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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Praising Powell and Pressburger

The Essay: Praising Powell and Pressburger: Episode 4: Black Narcissus

Praising Powell and Pressburger

Episode 4

Episode 4: Black Narcissus

Black Narcissus

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Film critic Peter Bradshaw on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's film Black Narcissus

Film critic Peter Bradshaw explores Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's sensuous 1947 film Black Narcissus, a melodrama set in a convent in an isolated Himalayan valley.

"It is all done by suggestion, but eroticism is in every frame and image from beginning to end. It is a film full of wonderful performances and passion just below the surface, which finally, at the end of the film, erupts", Michael Powell

Continuing the Sound of Cinema season, film critic Peter Bradshaw looks at Powell and Pressburger's sensuous 1947 melodrama, 'Black Narcissus'.

Set in a convent in an isolated Himalayan valley, in which tensions are running high, Black Narcissus was based on the 1939 novel of the same name by Rumer Godden. It stars Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron and Jean Simmons, and was described by Michael Powell described as the most erotic film he ever made.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, together known as The Archers, were one of the most influential and audacious film-makers of the 1930s and 40s. Their groundbreaking works include: 'The Red Shoes', 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp', 'A Matter of Life and Death' and 'Black Narcissus'.

Peter Bradshaw is the Guardian's film critic.

Producer: Justine Willett.

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An exploration of films made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

An exploration of films made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, two of the most influential film-makers of the 1930s and 40s.

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