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Emeric Pressburger

May 04, 2023

The native form of this personal name is Pressburger Imre József. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Emeric Pressburger (born Imre József Pressburger; 5 December 1902 – 5 February 1988) was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in a collaboration partnership known as the Archers, and produced a series of films, including 49th Parallel (1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (US: Stairway to Heaven, 1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). He has been played on screen by Alec Westwood in the award-winning short film Òran na h-Eala (2022) which explores Moira Shearer's life-changing decision to appear in The Red Shoes. [1][2]

Emeric Pressburger
Pressburger in Paris
Born
Imre József Pressburger

(1902-12-05)5 December 1902
Miskolc, Austria-Hungary
(present-day Hungary)
Died5 February 1988(1988-02-05) (aged 85)
Saxtead, England
Occupation(s)Screenwriter, producer, director and production house co-founder with Michael Powell
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 1938⁠–⁠1941)​

Wendy Orme
​
(m. 1947⁠–⁠1971)​
Children1
RelativesAndrew MacDonald (grandson)
Kevin Macdonald (grandson)
English Heritage Blue Plaque
Dorset House, Gloucester Place, NW1 5AG

Early years

Imre József Pressburger was born in Miskolc, in the Kingdom of Hungary, of Jewish heritage.[3] He was the only son (he had one elder half-sister from his father's previous marriage) of Kálmán Pressburger, estate manager, and his second wife, Kätherina (née Wichs). He attended a boarding-school in Temesvár, where he was a good pupil, excelling at mathematics, literature and music. He then studied mathematics and engineering at the Universities of Prague and Stuttgart before his father's death forced him to abandon his studies.[4]

Film career

Berlin and Paris

Pressburger began a career as a journalist. After working in Hungary and Weimar Republic-era Germany he turned to screenwriting in the late 1920s, working for UFA in Berlin (having moved there in 1926). The rise of the Nazis forced him to flee to Paris, where he again worked as screenwriter, and then to London. He later said, "[the] worst things that happened to me were the political consequences of events beyond my control ... the best things were exactly the same."

Pressburger's early films were mainly made in Germany and France where he worked at the UFA Studios in the Dramaturgie department (script selection, approval and editing) and as a scriptwriter in his own right. In the 1930s, many European films were produced in multiple-language versions. Some of the films made in Germany survive with French intertitles and vice versa.

In 1933, after the Nazis came to power, UFA's head sacked the company's remaining Jewish employees with Pressburger being told his contract would not be renewed. He left his Berlin apartment, "leaving the key in the door so that the Stormtroopers wouldn't have to break the door down" and left for Paris. Late in 1935, Pressburger decided that he would do better in England.

Emigrated to the UK

Pressburger arrived in Britain in 1935 as a stateless person; once he decided to settle, he changed his name to Emeric in 1938. In England he found a small community of Hungarian film-makers who had fled the Nazis, including Alexander Korda, owner of London Films, who employed him as a screenwriter. Asked by Korda to improve the script for The Spy in Black (1939), he met the film's director, Michael Powell. Their partnership would produce some of the finest British films of the next decade.[5] However, Pressburger still did some projects on his own.

Pressburger was much more than simply "Michael Powell's screenwriter" as some have categorised him. The films they made together in this period were mainly original stories by Pressburger, who also did most of the work of a producer for the team. Pressburger was also more involved in the editing process than Powell, and, as a musician, Pressburger was also involved in the choice of music for their films.

Later work

Powell and Pressburger began to go their separate ways after the mid-1950s. They remained close friends but wanted to explore different things, having done about as much as they could together. Two of his later films were made under the pseudonym "Richard Imrie".

Two novels by Pressburger were published. The first Killing a Mouse on a Sunday (1961), is set in the period immediately following the Spanish Civil War. It received favourable reviews and was soon translated into a dozen languages. The Glass Pearls (1966), reissued in 2015 and again in 2022 by Faber, gained an especially negative assessment from The Times Literary Supplement, its only contemporary review.[6]

Subsequently it has been highly praised. Lucy Scholes in The Paris Review in 2019 called it "a truly remarkable work. It deserves to be recognized both for its own virtuosity, and as an important addition to the genre of Holocaust literature."[7]

Personal life

On 24 June 1938, Pressburger married Ági Donáth, the daughter of Andor Donáth, a general merchant, but they divorced in 1941. The union was childless. He remarried, on 29 March 1947, to Wendy Orme, and they had a daughter, Angela, and another child who died as a baby in 1948; but this marriage also ended in divorce in Reno, Nevada in 1953 and in Britain in 1971. His daughter Angela's two sons both became successful film-makers: Andrew Macdonald as a producer on films such as Trainspotting (1996), and Kevin Macdonald as an Oscar-winning director. Kevin has written a biography of his grandfather, and a documentary about his life, The Making of an Englishman (1995).

Pressburger became a British citizen in 1946. He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 1981, and a Fellow of the BFI in 1983.

Pressburger was a diffident and private person who, at times, particularly later on in his life, could be hypersensitive and prone to bouts of melancholia. He loved French cuisine, enjoyed music, and possessed a great sense of humour. In appearance he was short, wore glasses, and had a sagacious, bird-like facial expression. He was a keen supporter of Arsenal F.C., a passion he developed soon after arriving in Britain. From 1970 he lived in Aspall, Suffolk[8] and he died in a nursing home in nearby Saxtead on 5 February 1988, due to the complications of old age and pneumonia.[9] He is interred in the cemetery of Our Lady of Grace Church, Aspall.[8] His is the only grave in that Church of England graveyard with a Star of David.

Filmography

For his films with Michael Powell, see Powell and Pressburger and Category:Films by Powell and Pressburger.
UFA period
Paris
British period

Actor

  • The Red Shoes (1948) – Man Waiting on Station Platform (uncredited)

Awards, nominations and honours

Novels

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Òran na h-Eala". IMDb. Amazon.
  2. ^ "Òran na h-Eala". Film Directory. British Film Council.
  3. ^ "350 years: Variety Club colour supplement." Jewish Chronicle, 15 December 2006, pp. 28–29.
  4. ^ Macdonald 1994
  5. ^ Christie 1985
  6. ^ The Times Literary Supplement, Issue 3348, 28 April, 1966, p.18.
  7. ^ Scholes, Lucy (18 October 2019). "Emeric Pressburger's Lost Nazi Novel". The Paris Review. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  8. ^ a b "Pressburger Addresses." powell-pressburger.org. Retrieved: 19 August 2010.
  9. ^ "Emeric Pressburger." Find a Grave. Retrieved: 19 August 2010.
  10. ^ http://www.themosttraveled.com/Club/Savile%20Club%20London%20.pdf[bare URL PDF]
  11. ^ "1st Berlin International Film Festival: Prize Winners." berlinale.de, 21 December 2009. Retrieved: 19 August 2010.

Bibliography

  • Christie, Ian. Arrows of Desire: The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. London: Waterstone, 1994, First edition 1985. ISBN 0-571-16271-1.
  • Christie, Ian. Powell, Pressburger and Others. London: British Film Institute, 1978. ISBN 0-85170-086-1.
  • Christie, Ian and Andrew Moor, eds. The Cinema of Michael Powell: International Perspectives on an English Filmmaker. London: BFI, 2005. ISBN 1-84457-093-2.
  • Darakhvelidze, Georgy. Landscapes of Dreams: The Cinema of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Part 1-7) (in Russian). 3 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine Vinnitsa, Ukraine: Globe Press, 2008–2019. ISBN 966-8300-34-3.
  • Esteve, Llorenç. Michael Powell y Emeric Pressburger (in Spanish). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Catedra, 2002. ISBN 978-84-376-1950-7.
  • Howard, James. Michael Powell. London: BT Batsford Ltd, 1996. ISBN 0-7134-7482-3.
  • Lazar, David, ed. Michael Powell: Interviews. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2003. ISBN 1-57806-498-8.
  • Macdonald, Kevin. Emeric Pressburger: The Life and Death of a Screenwriter. London: Faber & Faber, 1994. ISBN 0-571-16853-1
  • Moor, Andrew. Powell and Pressburger: A Cinema of Magic Spaces. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. ISBN 1-85043-947-8.
  • Powell, Michael. A Life in Movies (Autobiography). London: Heinemann, 1986. ISBN 0-434-59945-X, later edition, 1993. ISBN 0-571-20431-7 (pbk).
  • Powell, Michael. Million Dollar Movie (The second volume of his autobiography). London: Heinemann, 1992. ISBN 0-434-59947-6, later edition, 2000. ISBN 0-7493-0463-4 (pbk).
  • Thiéry, Natacha. Photogénie du désir: Michael Powell et Emeric Pressburger 1945–1950 (in French). Rennes, France: Presse Universitaires de Rennes, 2009. ISBN 2-7535-0964-6.

External links

  • Emeric Pressburger at the Powell & Pressburger Pages
  • Emeric Pressburger at IMDb
  • Emeric Pressburger at the BFI's Screenonline
  • on BritMovie.co.uk

May 04, 2023
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The native form of this personal name is Pressburger Imre Jozsef This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals Emeric Pressburger born Imre Jozsef Pressburger 5 December 1902 5 February 1988 was a Hungarian British screenwriter film director and producer He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell in a collaboration partnership known as the Archers and produced a series of films including 49th Parallel 1941 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943 A Matter of Life and Death US Stairway to Heaven 1946 Black Narcissus 1947 The Red Shoes 1948 and The Tales of Hoffmann 1951 He has been played on screen by Alec Westwood in the award winning short film Oran na h Eala 2022 which explores Moira Shearer s life changing decision to appear in The Red Shoes 1 2 Emeric PressburgerPressburger in ParisBornImre Jozsef Pressburger 1902 12 05 5 December 1902Miskolc Austria Hungary present day Hungary Died5 February 1988 1988 02 05 aged 85 Saxtead EnglandOccupation s Screenwriter producer director and production house co founder with Michael PowellSpouse s Agi Donath m 1938 1941 wbr Wendy Orme m 1947 1971 wbr Children1RelativesAndrew MacDonald grandson Kevin Macdonald grandson English Heritage Blue PlaqueDorset House Gloucester Place NW1 5AG Contents 1 Early years 2 Film career 2 1 Berlin and Paris 2 2 Emigrated to the UK 2 3 Later work 3 Personal life 4 Filmography 4 1 Actor 5 Awards nominations and honours 6 Novels 7 References 7 1 Citations 7 2 Bibliography 8 External linksEarly years EditImre Jozsef Pressburger was born in Miskolc in the Kingdom of Hungary of Jewish heritage 3 He was the only son he had one elder half sister from his father s previous marriage of Kalman Pressburger estate manager and his second wife Katherina nee Wichs He attended a boarding school in Temesvar where he was a good pupil excelling at mathematics literature and music He then studied mathematics and engineering at the Universities of Prague and Stuttgart before his father s death forced him to abandon his studies 4 Film career EditBerlin and Paris Edit Pressburger began a career as a journalist After working in Hungary and Weimar Republic era Germany he turned to screenwriting in the late 1920s working for UFA in Berlin having moved there in 1926 The rise of the Nazis forced him to flee to Paris where he again worked as screenwriter and then to London He later said the worst things that happened to me were the political consequences of events beyond my control the best things were exactly the same Pressburger s early films were mainly made in Germany and France where he worked at the UFA Studios in the Dramaturgie department script selection approval and editing and as a scriptwriter in his own right In the 1930s many European films were produced in multiple language versions Some of the films made in Germany survive with French intertitles and vice versa In 1933 after the Nazis came to power UFA s head sacked the company s remaining Jewish employees with Pressburger being told his contract would not be renewed He left his Berlin apartment leaving the key in the door so that the Stormtroopers wouldn t have to break the door down and left for Paris Late in 1935 Pressburger decided that he would do better in England Emigrated to the UK Edit Pressburger arrived in Britain in 1935 as a stateless person once he decided to settle he changed his name to Emeric in 1938 In England he found a small community of Hungarian film makers who had fled the Nazis including Alexander Korda owner of London Films who employed him as a screenwriter Asked by Korda to improve the script for The Spy in Black 1939 he met the film s director Michael Powell Their partnership would produce some of the finest British films of the next decade 5 However Pressburger still did some projects on his own Pressburger was much more than simply Michael Powell s screenwriter as some have categorised him The films they made together in this period were mainly original stories by Pressburger who also did most of the work of a producer for the team Pressburger was also more involved in the editing process than Powell and as a musician Pressburger was also involved in the choice of music for their films Later work Edit Powell and Pressburger began to go their separate ways after the mid 1950s They remained close friends but wanted to explore different things having done about as much as they could together Two of his later films were made under the pseudonym Richard Imrie Two novels by Pressburger were published The first Killing a Mouse on a Sunday 1961 is set in the period immediately following the Spanish Civil War It received favourable reviews and was soon translated into a dozen languages The Glass Pearls 1966 reissued in 2015 and again in 2022 by Faber gained an especially negative assessment from The Times Literary Supplement its only contemporary review 6 Subsequently it has been highly praised Lucy Scholes in The Paris Review in 2019 called it a truly remarkable work It deserves to be recognized both for its own virtuosity and as an important addition to the genre of Holocaust literature 7 Personal life EditOn 24 June 1938 Pressburger married Agi Donath the daughter of Andor Donath a general merchant but they divorced in 1941 The union was childless He remarried on 29 March 1947 to Wendy Orme and they had a daughter Angela and another child who died as a baby in 1948 but this marriage also ended in divorce in Reno Nevada in 1953 and in Britain in 1971 His daughter Angela s two sons both became successful film makers Andrew Macdonald as a producer on films such as Trainspotting 1996 and Kevin Macdonald as an Oscar winning director Kevin has written a biography of his grandfather and a documentary about his life The Making of an Englishman 1995 Pressburger became a British citizen in 1946 He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 1981 and a Fellow of the BFI in 1983 Pressburger was a diffident and private person who at times particularly later on in his life could be hypersensitive and prone to bouts of melancholia He loved French cuisine enjoyed music and possessed a great sense of humour In appearance he was short wore glasses and had a sagacious bird like facial expression He was a keen supporter of Arsenal F C a passion he developed soon after arriving in Britain From 1970 he lived in Aspall Suffolk 8 and he died in a nursing home in nearby Saxtead on 5 February 1988 due to the complications of old age and pneumonia 9 He is interred in the cemetery of Our Lady of Grace Church Aspall 8 His is the only grave in that Church of England graveyard with a Star of David Filmography EditFor his films with Michael Powell see Powell and Pressburger and Category Films by Powell and Pressburger UFA period1930 Die Grosse Sehnsucht Farewell 1931 Ronny Das Ekel Dann schon lieber Lebertran Emil und die Detektive Der kleine Seitensprung 1932 Une jeune fille et un million fr und es leuchtet die Puszta Sehnsucht 202 Petit ecart Lumpenkavaliere Held wider Willen Eine von uns La belle aventure Wer zahlt heute noch Das schone Abenteuer A ven gazemberParis1933 Une femme au volant Incognito 1934 Mon coeur t appelle Mein Herz ruft nach dir Milyon avcilari 1935 Monsieur Sans Gene Abdul the Damned 1936 Sous les yeux d occidentBritish period1936 Port Arthur La Vie parisienne Parisian Life One Rainy Afternoon 1937 The Great Barrier 1938 The Challenge 1939 The Silent Battle 1940 Spy for a Day 1941 Atlantic Ferry aka Sons of the Sea 1942 Rings on Her Fingers Breach of Promise 1943 Squadron Leader X 1946 Wanted for Murder 1953 Twice Upon a Time Pressburger s one solo attempt at directing 1957 Men Against Britannia 1957 Miracle in Soho 1965 Operation Crossbow 1966 They re a Weird Mob based on the novel by John O Grady 1972 The Boy Who Turned Yellow with Michael Powell Actor Edit The Red Shoes 1948 Man Waiting on Station Platform uncredited Awards nominations and honours Edit1943 Oscar winner for 49th Parallel as Best Writing Original Story This Oscar is on display at the Savile Club in London 10 1943 Oscar nominated for 49th Parallel as Best Writing Screenplay Shared with Rodney Ackland 1943 Oscar nominated for One of Our Aircraft Is Missing for Best Writing Original Screenplay Shared with Michael Powell 1948 Won Danish Bodil Award for A Matter of Life and Death as Best European Film Shared with Michael Powell 1948 Nominated for The Red Shoes for Venice Film Festival Golden Lion Shared with Michael Powell 1949 Oscar nominated for The Red Shoes as Best Picture Shared with Michael Powell 1949 Oscar nominated for The Red Shoes as Best Writing Motion Picture Story 1951 Cannes Film Festival nominated for The Tales of Hoffmann for Grand Prize of the Festival Shared with Michael Powell 1951 Won Silver Bear from 1st Berlin International Film Festival for The Tales of Hoffmann as Best Musical Shared with Michael Powell 11 1957 BAFTA Award nominated for The Battle of the River Plate as Best British Screenplay Shared with Michael Powell 1981 Made fellow of BAFTA 1983 Made fellow of the British Film Institute BFI 2014 An English Heritage Blue plaque to commemorate Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger was unveiled on 17 February 2014 by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker at Dorset House Gloucester Place London NW1 5AG where The Archers had their offices from 1942 47 Novels EditKilling a Mouse on Sunday London Collins 1961 made into the film Behold a Pale Horse 1964 The Glass Pearls London Heinemann 1966 References EditCitations Edit Oran na h Eala IMDb Amazon Oran na h Eala Film Directory British Film Council 350 years Variety Club colour supplement Jewish Chronicle 15 December 2006 pp 28 29 Macdonald 1994 Christie 1985 The Times Literary Supplement Issue 3348 28 April 1966 p 18 Scholes Lucy 18 October 2019 Emeric Pressburger s Lost Nazi Novel The Paris Review Retrieved 19 October 2019 a b Pressburger Addresses powell pressburger org Retrieved 19 August 2010 Emeric Pressburger Find a Grave Retrieved 19 August 2010 http www themosttraveled com Club Savile 20Club 20London 20 pdf bare URL PDF 1st Berlin International Film Festival Prize Winners berlinale de 21 December 2009 Retrieved 19 August 2010 Bibliography Edit Christie Ian Arrows of Desire The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger London Waterstone 1994 First edition 1985 ISBN 0 571 16271 1 Christie Ian Powell Pressburger and Others London British Film Institute 1978 ISBN 0 85170 086 1 Christie Ian and Andrew Moor eds The Cinema of Michael Powell International Perspectives on an English Filmmaker London BFI 2005 ISBN 1 84457 093 2 Darakhvelidze Georgy Landscapes of Dreams The Cinema of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Part 1 7 in Russian Archived 3 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine Vinnitsa Ukraine Globe Press 2008 2019 ISBN 966 8300 34 3 Esteve Llorenc Michael Powell y Emeric Pressburger in Spanish Rio de Janeiro Brazil Catedra 2002 ISBN 978 84 376 1950 7 Howard James Michael Powell London BT Batsford Ltd 1996 ISBN 0 7134 7482 3 Lazar David ed Michael Powell Interviews Jackson Mississippi University Press of Mississippi 2003 ISBN 1 57806 498 8 Macdonald Kevin Emeric Pressburger The Life and Death of a Screenwriter London Faber amp Faber 1994 ISBN 0 571 16853 1 Moor Andrew Powell and Pressburger A Cinema of Magic Spaces London I B Tauris 2005 ISBN 1 85043 947 8 Powell Michael A Life in Movies Autobiography London Heinemann 1986 ISBN 0 434 59945 X later edition 1993 ISBN 0 571 20431 7 pbk Powell Michael Million Dollar Movie The second volume of his autobiography London Heinemann 1992 ISBN 0 434 59947 6 later edition 2000 ISBN 0 7493 0463 4 pbk Thiery Natacha Photogenie du desir Michael Powell et Emeric Pressburger 1945 1950 in French Rennes France Presse Universitaires de Rennes 2009 ISBN 2 7535 0964 6 External links EditEmeric Pressburger at the Powell amp Pressburger Pages Emeric Pressburger at IMDb Emeric Pressburger at the BFI s Screenonline Emeric Pressburger biography on BritMovie co uk Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Emeric Pressburger amp oldid 1149194789, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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