Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s beloved classic A Canterbury Tale is a profoundly personal journey to Powell’s bucolic birthplace of Kent, England. Set amidst the tumult of the Second World War yet with a rhythm as delicate as a lullaby, the film follows three modern-day incarnations of Chaucer’s pilgrims—a melancholy “landgirl,” a plainspoken American GI, and a resourceful British sergeant—who are waylaid in the English countryside and forced to solve a bizarre village crime en route to the mythical town. Building to a majestic climax that ranks as one of the filmmaking duo’s finest achievements, the dazzling A Canterbury Tale has acquired a following passionate enough to qualify as a pilgrimage all its own.One of the most beloved of all British films, A Canterbury Tale marks yet another occasion to celebrate the Criterion Collection’s growing DVD legacy of Powell and Pressburger classics. Originally conceived as good-natured propaganda to support the British-American alliance of World War II, the film became something truly special in the hands of the Archers (a.k.a. writer/director/producers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger). Taking its literary cues from Chaucer’s titular classic, it begins with a prologue that harkens back to Chaucer’s time before match-cutting to present-day August of 1943, with the night-time arrival of U.S. Army Sgt. Bob Johnson (played with folksy charm by John Sweet, an actual American GI) on the shadowy platform of Canterbury station in the magically rural county of Kent (where Powell was born and raised). He is soon joined by two fellow train passengers: Alison Smith (Sheila Sim), a brashly independent recruit in the British Woman’s Land Army; and Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price), a sergeant in the royal Army, and before long they’re tracking clues to find “the glue man,” a mysterious figure who’s been pouring “the sticky stuff” on unsuspecting women as the midnight hour approaches. Their investigation leads to Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman), a village squire whose local slide-shows celebrate life in an idyllic rural England threatened by wartime change. As Graham Fuller writes in an observant mini-essay that accompanies this DVD, is this a whodunit? Historical documentary? War film? Rustic comedy? It’s all these and so much more: As photographed in glorious black and white by Erwin Hiller (faithfully preserved by one of Criterion’s finest high-definition digital transfers), A Canterbury Tale has an elusive, magical quality that encompasses its trio of Canterbury “pilgrims” and translates into a an elusive, spiritually uplifting sense of elation that has made it an all-time favorite among film lovers around the world. –Jeff Shannon
On the DVDs
In addition to one of the most crisply detailed black-and-white transfers you’re ever likely to see, disc 1 of A Canterbury Tale includes a feature-length commentary by film historian Ian Christie, author of the now out-of-print Arrows of Desire (the definitive study of Powell & Pressburger films) and a foremost authority on British films in general. Disc 2 is loaded with Canterbury extras, including a pleasant reminiscence by actress Sheila Sim; a documentary about John Sweet (who is seen visiting Canterbury in 2000, for the first time since filming A Canterbury Tale in 1943); and a charming new documentary that follows contemporary Canterbury “pilgrims” as they revisit locations used in the film. There’s also “Listen to Britain,” a seven-minute video-installation piece inspired by A Canterbury Tale by artist Victor Burgin (and programmed to loop from start to finish and back again, as it did in museums); and the original “Listen to Britain,” by Humphrey Jennings–a classic wartime documentary from the classic era of British non-fiction film that celebrates the sights, and especially the sounds, of rural England in the early 1940s. All in all, these are excellent features that place A Canterbury Tale in evocative historical context. –Jeff Shannon
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December 20, 2010
#1
A luminous, magical masterpiece from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger,
In 1980, Emeric Pressburger said, “A script can only create nests in which magic may settle.” With A Canterbury Tale, he and his partner, Michael Powell, created one of the most magical, luminous and eccentric movies ever made. The film is far removed from the obvious patriotic product they were asked to produce and yet it is one of the most effective evocations of why Britain and America were fighting a common enemy.
The plot is so slight and off-hand it can’t be taken too seriously. It’s just a device to have three modern pilgrims stay awhile in the English village of Chillingbourne on Chaucer’s pilgrims road to Canterbury. The three are Alison Smith (Sheila Sim), a land girl from London, come to work on a farm and who has been notified her fiance has been killed in action; British sergeant Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price), a trained organist who played organs in cinema houses and is joining his unit on the outskirts of the village; and U. S. sergeant Bob Johnson (real life Sergeant John Sweet, recruited by Powell to play this part), on leave for a few days who got off the train at the wrong station and who hasn’t heard from his wife for months. Someone in the village is pouring glue on the hair of village girls who have been dating soldiers. As the three leave the train station during blackout, Alison has glue poured on her hair. The three make their way to the magistrate, Thomas Colpepper (Eric Portman), who seems cold and uninterested in Alison’s plight. The three determine to find out by themselves who the mysterious “glueman” really is.
Powell and Pressburger use this slight device to evoke a deep feeling of the continuity of life, the sense that history is just as much a part of what is now as what has been. Michael Powell’s lean kind of humor is used to explore the life of the village and the interaction of the American sergeant with village people. The point of the movie the government wanted was to demonstrate that Britain and the U.S. shared the same values in the fight against Germany. At the time the movie was made, England was filling up with American G.I.s as the months leading to the 1944 invasion of Normandy sped by and there was much tension. Powell and Pressburger deal with this issue in a variety of subtle ways, most affectingly when Sergeant Johnson finds himself in a conversation with an aging carpenter. They find they surprisingly have much in common. They both know wood and care for craftsmanship. The old man, suspicious at first of this American, winds up inviting him to dinner.
But the movie is far more about values. That Colpepper is the glueman is obvious early in the movie (this is no spoiler), yet why does he do it? He’s no captive of the past. He speaks, however, for the continuance of values and history, that they are a part of us. Values and history give us strength and give worth to our lives and our work today. He tries to explain this one afternoon to Alison. “There is more than one way of getting close to your ancestors,” he tells her. “Follow the Old Road and as you do, think of them; they climbed Chillingbourne Hill just as you did. They sweated and paused for breath just as you did today. And when you see the bluebells in the spring and the wild thyme, and the broom and the heather, you’re seeing what their eyes saw. You ford the same rivers, the same birds singing. And when you lie flat on your back and rest, and watch the clouds sailing as I often do, you’re so close to those other people, that you can hear the thrumming of the hoofs of their horses, and the sound of the wheels on the road, and their laughter, and talk, and the music of the instruments they carried. And they turned the bend in the road, where they too saw the towers of Canterbury. I feel I have only to turn my head to see them on the road behind me.”
In their own way, just as with Chaucer’s pilgrims seeking blessings and miracles, Alison, Bob and Peter are pilgrims, too. On their way to Canterbury at last, Peter plans to give the evidence they discovered about the glueman to the police. Alison will find the caravan she and her fiance had stayed in. Bob will meet a friend and see the cathedral. They will find unexpected blessings which are as emotional for us as they are to the three. Even Colpepper finds a blessing. The movie’s commentator, British film historian Ian Christie, says, “The characters are searching, but they don’t know for what. The landscapes they move through are rich in associations but they are often ignorant of these, and so their progress is full of uncertainty, which we are encouraged to share.” Powell and Pressburger managed to create, from what was asked to be a simple propaganda movie, a film which has turned out to be an eccentric masterpiece. If in doubt, just watch the opening when Chaucer’s pilgrims are on their way to Canterbury and a hunting hawk is released. It soars into the sky, up and up, turning and twisting, and…
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|December 20, 2010
#2
A gem of a movie,
A strange, numinous little gem of a movie, shot in and around a luftwaffe-devastated Canterbury in the run-up to D Day, 1945. Renowned director Michael Powell returns to his beloved home City to update the Canterbury Tales – 3 modern-day “pilgrims” – a Land Girl, US GI & British soldier, brought together by their hunt for the mysterious “glue man” who pours glue on local girls who date soldiers – all receive their “blessings”, as indeed does the glue man. The fantastic cloudscapes & vast skies of East Kent are stunning backdrops to crucial scenes & the amazing & typical Powell/Pressburger/Renoir use of light throughout adds to the air of magical realism. A must-buy!!!
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|December 20, 2010
#3
The sense of the past,
One of the most intellectually complex of all the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, “The Archers,” A CANTERBURY TALE was intended to boost morale during the war concerning British and American relations during the preparations for the D-Day invasion of the continent. Three modern pilgrims on their way to Canterbury and its environs–a self-assured “Land Girl,” a cynical cinema organist now serving in the army, and a clever and folksy American GI–attempt to solve a bizarre local mystery in the Kentish town of Chillingbourne: the identity of the enigmatic “Glue Man” who keeps pouring glue into the hair of local women after dusk. The film is much more than a mystery, and as the DVD commentary by Ian Christie and the accompanying textual materials in this lovely Criterion release make clear, it is so much more indeed it becomes almost unclassifiable. It is a comedy, particularly in the charming bits with the local children. Like all of Michael Powell’s films, it is also a romance involving sexual hysteria. Above all it is a pastoral meditation on the status of England and its heritage at a truly crucial time in its history, and it asserts both the discontinuities with the agrarian past and the need to reconnect with it during a troubled time of modernity. The “aw shucks” demeanour of the Oregon GI (John Sweet) can take some getting used to, but Sheila Sim is really extraordinary as the Land Girl, and Dennis Portman is also quite fine as the local squire who becomes central to the trio’s investigations. The tremendous closing sequence of the film involving the organ of the Canterbury Cathedral is one of the most striking evocations of the sublime in the history of film.
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