An article in today's Guardian by Steve Rose tells the story of the friendship between the two film directors.Though many today would name him as the greatest ever British director, when the two first met in 1975 Powell was living in obscurity and poverty. His reputation had never recovered from the furore over his 1960 film Peeping Tom and many of his best films were known only in inferior, re-edited versions.
Scorsese describes their meeting thus:
"He was very quiet and didn't quite know what to make of me," Scorsese recalls. "I had to explain to him that his work was a great source of inspiration for a whole new generation of film-makers - myself, Spielberg, Paul Schrader, Coppola, De Palma. We would talk about his films in Los Angeles often. They were a lifeblood to us, at a time when the films were not necessarily immediately available. He had no idea this was all happening."What followed was remarkable:
After Scorsese found him, Powell was taken to the US by Francis Ford Coppola and feted by his new Hollywood fans. They saw him as a kindred spirit: a fiercely independent film-maker who had fought for, and justified, the need for complete creative freedom.Michael Powell died in 1990.
Coppola installed him as senior director-in-residence at his Zoetrope studios; he took teaching posts; retrospectives were held of his work; and the great and good of Hollywood queued up to meet him. Scorsese even had a cossack shirt made in the same style as that of Anton Walbrook's character in The Red Shoes, which he wore to the opening of Powell and Pressburger's 1980 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
To that event, Scorsese brought along his editor on Raging Bull, Thelma Schoonmaker. "Marty told me I had to go and see Colonel Blimp on the big screen," Schoonmaker later tells me. She introduced herself to Powell, they hit it off, and four years later they married.
The article also confirms that Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker are working on a long-promised documentary about their appreciation of British cinema.
Not remotely surprised that you've posted this. I'm really looking forward to Scorsese's British films series.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, here's a Round Britain Quiz question: what links the films Carve her Name with Pride, Peeping Tom, 84 Charing Cross Road and The Last Temptation of Christ?
I don't know the Last Temptaion of Christ bit but (and this is from memory but I've blogged it before), the man who in real life as an SOE intelligence man possibly called Leo Marks wrote Violette Szabo's poem, "The life I have is all I have" grew up in 84 Charing Cross Road and wrote Peeping Tom.. Google his obituary anybody, it's incredible.
ReplyDeleteLeo Marks is the voice of the devil who actually does the last temptation of Christ on the cross in The Last Temptation. I've always assumed that Scorsese cast him because of Peeping Tom.
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