Michael Powell On Bbc4

[noglea]

According to the Radio Times 'The Cinema Show' features a homage to Michael Powell as one of its items. It is shown on BBC4 at 20:30 on Monday 23rd May and is repeated on Wednesday 25th May at 22:10.

[Steve Crook]

Originally posted by noglea@May 18 2005, 09:20 PM

According to the Radio Times 'The Cinema Show' features a homage to Michael Powell as one of its items. It is shown on BBC4 at 20:30 on Monday 23rd May and is repeated on Wednesday 25th May at 22:10.

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Yes, it's the start of a new cinema based magazine programme.



Channel: BBC 4

Date: Monday 23rd May 2005

Time: 20:30 to 21:00

Duration: 30 minutes.

Stuart Maconie presents the film magazine. In this edition, Thelma

Schoonmaker and Jack Cardiff pay homage to the great director Michael

Powell. Stuart talks to Danny Boyle on the release of his new film

Millions. Jilly Goolden looks at two wine themed films - Sideways and

Mondovino. Jerome Bonnell talks about his film Les Chignon D'Olga.



They called me asking where would be a good place to do an interview (at a film location) so I suggested the village green at Wickhambreux in front of "Colpeper's House". The production office is based in Scotland though so I'm not sure if they managed to get down there. We'll see.



Steve

[samkydd]

Originally posted by Steve Crook@May 19 2005, 12:42 AM

Yes, it's the start of a new cinema based magazine programme.



Channel: BBC 4

Date: Monday 23rd May 2005

Time: 20:30 to 21:00

Duration: 30 minutes.

Stuart Maconie presents the film magazine. In this edition, Thelma

Schoonmaker and Jack Cardiff pay homage to the great director Michael

Powell. Stuart talks to Danny Boyle on the release of his new film

Millions. Jilly Goolden looks at two wine themed films - Sideways and

Mondovino. Jerome Bonnell talks about his film Les Chignon D'Olga.



They called me asking where would be a good place to do an interview (at a film location) so I suggested the village green at Wickhambreux in front of "Colpeper's House". The production office is based in Scotland though so I'm not sure if they managed to get down there. We'll see.



Â* Â* Steve

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I think it's good to have such programmes because the Film one introduced by Jonathan Ross isn't really enough, and in that the focus is chiefly on commercial releases. Considering the film heritage we have in Britain you could get away with quite a few variations on a theme in programmes to cover the industry.



Radio tries to do its bit, thankfully, and I recently heard a documentary about a young English chap in the 1960s, Kevin Brownlow who went to the US to interview all the old silent stars and directors that were still around, for his book The Parade's Gone By. The recordings of the interviews were marvellous and featured such legends as Buster Keaton, Boris Karloff, plus silent film directors, many of whom had a most prolific film output during their careers.

[Steve Crook]

Originally posted by samkydd@May 19 2005, 02:09 PM

I think it's good to have such programmes because the Film one introduced by Jonathan Ross isn't really enough, and in that the focus is chiefly on commercial releases. Considering the film heritage we have in Britain you could get away with quite a few variations on a theme in programmes to cover the industry.



Radio tries to do its bit, thankfully, and I recently heard a documentary about a young English chap in the 1960s, Kevin Brownlow who went to the US to interview all the old silent stars and directors that were still around, for his book The Parade's Gone By. The recordings of the interviews were marvellous and featured such legends as Buster Keaton, Boris Karloff, plus silent film directors, many of whom had a most prolific film output during their careers.

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Talking of Radio, we're also expecting a programme on BBC Radio 4 about the end of July about Michael Powell & Martin Scorsese and the time they spent together as a mutual admiration society



As it's Powell's centenary year there are a lot of events going on in various countries. See the PaPAS site for details as they are announced.



Steve

[Wetherby Pond]

Originally posted by samkydd@May 19 2005, 02:09 PM

I think it's good to have such programmes because the Film one introduced by Jonathan Ross isn't really enough, and in that the focus is chiefly on commercial releases. Considering the film heritage we have in Britain you could get away with quite a few variations on a theme in programmes to cover the industry.



Radio tries to do its bit, thankfully, and I recently heard a documentary about a young English chap in the 1960s, Kevin Brownlow who went to the US to interview all the old silent stars and directors that were still around, for his book The Parade's Gone By. The recordings of the interviews were marvellous and featured such legends as Buster Keaton, Boris Karloff, plus silent film directors, many of whom had a most prolific film output during their careers.

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There's a rather prosaic reason for radio being better at covering this stuff than television - the cost of licensing clips can be astronomical.



This is usually the reason for apparent omissions in documentaries - I was surprised not to see Len Lye even mentioned in BBC4's otherwise excellent survey of British animation (I know he wasn't British-born, but neither were John Halas, Bob Godfrey, George Dunning or Terry Gilliam, all of whom got ample coverage), but in these situations I tend to assume that it was for financial/copyright reasons rather than ignorance on the part of the film-makers.



I also suspect that this is why Brownlow's usually outstanding TV documentaries don't get repeated anything like as often as they deserve.

[alan gowdy]

Originally posted by noglea@May 18 2005, 08:20 PM

According to the Radio Times 'The Cinema Show' features a homage to Michael Powell as one of its items. It is shown on BBC4 at 20:30 on Monday 23rd May and is repeated on Wednesday 25th May at 22:10.

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Saw the aforementioned programme last night. Nothing revelatory in it but then I suppose the subject (Powell) has been covered in depth already.

Jack Cardiff's contribution to it was welcome.

[Steve Crook]

Originally posted by alan gowdy@May 24 2005, 01:49 PM

Saw the aforementioned programme last night. Nothing revelatory in it but then I suppose the subject (Powell) has been covered in depth already.

Jack Cardiff's contribution to it was welcome.

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It's always nice to hear (& meet) Jack, he's wonderful. But he does tend to slip into "anecdote mode" because he's told the same stories so many times. The trick is to ask him about something that you know isn't covered by one of his regular anecdotes.



The programme was all right - as far as it went. But I could have done with another 10 hours or so of it [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif[/img] They had to cram it all into one piece (admitedly the longest piece) in a half-hour magazine style programme. They skimmed over the films made during the war rather quickly with a few odd clips, some music & a few posters. Then they lingered for a while on Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes and Peeping Tom.



I liked Thelma's piece telling how they met & she immediately fell in love with him.



And the other chap was Dr. Andrew Moor. He lectures at Bangor University, North Wales, where he's organising a conference on P&P in September. Andrew's also recently written Powell and Pressburger: A Cinema of Magic Spaces which is a bit heavy on the academic stuff for some tastes but is very good. He's also edited (with Prof. Ian Christie) a very good book of essays about P&P, The Cinema of Michael Powell: International Perspectives on an English Filmmaker which will be available in August (or maybe before).



Steve