Powell & Pressburger: A Canterbury Tale
September 25, 2024
Enchanted Evenings: The Boundless Cinema of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Like modern-day Chaucer’s seekers on the Pilgrims Way to the Canterbury Cathedral, two young soldiers (Sgt. John Sweet, Dennis Price) meet a woman (Sheila Sim) in the dark, and later confront a perhaps dangerous magus-like landsman who might help enact their spiritual destinies.
On the Blog - Film Notes: A Canterbury Tale
Individual Tickets: Select showtime to purchase.
Passes: $125 | $85 SIFF Members - includes full series access
SIFF year-round passes and vouchers are not valid for this screening.
Like The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, this film was made during World War II, and portrays the British homefront, not the fields of battle. Michael Powell grew up in Kent, near the legendary Canterbury Cathedral of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and this film celebrates the British land and national values and culture that are under dire threat. Village gentleman farmer Colpeper (Eric Portman), a magus of local history and metaphysics, tries to communicate his sacred sense of place to servicemen billeted there. In addition to the Archers’ ravishing visuals and magical atmospheres made palpable, their unique tone embraces jolts of irrationality, quirkiness and Surrealism, like Canterbury’s unknown assailant who pours glue on women’s long hair in the night. A grieving Women’s Corps farm worker (Sheila Sim), a lonely U.S. soldier (Sgt. John Sweet), and a disillusioned musician (Dennis Price), like travelers on Chaucer’s Pilgrims Way, are in need of blessings. Cinematically we walk on Powell’s home ground, a loving projection of his boyhood sense of place, and we don't have to be religious to be moved by the characters’ concluding secular-spiritual convergence on Canterbury Cathedral.
—Greg Olson
- Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
- Principal Cast: Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price
- Country: United Kingdom
- Year: 1944
- Running Time: 125 min.
- Producer: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
- Screenplay: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
- Cinematographers: Erwin Hillier
- Editors: John Seabourne Sr.
- Music: Allan Gray
- Filmography: I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) The Red Shoes (1948)
- Language: English