This year was the 50th anniversary of the San Sebastián Film Festival. A regular chapter in the Festival's retrospective section has been a cycle dedicated to a classic director, which in previous years gave us the opportunity to appreciate work of such filmmakers as Robert Siodmak, James Whale, Tod Browning, Carol Reed amongst others. This year the Spanish Filmoteca organized a complete retrospective of Michael Powell so that suddenly the achievements of this British film-maker become recognized in a country in which he was previously little known. This retrospective presented by the San Sebastian Film Festival together with a translated publication of Ian Christie's book about Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger: "Arrows of Desire" recovered some brilliant titles as A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948). Among Powell's great admirers are Francis Ford Coppola (who this year was presented with the special 50th anniversary award in recognition of his impressive career), Martin Scorsese and Bertrand Tavernier. Scorsese and Tavernier wrote tirelessly about Powell's talent and they, along with Coppola, recognise his influence in their own work.
With his films Powell tried to break the rules of conventional cinema while going beyond the foreseen and established, as well as going beyond a reality in which he searched for the human spirit, without ever leaving the immediate emotion and the innocent fascination behind. The films mentioned above belong to some of the most celebrated made with Emeric Pressburger, both of them working nearly always together on the script, the direction and the production. They coincided for the first time in The Spy in Black (1939) and established a collaboration with the foundation of a company called "The Archers". Together they created the typical musical sense of Powell's films not only celebrated in the ballet sequence of The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman (1951), but also the rhythm of the sequences and the emotional value of songs such as in I Know Where I'm Going (1945), so distinct from the concepts of American musical. Powell himself said: "Images are everything in my films; words are like music for creating emotions".
In San Sebastián a press conference took place with the film historian Ian Christie, an expert of Powell and Pressburger in the English speaking world, and Jack Cardiff, the legendary cinematographer of film classics such as The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. Also present was the Catalan Llorenc Esteve who in spring this year published a book about Powell and Pressburger (Michael Powell y Emeric Pressburger, Madrid 2002, Ediciones Catedra). Through his research process he made the Filmoteca of Barcelona aware of his favourite film-maker, and shortly after the appearance of Esteve's book they showed a retrospective of Powell. This small meeting, rather than deserving the name of a conference, took place in a room of the prestigious hotel "Maria Christina" and was recorded by the Spanish television Tele 5.
Perhaps because it was the attention-grabbing 50th anniversary of the San Sebastián Film Festival that it seemed to me this retrospective did not receive the proper glory it deserved, though it was well attended by a diverse audience, not only by Powell fans and experts but also by people who have never heard about this director before. Later this year there is another attempt to increase the awareness of Michael Powell as a major director and to pay him the proper attention he deserves. All films shown in San Sebastían return to the Madrid Film Archive and are going to be shown in the next two months in the Spanish Filmoteca in another Powell retrospective.
