Michael Powell
迈克尔·鲍威尔
British director, 1905–1990. From 1939 he worked with the writer Emeric Pressburger, the two taking joint credit as writers, producers and directors under the name The Archers, on films including The Red Shoes and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. His career contracted sharply after the hostile reception of Peeping Tom in 1960.
Career
Powell entered the business in French studios in the 1920s and made a great many low-budget films in Britain in the 1930s. He began working with the Hungarian screenwriter Emeric Pressburger in 1939, and from 1943 the two signed as The Archers under a single shared credit reading written, produced and directed by, an arrangement with almost no precedent in the industry.
Their films together include A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes; the partnership ended in 1957. Powell directed Peeping Tom alone in 1960, and the reaction of the British press was severe enough that he found little work at home afterwards. From the late 1970s Scorsese and other American directors pressed for his films to be reissued. He married the editor Thelma Schoonmaker in 1984 and died in 1990.
