The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

 A fully formed partnership between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger launches an astounding series of some of the most influential films ever made.


Cinematography by: Georges Périnal


In 1942, Powell and Pressburger, realizing their unprecedented collaboration and shared vision, formed their own production company: The Archers. For the rest of their partnership, with complete freedom, the pair would co-produce, write, and direct all their own films under The Archers with astounding results.


They seemed to disregard space and time and reached for the stars, fulfilling their wildest aspirations through technically advanced, form-pushing means, allowing them to communicate what were often profound insights into life and what it means to be human, and they did it all with a style and accessibility that landed them at the pinnacle of artistic balance, open to be appreciated by everyone.


The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, their official launching pad, catapulted Powell and Pressburger into the stratosphere, and it’s honest-to-God British AF (and I don’t mean Air Force). It traces the life of Clive Candy, a career military man, over four decades: his rise through the ranks beginning after the Boer War, and the loves and friendships he found and lost and sought and sometimes found again.


A key characteristic of Clive is his dogmatic idealism about the principles of war and fighting with a code of honor, an ideology which is existentially challenged come WWII by the Nazis and their methods of warfare. Near the end of the film, Clive (played by a shape-shifting Roger Livesey), still refusing to change his ways, is given a brutally honest speech by his best friend Theo (played by a returning, vital Anton Walbrook), a German man whom Clive had fought against up through WWI, about how warfare has irrevocably changed, and refusal to adapt could mean the end of everything. Walbrook delivers his lines with the utmost seriousness, a grave sincerity, and, filmed in 1942 and released in June ‘43, the immediacy of his words is harrowing.

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