Powell and Pressburger
The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell (1905–1990) and Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988)—together often known as The Archers, the name of their production company—made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s. —24 films between 1939 and 1972—were mainly derived from original stories by Pressburger with the script written by both Pressburger and Powell. Powell did most of the directing while Pressburger did most of the work of the producer and also assisted with the editing, especially the way the music was used. Unusually, the pair shared a writer-director-producer credit for  most of their films. The best-known of these are "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (1943), "A Canterbury Tale" (1944), "I Know Where I'm Going!" (1945), "A Matter of Life and Death" (1946), "Black Narcissus" (1947), "The Red Shoes" (1948), and "The Tales of Hoffmann" (1951). In 1981 Powell and Pressburger were recognised for their contributions to British cinema with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the most prestigious award given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. History. Early films. Powell was already an experienced director, having worked his way up from making silent films  to the First World War drama "The Spy in Black" (1939), his first film for Hungarian émigré producer Alexander Korda. Pressburger, who had come from Hungary in 1935, already worked for Korda, and was asked to do some rewrites for the film. This collaboration was the first of 19, most over the next 18 years. After Powell had made two further films for Korda, he reunited with Pressburger in 1940 for "Contraband", the first in a run of Powell and Pressburger films set during the Second World War. The second was "49th Parallel" (1941), which won Pressburger an Academy Award  for Best Story. Both are Hitchcock-like thrillers made as anti-Nazi propaganda. Birth of The Archers. The pair adopted a joint writer-producer-director credit for their next film, "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" (1942) and made reference to "The Archers" in the credits. In 1943 they incorporated their own production company, Archers Film Productions, and adopted a distinctive archery target logo which began each film. The joint credit "Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger" indicates their joint responsibility for their own work and that they weren't beholden to any studio or other  producers. In a letter to Wendy Hiller in 1942, asking her to appear in "Colonel Blimp", Pressburger explicitly set out 'The Archers' Manifesto'. Its five points express the pair's intentions: They began to form a group of regular cast and crew members who worked with them on many films over the next 12 years. Hardly any of these people were ever under contract to The Archers—they were hired film by film—but Powell and Pressburger soon learnt whom they worked well with and who enjoyed working with them. When Raymond Massey was offered the part of the Prosecuting  Attorney in "A Matter of Life and Death" his cabled reply was "For The Archers anytime, this world or the next." Powell and Pressburger also co-produced a few films by other directors under The Archers' banner: "The Silver Fleet" (1943), written and directed by Vernon Sewell and Gordon Wellesley, based on a story by Pressburger, and "The End of the River" (1947), directed by Derek N. Twist, to which both Powell and Pressburger contributed uncredited writing. Both Sewell and Twist had worked with Powell & Pressburger previously on other films and were being given their first chance as directors. Over  the remainder of the war and afterwards, they released a series of acclaimed films: The collaboration. Generally, Pressburger created the original story (for all their films from 1940–1946 and "The Red Shoes") and wrote the first draft of the script. They then passed the script back and forth a few times—they could never work on it together in the same room. For the dialogue, Pressburger knew what he wanted the characters to say but Powell would often supply some of the actual words. They both acted as producers, perhaps Pressburger slightly more than Powell, since he could soothe the  feathers ruffled by Powell's forthright manner. They became their own producers mainly to stop anyone else from interfering, since they had a considerable degree of freedom, especially under Rank, to make just about any film they wanted. The direction was nearly all done by Powell, but even so The Archers generally worked as a team, with the cast and crew often making suggestions. Pressburger was always on hand, usually on the studio floor, to make sure that these late changes fit seamlessly into the story. Once the filming was finished, Powell usually went off for a walk in the  hills of Scotland to clear his head, but Pressburger was often closely involved in the editing, especially in the way the music was used. Pressburger was a musician himself and had played the violin in an orchestra in Hungary. When the film was finally ready and Powell was back from the Highlands, he was usually "the front man" in any promotional work, such as interviews for the trade papers or fan magazines. Because collaborative efforts such as Powell and Pressburger's were, and continue to be, unusual in the film industry, and because of the influence of the auteur theory , which elevates the director as a film's primary creator, Pressburger has sometimes been dismissed as "Michael Powell's scriptwriter", but Powell himself was the first to say, in many interviews, that he couldn't have done most of what he did without Pressburger. End of the partnership. In the early 1950s Powell and Pressburger began to produce fewer films, with notably less success. The Archers' productions officially came to an end in 1957, and the pair separated to pursue their individual careers. The separation was amicable, and they remained devoted friends for the rest of their lives. Later collaboration . The pair reunited for two films: Regular cast and crew. Powell and Pressburger re-used actors and crew members in a number of films. Actors who were part of The Archers' "stock company" include: Notable crew members include: Critical opinions. British film critics gave the films of Powell and Pressburger a mixed reaction at the time, acknowledging their creativity, but sometimes questioning their motivations and taste. For better or worse, The Archers were always out of step with mainstream British cinema. From the 1970s onwards, British critical opinion began to revise this lukewarm assessment, with their first BFI retrospective in  1970 and another in 1978. They are now seen as playing a key part in the history of British film, and have become influential and iconic for many film-makers of later generations, such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and George A. Romero, among others. Awards, nominations and honours. Four of their films are among the Top 50 British films of the 20th century according to the British Film Institute, with "The Red Shoes" placing in the top 10. Powell and Pressburger, the people and their films have been the subject of many documentaries and books as well as  doctoral research. An English Heritage blue plaque to commemorate Powell and Pressburger was unveiled on 17 February 2014 by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker at Dorset House, Gloucester Place, London, where The Archers had their offices from 1942–47.