Michael Latham Powell (30 September 1905 – 19 February 1990) was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with

Emeric Pressburger Emeric Pressburger (born Imre József Pressburger; 5 December 19025 February 1988) was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in a collaborat ...

. Through their production company

The Archers ''The Archers'' is a British radio soap opera currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word Radio broadcasting, channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now pr ...

, they together wrote, produced and directed a series of classic British films, notably ''

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp ''The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'' is a 1943 British romantic-war film written, produced and directed by the British film-making team of Powell and Pressburger, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr and ...

'' (1943), '' A Canterbury Tale'' (1944), '' I Know Where I'm Going!'' (1945), ''A Matter of Life and Death'' (1946, ''Stairway to Heaven'' in the U.S.), '' Black Narcissus'' (1947), ''The Red Shoes'' (1948) and ''

The Tales of Hoffmann ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died in ...

'' (1951). His controversial ''

Peeping Tom Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries. She is mainly remembere ...

'' (1960), which was so vilified on first release that it seriously damaged his career, is now considered a classic, and possibly the earliest " slasher movie". Many renowned filmmakers, such as

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola ( ; born April 7, 1939) is an American filmmaker. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood and one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. List of awards and nominations received by Francis Ford Coppo ...

, George A. Romero,

Brian De Palma Brian Russell De Palma (; born September 11, 1940) is an Americans, American film director and screenwriter. With a career spanning over 50 years, he is best known for work in the suspense, Crime film, crime, and psychological thriller genres. ...

Bertrand Tavernier Bertrand Tavernier (; 25 April 1941 – 25 March 2021) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. Life and career Tavernier was born in Lyon, France, the son of Geneviève (née Dumond) and René Tavernier, a publicist and writer, ...

and

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November17, 1942) is an American filmmaker. One of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Martin Scorsese, many accolades, including an Academ ...

have cited Powell as an influence. In 1981, Powell and Pressburger received the

BAFTA Fellowship The BAFTA Fellowship, or the Academy Fellowship, is a lifetime achievement award presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in recognition of "outstanding achievement in the art forms of the moving image". The award is t ...

, the highest honour the

British Academy of Film and Television Arts The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

can bestow upon a filmmaker. Five of their films were featured on the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

's list of 100 Greatest British films.

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

. 23 September 1999
''Entertainment: Best 100 British films – full list.''
Accessed 30 January 2014. In 2024, their work was explored in the documentary ''Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger'', narrated by Scorsese. David Thomson writes "There is not a British director with as many worthwhile films to his credit as Michael Powell."

Early life

Powell was the second son and youngest child of Thomas William Powell, a hop farmer, and Mabel, daughter of Frederick Corbett, of Worcester, England. Powell was born in Bekesbourne,

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, and educated at

The King's School, Canterbury The King's School is a public school in Canterbury, Kent, England. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group. It is Britain's oldest public school and is considered to be the oldest continuously op ...

and then at

Dulwich College Dulwich College is a 2-18 private, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...

. He started work at the

National Provincial Bank National Provincial Bank was a retail bank which operated in England and Wales. It was created in 1833 as National Provincial Bank of England, and expanded largely by taking over a number of other banks. Following the transformative acquisitio ...

in 1922 but quickly realised he was not cut out to be a banker.

Film career

Powell entered the film industry in 1925 through working with director Rex Ingram at the Victorine Studios in

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one milliongofer": sweeping the floor, making coffee, fetching and carrying. Soon he progressed to other work such as stills photography, writing titles (for the silent films) and many other jobs including a few acting roles, usually as comic characters. Powell made his film début as a "comic English tourist" in '' The Magician'' (1926). Returning to England in 1928, Powell worked at a diverse series of jobs for various filmmakers including as a stills photographer on

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

's silent film ''

Champagne Champagne (; ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, which demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, spe ...

'' (1928). He also signed on in a similar role on Hitchcock's first "

talkie A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed befo ...

", ''

Blackmail Blackmail is a criminal act of coercion using a threat. As a criminal offense, blackmail is defined in various ways in common law jurisdictions. In the United States, blackmail is generally defined as a crime of information, involving a thr ...

'' (1929). In his autobiography, Powell claims he suggested the ending in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

which was the first of Hitchcock's "monumental" climaxes to his films.Powell 1986 Powell and Hitchcock remained friends for the remainder of Hitchcock's life. After scriptwriting on two productions, Powell entered into a partnership with American producer Jerry Jackson in 1931 to make " quota quickies", hour-long films needed to satisfy a legal requirement that British cinemas screen a certain quota of British films. During this period, he developed his directing skills, sometimes making up to seven films a year.Duguid, Mark
"Early Michael Powell."
''Screenonline''. Retrieved: 28 September 2009. Although he had taken on some directing responsibilities in other films, Powell had his first screen credit as a director on '' Two Crowded Hours'' (1931). This thriller was considered a modest success at the box office despite its limited budget. From 1931 to 1936, Powell was the director of 23 films, including the critically received ''

Red Ensign The Red Ensign or Red Duster is the civil ensign of the United Kingdom. It is one of the British ensigns, and it is used either plain or defacement (flag), defaced with either a Glossary of vexillology#Flag elements, badge or a Glossary of v ...

'' (1934) and '' The Phantom Light'' (1935). In 1937 Powell completed his first truly personal project, '' The Edge of the World''. Powell gathered together a cast and crew who were willing to take part in an expedition to what was then a very isolated part of the UK. They had to stay there for quite a few months and finished up with a film which not only told the story he wanted but also captured the raw natural beauty of the location. By 1939, Powell had been hired as a contract director by

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; ; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)

on the strength of ''The Edge of the World''. Korda set him to work on some projects such as ''Burmese Silver'' that were subsequently cancelled. Nonetheless, Powell was brought in to save a film that was being made as a vehicle for two of Korda's star players, Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson. The film was '' The Spy in Black'', during pre-production of which Powell first met

in 1939.

Meeting Emeric Pressburger

The original script of ''The Spy in Black'' followed the book quite closely, but was too verbose and did not have a good role for either Veidt or Hobson. Korda called a meeting where he introduced a diminutive man, saying, "Well now, I have asked Emeric to read the script, and he has things to say to us." Powell then went on to record (in ''A Life in Movies'') how:

Emeric produced a very small piece of rolled-up paper, and addressed the meeting. I listened spellbound. Since talkies took over the movies, I had worked with some good writers, but I had never met anything like this. In the silent days, the top mericanscreenwriters were technicians rather than dramatists ... the European cinema remained highly literate and each country, conscious of its separate culture and literature, strove to outdo the other. All this was changed by the talkies. America, with its enormous wealth and enthusiasm and its technical resources, waved the big stick. ... The European film no longer existed. ... Only the great German film business was prepared to fight the American monopoly, and Dr. Goebbels soon put a stop to that in 1933. But the day that Emeric walked out of his flat, leaving the key in the door to save the storm-troopers the trouble of breaking it down, was the worst day's work that the clever doctor ever did for his country's reputation, as he was soon to find out. As I said, I listened spellbound to this small Hungarian wizard, as Emeric unfolded his notes, until they were at least six inches long. He had stood Storer Clouston's plot on its head and completely restructured the film.

They both soon recognised that although they were total opposites in background and personality, they had a common attitude to film-making and that they could work very well together. After making two more films together, ''

Contraband Contraband (from Medieval French ''contrebande'' "smuggling") is any item that, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold. It comprises goods that by their nature are considered too dangerous or offensive in the eyes of the leg ...

'' (1940) and '' 49th Parallel'' (1941), with separate credits, the pair decided to form a partnership and to sign their films jointly as "Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger."

The Archers

Working together as co-producers, writers and directors in a partnership they dubbed "

", they made 19 feature films, many of which received critical and commercial success. Their best films are still regarded as classics of 20th-century British cinema. The BFI 100 list of "the favourite British films of the 20th century" contains five of Powell's films, four with Pressburger. Thomson writes that Powell and Pressburger "struggle with great, clashing virtues—with marvelous visual imagination and uneasy, intellectual substance. ''I Know Where I'm Going'' is a genuinely superstitious picture; ''49th Parallel'' is a strange war odyssey, with escaping Germans wandering across Canada—naïve, very violent, at times unwittingly comic, but possessed by a primitive feeling for endangered civilization; an interesting sequel is '' One of Our Aircraft is Missing''—English fliers getting out of Holland; ''A Matter of Life and Death'' is pretentious in its way, yet very funny and absolutely secure in its dainty stepping from one world to another ... ''The Thief of Bagdad'' is delightful, ''

'' a beautiful salute to Englishness ... '' Black Narcissus'' is that rare thing, an erotic English film about the fantasies of nuns." The partnership ended after ''Ill Met By Moonlight''. Although admirers would argue that Powell ought to rank alongside fellow British directors

and

David Lean Sir David Lean (25 March 190816 April 1991) was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor, widely considered one of the most important figures of Cinema of the United Kingdom, British cinema. He directed the large-scale epi ...

, his career suffered a severe reversal after the release of the controversial psychological

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

'', made in 1960 as a solo effort. The film was excoriated by mainstream British critics, who were offended by its sexual and violent images; Powell was ostracized by the film industry and found it almost impossible to work thereafter. The film did, however, meet with the rapturous approval of the young critics of '' Positif'' and '' Midi Minuit Fantastique'' in France, and those of ''Motion'' in England, and in 1965 he was subject of a major positive revaluation by Raymond Durgnat in the auteurist magazine ''Movie'', later included in Durgnat's influential book ''A Mirror for England''.

Zoetrope Studios

In 1982,

invited Powell to be 'senior director in residence' at his Zoetrope Studios. There, Powell "pottered around", including starting to write his autobiography. Powell's films came to have a cult reputation, broadened during the 1970s and early 1980s by a series of retrospectives and rediscoveries, as well as further articles and books. By the time of his death, he and Pressburger were recognised as one of the foremost film partnerships of all time – and cited as a key influence by many noted filmmakers such as

and

Personal life

In 1927 Powell married Gloria Mary Rouger, an American dancer; they were married in France and stayed together for only three weeks. During the 1940s, Powell had love affairs with actresses

Deborah Kerr Deborah Jane Trimmer CBE (30 September 192116 October 2007), known professionally as Deborah Kerr (), was a Scottish actress. She was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first person from Scotland to be no ...

and Kathleen Byron. From 1 July 1943 until her death on 5 July 1983, Powell was married to Frances "Frankie" May Reidy, the daughter of medical practitioner Jerome Reidy; they had two sons: Kevin Michael Powell (b. 1945) and Columba Jerome Reidy Powell (b. 1951). He also lived with actress Pamela Brown for many years until her death from cancer in 1975. Powell was introduced to

film editor Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film stock, film which increasingly involves the use Digital cinema, of digital ...

Thelma Schoonmaker by

and London-based film producer Frixos Constantine. The couple were married from 19 May 1984 until his own death from cancer on 19 February 1990 at his home in Avening,

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

. The couple had no children.Chris Tilly
"Thelma Schoonmaker Q&A"
, TimeOut.com, 26 September 2005. His niece was the Australian actress Cornelia Frances, who appeared in bit parts in her uncle's early films.

Preservation

The Academy Film Archive has preserved ''A Matter of Life and Death'' and ''The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'' by Michael Powell and

Awards, nominations and honours

* 1943:

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...

nominated for '' 49th Parallel'' as Best Picture * 1943:

nominated for '' One of Our Aircraft Is Missing'' for Best Writing, Original Screenplay. Shared with

* 1948: Won Danish Bodil Award for '' A Matter of Life and Death'' as Best European Film. Shared with

* 1948 Nominated for '' The Red Shoes'' for

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

Golden Lion. Shared with

* 1949:

nominated for '' The Red Shoes'' as Best Picture. Shared with

* 1951:

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

nominated for ''

'' for Grand Prize of the Festival. Shared with

* 1951: Won Silver Bear from 1st Berlin International Film Festival for ''

'' as Best Musical. Shared with

"1st Berlin International Film Festival: Prize Winners."
''berlinale.de''. Retrieved: 21 December 2009. * 1957:

BAFTA Award The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs or BAFTA Awards, is an annual film award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to f ...

nominated for '' The Battle of the River Plate'' as Best British Screenplay. Shared with

. * 1959:

won the Technical Grand Prize for '' Luna de Miel''. Nominated for Golden Palm. * 1978: Awarded Hon DLitt,

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...

* 1978: Awarded Hon DLitt,

University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...

* 1981: Made fellow of

BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

* 1982: Awarded Career Gold Lion from the

* 1983: Made fellow of the

(BFI) * 1987: Awarded Hon Doctorate,

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

* 1987: Awarded Akira Kurosawa Award from

San Francisco International Film Festival The San Francisco International Film Festival (abbreviated as SFIFF), organized by SFFILM, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in international film and vid ...

* 2014: An

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

Blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

to commemorate Michael Powell and

was unveiled on 17 February 2014 by

and Thelma Schoonmaker at Dorset House, Gloucester Place, London NW1 5AG where The Archers had their offices from 1942 to 1947.

Legacy

David Thomson writes:

I was fortunate enough to know Michael Powell in the last decade of his life. he was in America a good deal at that time: teaching for a term at Dartmouth; as director emeritus with Coppola's
American Zoetrope American Zoetrope (also known as Omni Zoetrope from 1977 to 1980 and Zoetrope Studios from 1980 until 1991) is a privately run American film production company, centered in San Francisco, California and founded by Francis Ford Coppola and Georg ...
, as treasured
Merlin The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) is an interferometer array of radio telescopes spread across England. The array is run from Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire by the University of Manchester on behalf of UK Re ...
in the court of Scorsese; and in his marriage to the editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. I had the chance to watch many of his films with him, discussing them and learning the passion of his vision. It is all the more agreeable now to see Michael's influence spreading: the ardent antirealist has inspired so many people; the man in love with color, gesture, and cinema helped to educate viewers as well as filmmakers—not lest in the two volumes of his autobiography, ''A Life in Movies'' ... The great Powell and Pressburger films do not go stale; they never relinquish their wicked fun or that jaunty air of being poised on the brink. To put an arrow in our eye—to leave a nurturing wound—that was Michael's eternal thrill. I do not invoke the figure of Merlin lightly: Powell was English but Celtic, sublime yet devious, magical in the absolute certainty that imagination rules.

* Cited as a major influence on many film-makers such as

, George A. Romero and

.Crook, Steve
"Famous Fans of Powell & Pressburger."
''Powell-pressburger.org''. Retrieved: 28 September 2009. Said Thelma Schoonmaker (Scorsese's long-time film editor and Powell's third wife) of Scorsese, "Anyone he meets, or the actors he works with, he immediately starts bombarding with Powell and Pressburger movies." Scorsese and Schoonmaker are working on restoring Powell's films, beginning with '' The Red Shoes'' and ''

''. * The Michael Powell Award for the Best New British Feature was instigated in 1993 at the

Edinburgh International Film Festival The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), established in 1947, is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films (all titles are World, international, European or UK Premieres), in al ...

(awarded 1993–2010 and 2012–2021). It was sponsored by the

UK Film Council The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a private company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and ...

and was "named in homage to one of Britain's most original filmmakers". * Pinewood Studios, where Powell made many of his most notable films, has named a mixing theatre in the

post-production Post-production, also known simply as post, is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording indivi ...

department after him: The Powell Theatre. A giant picture of the director covers the door to the theatre, where many well-known films are mixed. * The Film, Radio and Television Department of

Canterbury Christ Church University Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) is a Public university, public research university located in Canterbury, Kent, England. Founded as a Church of England college for teacher training in 1962, it was granted university status in 2005. ...

has its main building named after him: The Powell Building. * He has been played on screen by Alastair Thomson Mills in the award-winning short film (2022) which explores Moira Shearer's life changing decision to appear in ''The Red Shoes''. * A celebration entitled 'Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger' was held by the

in 2023, including a UK-wide programme of films and an exhibit of production and promotion materials from ''The Red Shoes.'' * Powell's work was explored in the documentary ''Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger'' (2024), with narration by

Filmography

Theatre

* 1944: Directed

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

's ''The Fifth Column'' at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow * 1944: Directed Jan de Hartog's ''Skipper Next To God'' at the Theatre Royal, Windsor * 1951: Directed James Forsyth's ''Heloise'' at the Golders Green Hippodrome, London * 1952: Directed Raymond Massey's '' Hanging Judge'' at the New Theatre, London

Bibliography

* 1938: ''200,000 Feet on Foula''. London: Faber & Faber. (The story of the making of '' The Edge of the World''. Published as ''200,000 Feet – The Edge of the World'' in the United States and ''Edge of the World'' in 1990. * 1956: ''Graf Spee''. London: Hodder & Stoughton. (This book contains much information that Powell and Pressburger could not include in their film '' The Battle of the River Plate''.) Also published in the United States as ''Death in the South Atlantic: The Last Voyage of the Graf Spee'' and reprinted as ''The Last Voyage of the Graf Spee'' for the 1976 second edition. * 1975: ''A Waiting Game''. London: Joseph. . * 1978: (with

) ''The Red Shoes''. London: Avon Books. . (novelization of the film of the same name) * 1986: ''A Life in Movies: An Autobiography''. London: Heinemann. . * 1992: ''Million Dollar Movie'' London: Heinemann. . * 1994: ''

''. (with

and Ian Christie) London: Faber & Faber. . (This book includes the screenplay of the 1943 film of the same name.) Many of these titles were also published in other countries or republished. The list above deals with initial publications except where the name was changed in a subsequent edition or printing.

References

;Notes ;Citations ;Bibliography * Christie, Ian. ''Arrows of Desire: The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger''. London: Waterstone, 1994. ; First edition 1985. . * Christie, Ian. ''Powell, Pressburger and Others''. London: British Film Institute, 1978. . * Christie, Ian and Andrew Moor, eds. ''The Cinema of Michael Powell: International Perspectives on an English Filmmaker''. London: BFI, 2005. . * Darakhvelidze, George. Vinnitsa, Ukraine: Globe Press, 2008–2019. . * Esteve, Llorenç. ''Michael Powell y Emeric Pressburger'' (in Spanish). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Catedra, 2002. . * Howard, James. ''Michael Powell''. London: BT Batsford Ltd, 1996. . * Lazar, David, ed. ''Michael Powell: Interviews''. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2003. . * Macdonald, Kevin. ''Emeric Pressburger: The Life and Death of a Screenwriter''. London: Faber & Faber, 1994. * Moor, Andrew. ''Powell and Pressburger: A Cinema of Magic Spaces''. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. . * Powell, Michael. ''A Life in Movies'' (autobiography). London: Heinemann, 1993. ; First edition 1986. . * Powell, Michael. ''Million Dollar Movie'' (The second volume of his autobiography). London: Heinemann, 1992. , later edition, 2000. (pbk). * Thiéry, Natacha. ''Photogénie du désir: Michael Powell et Emeric Pressburger 1945–1950 (in French)''. Rennes, France: Presse Universitaires de Rennes, 2009. . * Howard, James. I Live Cinema' : The Life and Films of Michael Powell''. UK: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, June 2013.