, because it looked idyllic.

(The start, obviously)

Have you seen this, Koogs?

http://gu.com/p/3hzz5

I would love to see the documentary about the John Sweet/Sheila Sim reunion in 2000, but I'm not sure it's worth paying 20+ bucks for a used copy of the DVD for that. Maybe in the next Criterion half-off sale.

canterbury tale is my favorite film many days

I am on my last day (I think) of recovering from flu. "I Know Where I'm Going is playing. Uneventful, yes, but so bizarrely charming.

I have a ridiculous crush on young Roger Livesey.