NEW YORK (AP) — has spent a sizeable portion of his life talking about movies he loves. He’s made documentaries about Italian cinema (“My Voyage to Italy”), Hollywood studio films (“A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies”) and individual filmmakers like Elia Kazan and But when Scorsese talks about the movies of , it means something different. It’s getting very close to something fundamental for him.
In the new documentary Scorsese recalls watching “The Red Shoes” as a child. He describes it as “one of the origins of my obsession with cinema, itself.” “The Powell-Pressberger films have had a profound effect on the sensibility that I bring to all the work I was able to do,” Scorsese says in the documentary.
“I was so bewitched by them as a child that they make a big part of my films’ subconscious.” “Made in England,” which rolls out in theaters this month, is a poignant crescendo in one of the great love affairs in movies. The films of Powell and Pressburger, the directing-screenwriting duo known as the Archers, has been an abiding polestar for Scorsese, who befriended Powell late in life.
, Scorsese’s longtime editor, married him, and since his death in 1990 has worked tirelessly to celebrate his legacy. Together, Schoonmaker and Scorsese have restored eight of the films already, including Technicolor masterworks like “The Red Shoes,” “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,” “Black Narcissus” and “A Mat.
