I Know Where I'm Going! (1945) is widely regarded as one of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's most remarkable achievements and a cinematic tour de force. A simple moral tale set in the wild Scottish Highlands, it follows the journey of a headstrong young woman forced by her encounter with this magical, mythic world and its exotic customs to revise her materialistic priorities. Pam Cook traces the film's production history, exploring its place in Powell and Pressburger's canon and showing how it wove into its narrative the memories and aspirations of an international group of film-makers working in 1940s Britain. Focusing on the extensive use of special effects, she reveals a technologically ambitious masterpiece. I Know Where I'm Going! is, for Cook, a multilayered work rich in allusions whose emotional power reaches beyond boundaries of time and place to touch profound human desires. In her foreword to this new edition, Cook argues that I Know Where I'm Going!'s ability to be both of its time and timeless is what ensures that it continues to captivate successive generations of viewers.

A study of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1945 film about a young woman whose life is changed by her stay in the Scottish Highlands, in the BFI Film Classics series.

About the Author
Pam Cook is Professor Emerita in Film at the University of Southampton, UK. She is editor of The Cinema Book (Third Edition, BFI Publishing, 2007) and author of Fashioning the Nation: Costume and Identity in British Cinema (BFI, 1996) and Nicole Kidman in the BFI Film Stars series (2012).


Book Information
ISBN 9781839023811
Author Pam Cook
Format Paperback
Page Count 104
Imprint BFI Publishing
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 168g