Michael Powell(1905-1990)
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
The son of Thomas William Powell and Mabel (nee Corbett). Michael Powell
was always a self-confessed movie addict. He was brought up partly in
Canterbury ("The Garden of England") and partly in the south of France
(where his parents ran a hotel). Educated at Kings School, Canterbury
and Dulwich College, he worked at the National Provincial Bank from
1922-25. In 1925 he joined
Rex Ingram making
Mare Nostrum (1926). He learned his
craft by working at various jobs in the (then) thriving English studios
of Denham and Pinewood, working his way up to director on a series of
"quota quickies" (short films made to fulfill quota/tariff agreements
between Britain and America in between the wars). Very rarely for the
times, he had a true "world view" and, although in the mold of a classic
English "gentleman", he was always a citizen of the world. It was
therefore very fitting that he should team up with an émigré Hungarian
Jew, Emeric Pressburger, who understood the English better than they did themselves. Between
them, under the banner of "The Archers", they shared joint credits for
an important series of films through the 1940s and '50s. Powell went on
to make the controversial Peeping Tom (1960), a film so vilified by critics and officials alike that he didn't work in England for a very long time. He was "re-discovered" in the late 1960s and
Francis Ford Coppola and
Martin Scorsese tried to set up joint
projects with him.
In 1980 he lectured at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. He was Senior Director in Residence at Coppola's Zoetrope Studios in 1981, and in fact married Scorsese's longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker. He died of cancer in his beloved England in 1990.
In 1980 he lectured at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. He was Senior Director in Residence at Coppola's Zoetrope Studios in 1981, and in fact married Scorsese's longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker. He died of cancer in his beloved England in 1990.
