Kevin Macdonald (1) (1967–)

It's clear that the filmmakers did actually read Rosemary Sutcliff's book, but they cut most of the character moments that make the book a treasure and replaced them with fights and moralizing so we're left with a generic sword and sandal story. That being said, there are really only three departures that I feel are flat out wrong: not freeing Esca before going North was a mistake because it's important that it's his choice to go; cutting the Demetrius of Alexandria bit was a mistake because show more it's dumb to go on a covert mission without a cover story; and having the remnants of the Ninth Legion come to the rescue was a mistake because it's just silly. show less

With Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger made some of the most imaginative films of the 1940s: Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, etc. Powell was the personality, the self-promoter; Pressburger more reserved, his part in the collaboration more easily overlooked, especially when auteurism was at its height in film studies.

This lovely book is written by Pressburger's grandson (also an Oscar-winner). So it's not only an informative biography (and short history of show more European film), it's also suffused with deep love, written into every line.

Pressburger had an astonishing life: a Hungarian Jew, he moved to Germany in the 1920s, living as a down and out before getting a foot in the door at Ufa. The Nazis forced him out; he worked for a while in Paris before moving to London in the mid-30s. This was intended to be only a brief stay before he went on to Hollywood. But then he met Micky Powell...

Readable and engrossing. show less

Pressburger was the other half of the British filmmaking team who called themselves "The Archers". Together they made some of the most beautiful and intricate movies in the English language. Unfortunately, "just" a writer he is often eclipsed by the shadow of his director/partner Michael Powell. I eagerly awaited Powell's autobiography but threw it down in disgust when I realized that Pressburger was barely mentioned. This book is not autobiography but an even-handed, lucid, telling of the show more incredible Life and Death of this particular screenwriter. show less

When you learn about screenwriting, as I did a few years back, you learn that most Hollywood films, and many others, follow a three act structure, with critical events diverting the story at the end of each act. As I read the biography of the great screenwriter Emeric Pressburger, written by his grandson Kevin MacDonald (who is also a documentary film-maker), it was striking the way in which his life also played itself out in three acts after he had arrived in pre-war Germany. MacDonald show more emphasises this by prefacing sections of the book with Pressburger’s changing versions of his name.

Read the rest of this review here: http://aroundtheedges.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/from-imre-to-imrie/ show less