“Edge of the World was entirely saved for me by the
editor (Derek Twist) … I mean, Flaherty with no story – at least I had the
semblance of a story – took about six months to cut Man of Aran, and then it
wasn’t any good…”
Michael Powell, Powell, Pressburger and Others (1978)
BFI
The last few decades have seen a bonanza of different mixes, demos and alternate cuts of the output of the most familiar musicians from The Beatles and The Stones to even JS Bach, Erik Satie and Taylor Swift (not together…). Each new variation fascinates and paints a picture of the artists on route to their eventual well-known statements, the elements of Strawberry Fields Forever are interesting because they sound so different to the magical mix created by George Martin and his “Boys” and they show how decisions were reached in search of the perfected final version.
So it is with film, with a boom in “Limited Editions”
featuring different cuts of even the most esoteric of films. Getting to see a
different version of a classic film some of us have seen dozens of times is
pretty rare though and to see Michael Powell’s first major “personal” cinematic
statement in a form not seen since its original release in 1937 is not only
rare it’s almost certainly unique and it happened again on screen right
here on 8th July 2025 in Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image
Cinema a lifetime after it was last seen in this form.
How there came to be a copy of this Mark I release of the
film is a story of its own and owes everything to conversations between
passionate cineastes one of whom, Bob Geoghegan, Director of the Archive Film
Agency and a man of many parts, knew he had a copy of the film safely stored on
35mm nitrate but not the exact age. SO it was that investigation revealed it to
be a print from the year of release and one that was different from that we
know in significant ways. He duly created a digital transfer from these
materials for projection at this event.
Inspired by the evacuation of the Island of St Kilda a few years before, The Edge of the World has been recently restored by the BFI and I’d last seen this at Bologna in 2023 but this was something else entirely as Christopher Bird explained in his introduction to a room full of the very people you’d usually find in Il Cinema Ritrovato, some who’d come a long way for this rarity. Chris had scrupulously prepared a shot-by-shot comparison video for four key moments from the films, showing us three before revealing the fourth a very important moment from the ending shot which I won’t spoil.
 |
| Technically, Michael Powell is a much better filmmaker than Robert J Flaherty... |
The video ran the two versions side by side and it was easy
to see the gaps in the restored version against the fuller shots on this 1937
version. For whatever reason – and this is where the historians come in and dig
deeper than the primary evidence – Powell re-edited the film in the 1940s no
doubt when he had more success and clout behind him so that the version we have
been watching all of lives is what he wanted us to watch some eight (?) years
after it was first released. As he said in the quote at the top, Derek Twist
brought this production home with Powell struggling with a limited budget and,
after St Kilda’s owner refused, a last-minute change of location to the island
of Foula across the North Sea to Shetland.
In general, the newly-revealed film showed more of the
reaction shots to discussions between the main characters filling out the
narrative and engaging us with more of the wonderful locals who we would see
again when Master of Ceremonies, Professor Ian Christie, screened Return to the
Edge of the World a BBC-funded documentary returning Powell, John Laurie and
Grant Sutherland back to the remains of the society they filmed amongst. It’s a
wonderful film and Laurie is full of mischief with a mystical twinkle greeting
every islander who’s name he feigns to have remembered. A special time for
both.
I’ve written about this film a number of times before on
here but every viewing only makes it more impressive – not least because of the
three or so “new” minutes but also the achievement of Powell’s team in making
of the film was an epic adventure in itself. "200,000 feet on Foula"
was Powell's original title for his book on the making of the film and
references the immense amount of footage shot… thanks be to Mr Twist again!
Powell and drama-documentarist Robert Flaherty did not get
on and their methods were so different with the Englishman choosing to use
actual actors for his depiction of disappearing cultures. In the end the skill
of the story making as well as the players and crew win the day for Foula. EOTW
is about as political as Powell gets as he highlights the failure of government
to support the islanders as they drown their dogs and cut their losses in the
saddest of circumstances. I wonder what happened to the folk of St Kilda,
Rachel Johnson, the last of the native St Kildans, died in April 2016 at the
age of 93, having been evacuated at the age of eight… what stories did she and
other tell of their traumatic changes? Powell caught the dramatic truth better
than his rival over on the Irish Aran.
Christie and co also presented us with some fabulous extras including Smith (1939) a public information film promoting a charity helping ex-servicemen, The Embankment Fellowship Centre, which was once lost not just to film archives but also film history. This was introduced by the remarkable Mark Fuller who’d actually found the only remaining copy by tracking down the charity - now called The Ex-Service Fellowship Centres - who revealed that they not only have materials about the project but also a copy of the film! They are now called Veterans Aid and the film is available to view on their website.
We also saw the poignant, An Airman's Letter to His Mother (1941) which is so revealing of the times in which Powell made
films and the nature of lived experience during wartime.
My thanks to the following:
- Christopher Bird
- Ian Christie
- Mark Fuller
- Bob Geoghegan
And also the audience of some of the most cinematically
curious people in the country and, indeed, in the town!
%20Despair.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment