Martin Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker will resume work on their long-gestating feature documentary about the history of British cinema.

Speaking to ScreenDaily as he took a thee-day break from post-production on his new feature, Shutter Island, to attend tonight’s (May 20) Cannes Classics screening of The Red Shoes, Scorsese said: “As soon we finish mixing Shutter Island, which will be in August, Thelma and I are going to go back and take up where we were in the British documentary and hopefully construct a rough cut by the time I shoot my next picture.”

Scorsese is a passionate fan of many British films and he cites such movies as Basil Dearden’s The Blue Lamp, Guy Hamilton’s An Inspector Calls as well as work by Joseph Losey, Seth Holt, Ronald Neame and John Gilling as important early influences on him. He also acknowledges that his own approach to using voice-over in his own movies was directly influenced by Robert Hamer’s Kind Hearts and Coronets.

“Kind Hearts and Coronets was a big favourite among my family and people who were watching television in the early 1950s. It’s a film that influences a great deal what I do with voice-over,” Scorsese added..

The restored version of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes – one of Scorsese’s favourite films – was restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in association with The BFI,  ITV Global Entertainment Ltd., and Janus Films.

Funding was provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, The Film Foundation, and Louis B. Mayer Foundation. A Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray will be available at the end of June

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