Winston Churchill hated The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and tried
to have it banned when it was released in 1943. But Martin Scorsese, a
champion of directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, considers
it a masterpiece. It's a film about desires repressed in favour of
worthless and unsatisfying ideals. And it's a film about how England
dreamt of itself as a nation and how this dream disguised inadequacy and
brutality in the clothes of honour. A. L. Kennedy, writing as a Scot, is
fascinated by the nationalism which The Life and Death of Colonel
Blimp explores. She finds human worth in the film and the pathos of
stifled emotions and unfulfilled lives. 'If he is unaware of his
passions, ' she writes of Clive Candy, the film's central figure, 'this
is because his pains have become habitual, a part of personality, and
because he was never taught a language that could speak of emotions like
pain.'.
This edition includes a foreword by the author exploring the film's
continuing relevance in an age of Brexit, when English and British
national identity are deeply contested concepts.