:00:36
My name's Ian Christie
:00:38
and I'll be your guide
through this commentary
:00:40
on the film that
Michael Powell considered
:00:42
his first really independent
production.
:00:44
I'm joined by Thelma
Schoonmaker-Powell, Michael's widow,
:00:48
who was with him
during the years of his rediscovery
:00:51
by new generations
of film enthusiasts and film makers,
:00:54
including Martin Scorsese,
:00:56
one of Powell and Pressburger's
greatest admirers.
:01:00
Thelma has worked for over 20 years
as Scorsese's editor,
:01:03
so she'll be bringing
her practised eye to bear
:01:06
on some sequences from a film
that's now nearly 70 years old.
:01:10
We're also delighted to have
as a guest Daniel Day-Lewis,
:01:13
who'll be reading from
Michael Powell's remarkable book
:01:17
originally called
200,000 Feet On Foula,
:01:20
which was published to coincide
with the film's release in 1938.
:01:27
Powell had the idea for the film
as far back as 1930,
:01:30
when he read about
the final evacuation
:01:33
of the Hebridean island of St Kilda,
:01:34
off the northwest of Scotland.
:01:37
Now, on a different island,
:01:40
Foula, up in the Shetlands,
:01:41
he was about to bring it to life.
:01:45
Michael Powell played
the visiting yachtsman himself,
:01:48
along with his future wife,
Frankie Reidy.
:01:51
And their yacht was borrowed
:01:53
from the actual owner of the island,
Alastair Holborn.
:01:57
He decided that they should
play these parts
:01:59
to keep the budget down and not
to have any more superfluous people