Powell, Michael (Latham) (1905-1990)

English film director and producer. In collaboration with the Hungarian-born screenwriter Emeric Pressburger, he produced a succession of ambitious and richly imaginative films, including I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and The Red Shoes (1948).

Their work has gained a burgeoning reputation with subsequent generations of film-makers and critics for its striking employment of both Technicolor and black-and-white cinematography, its vivid expressionism, and its imaginative fusion of cinema with the other art forms (music, painting, ballet, opera, and poetry). Among their other films are The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), Black Narcissus (1947), and The Tales of Hoffman (1951).

Powell and Pressburger formed a company, the Archers, in 1942, and were responsible for a succession of inventive films which engaged provocatively with British cultural and ethical values. After the amicable dissolution of their partnership, Powell directed a number of films, including the voyeuristic horror story Peeping Tom (1960).

He was also the author of several books, including two volumes of autobiography: A Life in Movies (1986) and Million-Dollar Movie (1992).