Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger did something extraordinary throughout their films: They never tried to disguise the fact that they were movies. For Powell and Pressburger, artificiality was the path to reality. One arrived there by noting the artificiality all around us. Once noted the only place left to look was in the soul of the character, exactly where they wanted you to look in the first place.
Their films are marked by a visual falseness that confuses some viewers, enthralls others and leaves yet others indifferent and cold. Even in films like The Life and Death of Colonel 
Blimp, where the story follows forty years in the life of Clive Candy (Roger Livesy) and takes us through war and peace, the artificial is present. When Candy's home in London is hit by a German buzz bomb the explosion is animated. Not animated painstakingly in a lab to appear to be a real explosion. No. It is animated, as in jagged lines of red and blue projected out towards the screen. One could easily imagine the word "BAM!" superimposed over it. In another scene on the battefield during World War I there seems to be no attempt to disguise that it is a set. "No attempt" meaning the lighting and shadows have not been designed to look real but to look like a well-lit stage.
Here are photos from three of their films for the Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger Blogathon hosted by Justine of Beyond the Valley of the Cinephiles. These are the three films for me in which the artificial is most present. Where the artificial is the overwhelming reality of the film: The Reds Shoes, Tales of Hoffmann and Peeping Tom. The only one of these three that I was somewhat underwhelmed by was Peeping Tom if only because it wasn't artificial enough. I felt Powell was trying to infuse gritty realism with visual metaphor and while I think it is excellent I'm not sure if the idea entirely works.
