Caitlin McDonald Abstract

‘Written in the Stars’ – The Alternative Filmography of Emeric Pressburger

As John Boorman has pointed out, ‘Most directors have an alternative filmography. The films they did not make that might have taken the place of the ones they did.’[1] If one were to apply Boorman’s statement to Emeric Pressburger, they would find a rich and varied ‘alternative filmography’ of unrealised projects. The Pressburger archive in the BFI contains materials relating to dozens of unmade films that exist in various stages of pre-production from throughout his career. These range from a film to be made with David Lean on the life of Gandhi, entitled Written in the Stars; audacious projects tackling the legacy of Nazism; dystopian science fiction; and perhaps most famously, a proposed film on Richard Strauss called The Golden Years. The reasons these projects never came to fruition is often complex and may have nothing to do with their artistic merit. Indeed, if these unmade films are simply ignored due to the misfortune of remaining in an archive rather than the public domain, one cannot form a comprehensive study of Pressburger’s life and work. By studying these unfilmed screenplays, one can also separate Pressburger’s work from that of his directorial partner, Michael Powell, who he is often overshadowed by in scholarly examinations of his films.

This paper will provide a case study of some key examples of unrealised screenplays in the Pressburger archive, while considering the reasons that they were never filmed.

[1] John Boorman, Adventures of a Suburban Boy (London: Faber and Faber, 2003) p. 235.