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Powell’s close friendship with Martin Scorsese has resulted in recognizable input on many of the Scorsese films, and indeed on NEW YORK STORIES Powell’s participation extended to helping out in the solution of a major story problem in the Woody Allen sequence. (Powell’s association with Francis Ford Coppola was less productive and less satisfying, but Powell enjoyed being involved in Hollywood studio work again… especially since Coppola’s studio was the one where Powell shot many of the U.S. filmed scenes for THE THIEF OF BAGDAD).

Just about three months before his death Michael was offered a project which he seriously planned on doing. Luxembourg, an ancient country, has a specific landmark celebration coming up, and one of the things it planned to do was to make a composite film in which key directors from all over the world would be invited to make a short film in some way related to Luxembourg, the choice of subject matter and style of filmmaking (subject to an economical budget) to be entirely theirs. Michael was very excited by the project, especially since a 20-minute film would not be beyond the capabilities of his frail health, and from the moment he heard about it was mentally conjuring up plots and ideas. While it would not have been a major film, it would have been a very personal film (for all the directors involved) and it’s sad that he didn’t get the chance to make this one swansong film.

Although Michael had suffered a stroke in recent years and had certainly had to slow his pace somewhat, his mind was as sharp as ever. Then at the end of 1989 came the tragic news that an old cancer, thought cured, had re-activated itself and was now terminal. Not only that, it was accelerating rapidly. Thelma, his wife, was engaged in the crucial editing stages of THE GOOD FELLAS, the new Scorsese film, and since it promises to be as “difficult” and controversial as THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST it needed her editorial expertise for as long as she was able to give it. The first few weeks of 1990 became a desperate race against time so that Thelma could finish her work and take Michael back to his beloved Cotswold home. In the meantime, one of Michael’s two sons, Columba, came over from England to be with him. Those final weeks were perhaps sadder for Michael’s friends than for Michael himself, who was heavily sedated. Because of failing eyesight, Michael had been unable to read for some time, but he loved the feel and smell of books, and surrounded himself with them. He enjoyed having friends read to him, even though he knew his favorite books by heart. Cherished mementos filled the apartment, particularly photographs with Emeric Pressburger and a signed sketch from Orson Welles, a great admirer of his. In these weeks due to the heavy sedation, Michael slept a lot and wasn’t always sure of where he was, but his mind and wit were totally unimpaired. Bring up a topic, and he’d immediately launch into a learned and absolutely lucid discussion of it; if somebody mentioned a film or a personality that had failed, his description of why, and his proffered solution, made perfect sense. If the whole situation hadn’t been so tragic, some of his time warps in this period would almost have been funny. At one point he had mentally transported himself back to the World War II period, and all of his (quite accurate) references were to those years. It was particularly important to him to find the exact wording of an Adolf Hitler quote (“Give me Hollywood, and you give me the world!”) and he asked me to check it out for him. “Ask Churchill,” he suggested. “He won’t talk to me, but he’ll talk to you!”

Fortunately these painful weeks came to a conclusion at the end of January. Warner Bros. very considerately placed a private plane at his disposal, and he was rushed back to England. Before the end, he had four weeks in his beautiful Cotswold home, with his wife, his friends, and cat Sundance. He died on the morning of Monday, February 19th. The world wide tributes were almost unprecedented, and the British press outdid itself in honoring a man it had virtually destroyed some 30 years ago when PEEPING TOM premiered.

Martin Scorsese and David Puttnam were among the mourners at the funeral on February 21st. Puttnam paid a moving tribute to him, while Scorsese read Michael’s favorite passage from the Old Testament. The hymns, which must have been chosen by Michael himself, included “Onward Christian Soldiers,” “Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory” and “He Who Would Valient Be – all of them hymns which seem to reflect not only Michael’s own philosophy but the spirit of his films too.

One likes to think of a version of Michael marching up that giant stairway from A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH to be greeted by Emeric, David Niven and Rex Ingram. But while that is wishful fantasy, there can be no doubt that the creativity and beauty that Michael brought to film will go “marching on”… to stimulate, encourage and inspire filmmakers, film students, and “ordinary” audiences for generations to come. Typically, when funeral arrangements were made, it was suggested that instead of flowers donations be made to the film preservation funds of the National Film Archive, the body that has done so much in recent years to restore Michael’s films to their full state – especially those where Technicolor was so important.

Few men in any field of art have left behind such an outstanding legacy. By rights, Michael Powell should be buried in Westminster Abbey along with England’s other great writers and poets, but he’d have found that stuffy and wouldn’t have wanted it.

Instead, as he wished, Michael sleeps in the lovely little cemetery at the Holy Cross Church in Avening, where he was married – just across the valley and in sight of his home, within sound of the running water that was a lifetime love of his. (There’s a lovely little brook running just by the entrance to the churchyard). The gentle sound of that water, and the soothing murmurings of sheep and cows, together with the churchbells echoing across the green hills, are the only sounds one hears there at twilight. Just as D. W. Griffith was laid to rest on a hillside overlooking the Kentucky hills that he so loved as a boy, so has Michael Powell found a particularly felicitous final resting place.

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