With The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the idiosyncratic partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger hit its stride. Though they had already made four highly individual films together, Blimp was the first for their newly formed independent production company, The Archers—and also their first movie in colour. Not that monochrome could be said to cramp their imaginations—witness A Canterbury Tale or I Know Where I’m Going—but colour, and especially the heightened, unreal quality of 1940s Technicolor, gave full play to the richly stylised extravagance of their vision. If realism never counted for much in Powell-Pressburger’s films, the same went for intellectual consistency, and Blimp thrives on ambiguity to the point of blatant self-contradiction. The original Blimp, as created by the great political cartoonist David Low, stood for all that was most crassly reactionary in the British military establishment. The film’s Blimp, incarnated by Roger Livesey’s General Clive Wynne-Candy, is a lovable old walrus, maybe a touch set in his ways, but altogether a spirited survivor from a more honourable age. Livesey gives the performance of a lifetime, but wholly misses the mean, vicious side of Blimp which Olivier, Powell-Pressburger’s initial choice, might well have brought to the role. Given this central characterisation, it’s inevitable that the film’s ostensible message (most clearly enunciated by the “good German,” Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff) and its emotional drift …
Video Rating: 5 / 5
With The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the idiosyncratic partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger hit its stride. Though they had already made four highly individual films together, Blimp was the first for their newly formed independent production company, The Archers—and also their first movie in colour. Not that monochrome could be said to cramp their imaginations—witness A Canterbury Tale or I Know Where I’m Going—but colour, and especially the heightened, unreal quality of 1940s Technicolor, gave full play to the richly stylised extravagance of their vision. If realism never counted for much in Powell-Pressburger’s films, the same went for intellectual consistency, and Blimp thrives on ambiguity to the point of blatant self-contradiction. The original Blimp, as created by the great political cartoonist David Low, stood for all that was most crassly reactionary in the British military establishment. The film’s Blimp, incarnated by Roger Livesey’s General Clive Wynne-Candy, is a lovable old walrus, maybe a touch set in his ways, but altogether a spirited survivor from a more honourable age. Livesey gives the performance of a lifetime, but wholly misses the mean, vicious side of Blimp which Olivier, Powell-Pressburger’s initial choice, might well have brought to the role. Given this central characterisation, it’s inevitable that the film’s ostensible message (most clearly enunciated by the “good German,” Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff) and its emotional drift …
Video Rating: 5 / 5