The Edge of the World
by Michael Powell
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Belle Chrystall, Eric Berry, John Laurie, Kitty Kirwan, Niall MacGinnisDirector: Michael Powell
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Brian Mitchison
Cinematographer: Ernest Palmer
Producer: Michael Powell
Writer: Michael Powell
Producer: Frixos Constantine
Producer: Joe Rock
Producer: Sydney Streeter
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 75 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-12-09
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Image Entertainment
Movie Reviews of The Edge of the World
Movie Review: The Edge of the World
Summary: 5 Stars
Based on the real-life exodus from St. Kilda, near Scotland, Powell's gripping melodrama was his first breakthrough before embarking on a fruitful life-long partnership with producer Emeric Pressburger. Combining documentary-like footage of ragged shorelines, craggy cliffs, and the rugged beauty of Foula (the film's actual location) with a simple story of economic hardship and romantic conflict, Powell concocted one of the most deeply personal and moving British films of the `30s. Sparse yet potent, "Edge" stands out for excellent performances--including John Laurie and Finlay Currie as the young lovers' squabbling patriarchs--and one thrilling sequence involving a treacherous foot race up Foula's forbiddingly steep cliffs.
Summary of The Edge of the World
Add: Bonus Feature: Commentary by Academy-AwardŽ winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, film historian Ian Christie and Daniel Day-Lewis reading from Michael Powell's book on the making of the film, "200,000 Feet on Foula."Michael Powell broke with a decade of B movies with this personal project shot on the North Sea island of Foula, a magnificent, primal landscape of high, rocky inland plains and sheer cliffs jutting out of the sea like a dare. He renamed the island Hirta for this fictional story (based on the real-life evacuation of the island of St. Kilda) of an isolated community's traditional way of life slowly dying as the young men are drawn to the modern cities of the mainland. John Laurie and Finlay Currie play the two family patriarchs who struggle over the future of the island community, and Powell himself appears as the yachtsman in a framing sequence. The romantic melodrama at the heart of the tale turns on a breathtaking race up the sheer cliffs and the grudge it sparks when one of the climbers falls to his death.
The Edge of the World is more stately and still than Powell's cinematically playful and stylistically vibrant later films like The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. The proud, hard residents of the island are constantly framed against the dramatic sky, the craggy mountains, or the rolling meadows with a dire seriousness. Yet there's a poetry to his images, which are never less than gorgeous, and Powell directs with a sense of tension, urgency, and desperation that pulls at the easy pace of this harsh lifestyle. This edition also features the lovely 1941 short An Airman's Letter to His Mother (narrated by John Gielgud) and the Powells' 1978 documentary Return to the Edge of the World, a 22-minute remembrance organized around a reunion on the island of Foula. --Sean Axmaker
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