1:08:02
(Schoonmaker-Powell)
These days, when viewers are used to
1:08:07
computer-generated images
of astonishing locations
1:08:11
and beings interacting
with those locations,
1:08:15
in a way you could never
actually shoot,
1:08:18
it's hard to remember how difficult
every shot taken on this island was.
1:08:23
Here you see
over and over and over again
1:08:26
the camera placed
in the most difficult places.
1:08:30
And if you weren't a director
with such determination
1:08:34
and, uh, passion,
1:08:36
you might have tried to shoot things
a different way.
1:08:50
One reason this film meant
so much to Michael Powell
1:08:52
is because it was a gamble he took
1:08:55
on doing what he really had
always wanted to be in films for,
1:09:00
which is to make a film
that came from his heart:
1:09:03
What we would call
an "art film" today!
1:09:06
I don't think
he would like that term.
1:09:09
He had been trapped for so long,
1:09:11
making quota quickies in the British
film industry for seven long years,
1:09:16
films that he really
did not care for,
1:09:18
because they were remakes
of American films, some of them.
1:09:21
Some have very interesting things
in them, he cut his teeth on them,
1:09:26
but he always was reserved
in his judgement about them.
1:09:30
I think that was
because he didn't feel
1:09:33
that they were ideas
that he had originated,
1:09:36
subjects that were
close to his heart.
1:09:38
And that is why this film
was his great breakthrough.
1:09:42
An enormous gamble,
and it paid off,
1:09:45
because Alexander Korda saw the film
1:09:49
and, based on the remarkable nature
of the filming in extreme conditions,
1:09:53
hired Michael Powell
and kept him from going to America.