I Know Where I'm Going

Well, you know, I haven't seen I Know Where I'm Going! for years.

And...um...

Then one afternoon in London I put the television on and there it was.

I came in in the middle of it

-and there

-I

-was!

It was quite, quite interesting.

I have to say that now that I'm an adult,

I realise now what a wonderful film it is.

It was about two weeks before I started shooting Raging Bull

and I think one of the few films I hadn't seen was I Know Where I'm Going!.

I said, "Shall we put in a tape of it?"

Put it in the cassette player -

tapes had just started being used -

and we watched this film which we fell totally in love with.

It was such an incredible... "discovery".

Other people knew about it. I didn't.

I remember a few months later seeing Michael again and said, "I just saw a new masterpiece."

-You'll come with me to the station.

-Tonight?

-I'm picking up the Scotch express there.

-Going to Glasgow?

-The Western Isles.

-Got your ticket? There'll be a queue.

-Everything's arranged.

-I'm going to an island called Kiloran.

-Where is it?

In the Hebrides. It takes a day and a night to get there. It's his island.

We're going to be married there, away from people.

It sounds silly to say it but I Know Where I'm Going! really did change my life.

# I know where I'm going

# And I know who's going with me

# I know who I love

# But the dear knows who I'll marry. #

The film is nearly 50 years old.

It was a great success in Britain and America at the time

but for many years now it's been largely forgotten.

The idea is very simple.

That is of a girl who thinks she knows what she really wants,

but she doesn't REALLY know.

She thinks she wants to get to this island and for three or four days, she tries to get to this island

because her fiance's on the island.

When she CAN get there when the storm drops, she doesn't want to any more.

She realises she's in love with another man.

The film was made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

who had a unique partnership and a unique credit on screen.

They called themselves the Archers

and they signed all their films together as "written, produced and directed by Powell and Pressburger."

They had a vision - a very unusual, rather unworldly vision

and they pursued it with great determination.

-WOMAN:

-I liked the idea from the word go.

It was a lovely script,

a lovely part.

No, I was very lucky.

I was very lucky because I'd had that unfortunate thing happening

of being a success in my two first films,

which was a VERY difficult thing to follow up.

And...

I'd been rather choosy after Shaw's plays.

Rather naturally, I think,

I'd been choosy and hadn't wanted to go to Hollywood.

And then Michael Powell and Emeric appeared with this script

and I liked it immensely.

I quite enjoyed doing it because it was a different role for me.

I was playing an aristocratic lady

and usually I'd been playing rather cutesy little Cockney kids and things like that.

So this was a bit different,

but it was scary in a way because it was a really serious...

I could feel even then that it was a very classy movie.

The film appeared before the public in December 1945

at the end of the year in which the war was won.

This was the moment at which everything was now under question in Britain

and the Welfare State and so many parts of it came into being.

So it was a time of tremendous idealism.

It seems to me that this is a film that captures that idealism very well.

They wanted to show how a bright young thing, a smart young person,

who knows exactly what life is all about and what she wants out of it,

discovers that in fact life has much more to offer.

And so it's a process of her coming to understand more timeless values

than the ones that she had learned during her upbringing.

I'm Nancy Franklin and this is my office at the New Yorker magazine.

I'm an editor at the New Yorker

and I've been working here for 15 years.

For the first few months, I was so taken with my, uh...

with my view in my office that when anybody came into my office

I would close the door, turn out the lights, pull up the blinds and do this...

MUSIC: "Rhapsody In Blue" by George Gershwin

-DISTANT MOANING CRY

-What's that noise?

-That would be the seals singing.

-The seals?!

Yes, yes. They like the warm, foggy weather.

I remember very well the first time I saw the movie.

I'd been watching a few Powell-Pressburger movies on the public TV station in New York

and I'd seen a documentary about Michael Powell that was made in England

and I was very enchanted by his movies

and what I was learning about them.

And then the television station showed I Know Where I'm Going

and I taped it and I cut off the last couple of minutes of it,

but I started watching it anyway and I realised right away that I wanted to see this movie,

just from the opening credits alone.

-Is this your first visit to the island?

-Yes, it is.

It's a sublime day.

THUNDER ROLLS

I was going through sort of a rough patch in my life.

I had a good life, but nothing in it was particularly satisfying.

I'd been working in the same office for ten years,

I'd been living in the same apartment.

Everything seemed very static to me.

And, just like the character in the movie who's swept off her feet

by Roger Livesey,

I was swept off my feet by this movie.

Thank you.

And I also had the sense after I watched the movie

that I would go to this place where it had been made...

It's not that I thought I'd like to go there.

I knew that I would go there.

I had a strange but utter certainty about it.

I remember standing at a window

looking out over the sea

and over the waving grass.

Everything moved.

The island was never still.

Everything that grew moved.

And I remember Emeric standing there,

looking out and saying,

"That's what I want."

And he was looking at a meadow.

The grass was about two foot, three foot high.

And it was waving like the waves of the sea.

The sea... The wind was moving it as though it was moving the surface of the sea.

He said, "That's the Hebrides."

NANCY FRANKLIN: So I crossed the ocean on a ship, something I've long wanted to do.

There's something very old-fashioned about boarding a ship

and then that whistle blows and you're off,

and it takes five days to cross the ocean.

You see these mysterious, majestic hills

and you don't quite know what you're getting into,

and that's one of the things that drew me to Mull,

this sense of mystery about the place,

which is evident in the movie.

My name is Sue Fink and my husband and I are the owners

of the Western Isles Hotel in Tobermory on the Isle of Mull.

The film I Know Where I'm Going! was filmed partly in the hotel

in 1944.

I first heard of I Know Where I'm Going!

when an American walked in and asked if I'd seen the film.

I never had seen the film

and she wanted to see one of the rooms and told me about the film...

We were actually unpacking our cases to move in

and they climbed over packing cases to see the room, so I was amazed,

and then all year I kept being asked about I Know Where I'm Going!

and I was getting cross, because I hadn't seen the film,

and then our first Christmas here, three friends filmed it on video

and gave it to us as Christmas presents.

Mr MacNeil.

Yes?

I want to ask you something.

-Anything.

-Do you mind if we sit at separate tables at lunch?

-You do understand, don't you?

-Of course I don't mind.

-We are strangers.

-Yes, but you understand why I'm asking you?

-I think you're the most proper young lady I've ever met.

-I take that as a compliment.

I didn't really want to see the film because I thought it might spoil what people had told me about it,

but I thought it was a lovely film and I can now understand

why all these people come to see where it was filmed.

FALLING WATER ROARS

-Very difficult.

-Crazy!

-It was a compromise.

-Post Office wanted it up the hill, Catriona down below.

-But why here?

It was a dry summer and they forgot that when it rains... Hello?

-Right then, Nancy, we're coming up to the famous waterfall.

-Oh, yes.

-And the famous telephone kiosk.

-Yes.

This is where they call the Western Isles Hotel to make a reservation.

That's correct.

I once called a friend of mine in New York City from that phone box,

-to see if he could hear the waterfall, and he could.

-Oh, right.

-It's all right, you have a big room.

-What about you?

-I have a small one.

Well, Nancy, we're at Carsaig now.

A lot of the action happened here

and you can remember the storyline.

'Good evening.

-'Bad luck. No crossing today.

-But isn't that the boat from Kiloran?

-'No.

-If she was, it's not today she would be getting back.

-'But I intend to spend the night on Kiloran.

-Oh.

-'Feasgar math, Kiloran.

-Fair thu mi a maireadh...'

-'Is that Gaelic you're talking?

-Yes. What would it be but the Gaelic?'

This is the spot in the movie where things start to not go her way

and she's sitting on the pier

and looking at her itinerary and of course it just blows out of her hand

into the water,

and that's when you first get the sense

that lots of other unpredictable things are gonna be happening

in the movie.

"Port Erraig. 5.15pm.

"The motor boat from Kiloran will meet Miss Webster..."

One of the funny things I've heard about the making of the movie

when I first came to Mull

and I asked islanders about it...

they said

that at the time the film-makers came here,

the weather wasn't actually as bad as they needed it to be

to film some of the scenes.

So down here at Carsaig,

I've discovered,

they had boats out in the water there

-with smoke machines going...

-That's correct.

-..to actually create foggy conditions...

-Yes.

..when she's standing on the pier.

Well, it always appeared to me that dramatic lighting in photography

to me is a vital element.

On I Know Where I'm Going!, it gave it a dramatic effect, besides being a great love story.

You know, that sort of upbringing I had

in composition

and making use of the light and shade.

And I love shooting against the light.

To me, it is much more exciting

than shooting with flat light.

Well, I was very fortunate - I was introduced to Fritz Lang.

The German technique was not flat lighting - it was stronger contrast.

And to me it's amazing how it brings to life the story

in a much more exciting manner.

If my boat doesn't come, will you take me?

No, I will not, milady.

I actually did Carsaig with them.

And I got up at six o'clock in the morning

and I went as far as Bunessan

to get a hold of Wendy.

She stayed in the hotel there.

And I got her and took her back

to be on the set - that was what they called it.

It wasn't to be "on the job" but to be "on the set" by eight o'clock

in the morning.

And I drove in the dark.

Oh, I'll never forget it,

because I hadn't even lights. We weren't allowed lights.

I did that every morning for Wendy.

And she was so terribly nice.

-Micky Powell in his book says that she stayed every night in the Western Isles Hotel.

-No.

-No?

-No.

No, no. That is not correct.

That I DO know, cos I took her.

Unless she came back and...

You never know!

The usual way when you don't know them terribly well...

they sit in the back, but Wendy sat beside me

all the time and spoke all the time.

Oh, she was good.

She was lovely.

-And there was a time that you were her stand-in, because she was sick or something.

-Yes...

Tell me that story about the hat.

We were down... You'll see the place when you go down to Carsaig...

..down at the pier.

And we were waiting, of course, as per usual for rain. No, it was sun we were waiting for,

cos I was dressed in her rig-out.

And she had this beautiful hat.

Now, what was the name of the fur?

-Ocelot.

-Ocelot, yes, exactly. Thank you.

Yes, ocelot. She had this lovely hat.

And I had it on, of course.

I was...as Wendy.

Then the rain came on, and I went to shelter,

and Micky Powell said to me,

"I'm glad to see you're sheltering the hat, the £90 hat."

"£90?!" I said. Well, I've never had £90 in my hand,

but I can always say I've had it on my head!

Oh, it was lovely. I enjoyed it.

I really had a nice time.

Like most of their scripts, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger worked on them together an awful lot.

But always Emeric would write the original story himself

and do a first draft of the complete screenplay.

And the way he would do this would be he would get the idea

and he would write it over and over again -

sort of hypnotically almost. He said he had to build up a rhythm in himself.

And he would often write very quickly, so he'd write the whole story usually in one day.

This is his original sort of four- or five-page outline of I Know Where I'm Going!.

No dialogue at all.

Purely description.

And at this stage, he would show it to Michael Powell,

and Michael Powell would make his comments, and then Emeric would go away and write a complete...

screenplay to the film,

usually with very little dialogue.

Then he would give this to Michael Powell.

Michael Powell would write his own version with all the dialogue. Then it would go back to Emeric,

who would polish it up, change it,

do whatever, and that would be the final screenplay.

And that's what happened in the case of I Know Where I'm Going!.

I was lying to you! I'd rather swim in the sea than in a swimming pool!

-TORQUIL:

-I know!

And I'd rather catch salmon in my own stream,

-if somebody would teach me how.

-I know!

VOICES FADE

We're in Duart Castle which is the seat of the clan McLean,

and there's one scene here. Joan comes over for breakfast

and she's greeted by this very grave little girl

who walks into the room reading a book.

She sees Joan, and she says to her, "You're Joan Webster, aren't you?"

and Joan says, "Yes." And she says, "You're going to marry Sir Robert Bellinger, aren't you?" and she says,

-"Yes, do you mind?" And then the little girl says...

-He's rich, isn't he?

That girl was played by Petula Clark.

-Are you rich?

-No.

I remember the scene where I'm sitting at the end of this long, long table in a baronial hall

with my glasses, and I was wearing jodhpurs - very grand -

and because I didn't have a stand-in, I had to be there for a long, long time,

and I was too terrified to ask permission to go to the loo.

I wanted to wee like mad, and I just daren't ask, I was so frightened of Michael Powell.

So much so that I eventually wee-ed in my jodhpurs.

And, er...of course, I was too scared to move.

I had to wait until the lunch break and then I sort of sidled off when everybody else had gone,

and spent the lunch break drying my jodhpurs on the radiator! Isn't that sad?

NANCY: The scene that was in this room was actually shot in a set in London

so, although it looks exactly like this room,

in fact, it was not shot here.

I did all my stuff at Denham Studios, um...

In fact, I didn't even realise that it was all taking place in Scotland

until it was virtually over for me.

I heard some funny accents

but I didn't realise that we were supposed to be in a Scottish grand house, castle.

Authenticity was very important to Pressburger, and in particular to Powell.

He wanted to get the look of it right, and the feel of it,

and everything about the place was important to him -

the sound of people's voices, the singing,

every particular thing about the island, he wanted to get right.

The paradox is that, um...in fact, when they were filming this movie,

Roger Livesey, as Michael Powell says in his book,

never came within 500 miles of the Western Isles.

He was working in a play in London at the time and couldn't get away

and, on the island,

a double was used. He had to be trained to walk like Roger Livesey,

especially while he was wearing a kilt.

'It did have its difficulties,'

except there were no close-ups, you see.

Everything that was taken with his stand-in

was long shot or medium shot,

and naturally he was the right shape.

So, when we came to the close-ups in the studio,

well, that was perfectly all right

with Roger.

That was just a technical thing that one accepts in films.

'Back projection was the only media we had then.'

It wasn't really reliable because it was old equipment

which needed replacing,

and in that time, during the war period, we couldn't replace anything,

so I used deep-focus photography on that

to bring together the background and the foreground

without the use of light meters.

There weren't any light meters available at that time

so it was all done by eye

and just...human touch, put it this way.

Powell himself said that, years later, when he watched the movie,

he couldn't always tell which scenes had the double of Roger Livesey

and which scenes had Roger Livesey himself.

And he said that it was probably the cleverest thing he ever did in movies,

and I think it probably was.

Everybody who worked on this film was foreign to Scotland,

and of course, even Michael Powell... Michael Powell is not really a standard Englishman.

He was educated for a large part of his film-making career in the south of France.

But there's Allan Gray, the composer, who's German, Polish-German,

there's Alfred Junge who's German, the designer of the film,

and there's Erwin Hillier who's the cameraman. He had been in England for ten years,

but was actually brought up in Germany, and the first film he worked on was Fritz Lang's M,

so it was all "continentals" as they were called at the time.

In the case of Emeric's contribution,

I think Emeric had a very subtle understanding of national difference,

and perhaps because he came from outside of Scotland and indeed outside of Britain,

he saw this in a way which allowed him to be a little clearer

about how to identify those qualities that made for a sense of place, a sense of culture.

Michael also, of course, was steeped in a romantic view of national identity.

I think the key to understanding Michael's approach was to remember his great interest in Kipling.

Kipling believed that the past was always present in the present

and it would show through if you just allowed yourself to be open to it.

Another thing which was very typical of their work is the element of mysticism in it.

Now, a lot of people have said that this film, this mysticism

is very sort of Celtic and it's very of the Western Isles,

of the rural traditions, the folklore.

I think, yes, there's an element of that but, actually, if you look at it it's Jewish, in a way.

It's Emeric Pressburger, the Hungarian Jew in Britain.

And all these little phrases that people come up with, the famous line about, um...

"People around here are very poor." "No, they just don't have very much money."

"That's the same thing, isn't it?" "No."

It's almost like Isaac Bashevis Singer's rabbinical Jewish wisdom,

and there it is in the Highlands.

Hollywood is talking of remaking this film.

Scott Rudin has optioned it. Do you think a film like this can be remade? How would you remake it?

I would never remake it, but there are a lot of films that could...

You could take the idea - a person wants to get to an island,

never does, winds up on another island with another man, marries the other one.

You can make it for today's generation.

Although this particular film is something that you can't...

recapture the beauty of the first impressions.

I want you to kiss me.

It has an emotional impact that, er...

..is overwhelming each time. It's very interesting. I don't know if you can get that today.

I mean, who knows? But...

Kiloran!

Corrivreckan.

You're looking at the island of Scarba with the cloud on top of it.

To the left of that is the island of Jura.

In-between Scarba and Jura lies the whirlpool.

The whirlpool itself was not only dangerous, at times nearly impossible

because you don't realise the power of the whirlpool itself.

How old were you when you worked on the movie?

That's giving my age away! I would say about 20 years.

It was supposed to start at 3 o'clock but we went out at 2.45.

Where was the director of the movie when all this was happening?

-They were on the top of the island of Scarba, right on the very top, filming right down.

-I see.

Unfortunately, the spring tide was very strong

and I looked to the shore and I said to my father, "This boat's going backwards."

He said, "Just cut the rope. Let's get into Scarba."

I managed to get into Scarba, with a bit of difficulty I would say.

When I came back in the evening when we'd finished shooting,

I mentioned to Michael Powell that we had to go through it again.

So he said, "What went wrong?" I said, "We used the wrong lenses."

I must admit, that's the first time I ever put a drop of whisky in my mouth.

When I went home, my mother wasn't too happy because I was well under the weather.

The difference was fantastic on the second journey. Instead of using the normal lens, I used telephoto lenses.

It's brought the whole thing to life.

When I saw the film, when I saw the boat, I closed my eyes...

for a minute because the...

it takes back memories, really.

"Dear, lovely woman. Your letters and your photographs of Moy Castle brought tears to my eyes.

"Your photographs are really supreme and it almost made me sorry that I didn't make the film in colour."

"It was a great joy and compliment to receive your letter and realise

"that I am in touch with so many delightful people through my films, and particularly that one film.

"Many thanks. Michael Powell." There's a PS from Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, Michael Powell's wife.

She says, "My director Martin Scorsese is an enormous fan of IKWIG

"and was bowled over by your photographs.

"Do you think it might be possible to make some copies for him? He would love to have them."

Of course it was possible to make copies for him and I did do that.

I dropped them off one day at Thelma's office.

I got home a few hours later and my phone was ringing and it was Thelma Powell.

She put Michael on the phone and then he asked me, pointedly, why I had gone to Mull.

And I said, "Well, it actually was because of your movie."

And he said, "Yes, I know, but most people don't take a hint so broadly."

And he said to me, "We must meet you." But three months later he died.

And I never did get to see him again.

I think it's the kind of film that CAN change your life

because it's a film with a message,

but the message works very much on a gut level.

Sitting in the dark watching a film really is the nearest thing to having a dream while you're awake.

I think it touches very deep, unconscious fears and desires.

# I know where I'm going

# And I know who's going with me

# I know who I love

# But the dear knows who I'll marry

# I have stockings of silk

# And shoes of fine green leather

# Combs to buckle my hair

# And a ring for every finger

# Some say he's black

# But I say he's bonny

# The fairest of them all

# My handsome winsome Johnny. #