Emeric Pressburger(1902-1988)
- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Educated at the Universities of Prague and Stuttgart, Emeric
Pressburger worked as a journalist in Hungary and Germany and an author
and scriptwriter in Berlin and Paris. He was a Hungarian Jew, chased
around Europe (he worked on films for UFA in Berlin and Paris) before
World War II, finally finding sanctuary in London--but as a
scriptwriter who didn't speak English. So he taught himself to
understand not only the finer nuances of the language but also of the
British people. A few lucky breaks and introductions via old friends
led to his meeting with "renegade" director
Michael Powell. They then went on
to make some of the most interesting (IMHO) and complex films of the
1940s and 1950s under the banner of "The Archers". Pressburger often
showed a deep understanding of the British only granted to those
"outside, looking in". He always prided himself on being "more English
than the English". After all, some of us were just BORN English, but he
CHOSE to become English. He spent his last days at Shoemakers Cottage,
Aspall, Stowmarket, Suffolk in the English countryside that he loved so
well.