Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 355: Fri Dec 22

Age of Consent (Powell, 1969): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.45pm


This 35mm presentation is part of the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger season at BFI Southbank. There is a further screenings of this film on December 27th. You can find the details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Shot in luscious color around the Great Barrier Reef, the final feature (1969) by British director Michael Powell (who with Emeric Pressburger codirected such classics as The Red Shoes and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) returns to Chicago in a 35-millimeter print. James Mason stars as a frustrated artist who moves to a small island off the east coast of Australia in hopes of rekindling his passion for painting. He discovers his muse in the form of a free-spirited teenage girl who lives on the island (Helen Mirren), and Powell charts their blossoming relationship with sensitivity and earthy humor. Martin Scorsese, a lifelong admirer of Powell, has said of this life-affirming comedy: “For years before and after they made the film, Powell and Mason tried to get a version of The Tempest off the ground, and in fact there are strong echoes of The Tempest in Age of Consent. There’s a sense of magic and color and the power of the natural world. . . . It’s about the singular vision, the passion, the obsession of the artist to continue to create; I think this, distilled down, is the Powell-Pressburger cinema."
Ben Sachs

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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