Arena — Season 1, Episode 169: A Pretty British Affair
Documentary • 90 min • 3 seasons, 689 episodes • ★ 7.2/10
Episode synopsis
Only a short while ago Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were forgotten names in cinema history. Now, some of the greatest film-makers in the world are their ardent fans. Arena tells the story of two men who confronted the complacency and parochialism of the British cinema with a series of brilliant, subversive and often mystifying films. The Red Shoes, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus , A Matter of Life and Death-film classics which only now have gained the recognition they deserve. Twenty-five years after their last film together, Powell and Pressburger have received the accolade of the fellowship of the British film academy. They tell their story to Gavin Millar with contributions from Francis Ford Coppola in Los Angeles, and Martin Scorsese on location in New York.
About Arena
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.