Directors/writers: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Photography: Jack Cardiff
Music: Allan Gray
Editor: Reginald Mills
Cast: David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Marius Goring, Raymond Massey, Robert Coote, Joan Maude, Abraham Sofaer
I must have been in a bad mood the first time I saw this war picture cum extravagant fantasy romance by the Archers, who are collaborating coproducers, codirectors, and cowriters Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. I know I was put off by the romance they give us between Peter Carter (David Niven) and June (Kim Hunter)—rhymes with “moon” and “swoon,” no last name necessary because it’s obviously going to be “Carter” before they’re through (later she will go on to a career as a country singer). It’s wartime—4:11 p.m. London time, May 2, 1945, to be specific. Carter’s plane is going down over open ocean and his parachute has been destroyed. He spends his last minutes in radio contact with Boston babe June. He asks her if she’s pretty. “Not bad,” she blurts. This is approximately the moment they fall in love but, realistically, the whole experience has to be accounted a trauma, for both of them, and arguably the rest of the story is mutual PTSD. Carter jumps out of the burning plane and somehow survives. The story is based on an actual incident, so I don’t want to hear any complaints about suspension of disbelief.
I’ll take care of all that, though I must say I enjoyed the picture much more the second time around. A Matter of Life and Death (released as Stairway to Heaven in the US, which reportedly had an aversion to the word “death” so soon after the war) is a fantasy show, featuring a place they call heaven and a pouty French angel, “Conductor 71” (Marius Goring), who couldn’t find Carter at the appointed hour in the thick fog. That’s the explanation for Carter’s unlikely survival. Now the conductor is supposed to collect him, but for some reason Carter and June falling in love is a basis for arguing an extension of life. Ultimately the issue turns into a trial and a courtroom drama and I’m pretty sure you know where it’s headed. It’s by the numbers as a romance, but Powell and Pressburger are interesting moviemakers and they find a number of ways to save it and make the case for it as one of their greatest pictures, which is saying something from the team that gave us The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and many others.
I must have been in a bad mood the first time I saw this war picture cum extravagant fantasy romance by the Archers, who are collaborating coproducers, codirectors, and cowriters Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. I know I was put off by the romance they give us between Peter Carter (David Niven) and June (Kim Hunter)—rhymes with “moon” and “swoon,” no last name necessary because it’s obviously going to be “Carter” before they’re through (later she will go on to a career as a country singer). It’s wartime—4:11 p.m. London time, May 2, 1945, to be specific. Carter’s plane is going down over open ocean and his parachute has been destroyed. He spends his last minutes in radio contact with Boston babe June. He asks her if she’s pretty. “Not bad,” she blurts. This is approximately the moment they fall in love but, realistically, the whole experience has to be accounted a trauma, for both of them, and arguably the rest of the story is mutual PTSD. Carter jumps out of the burning plane and somehow survives. The story is based on an actual incident, so I don’t want to hear any complaints about suspension of disbelief.
I’ll take care of all that, though I must say I enjoyed the picture much more the second time around. A Matter of Life and Death (released as Stairway to Heaven in the US, which reportedly had an aversion to the word “death” so soon after the war) is a fantasy show, featuring a place they call heaven and a pouty French angel, “Conductor 71” (Marius Goring), who couldn’t find Carter at the appointed hour in the thick fog. That’s the explanation for Carter’s unlikely survival. Now the conductor is supposed to collect him, but for some reason Carter and June falling in love is a basis for arguing an extension of life. Ultimately the issue turns into a trial and a courtroom drama and I’m pretty sure you know where it’s headed. It’s by the numbers as a romance, but Powell and Pressburger are interesting moviemakers and they find a number of ways to save it and make the case for it as one of their greatest pictures, which is saying something from the team that gave us The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and many others.
The most obvious great feature of A Matter of Life and Death is a technical one: the mix of color and black & white imagery, a technical feat pulled off in large part by cinematographer Jack Cardiff. (In a Criterion Channel extra, editor Thelma Schoonmaker gets into the difficulties of what Cardiff accomplished here.) This is hardly the first or last time anyone has mixed together color footage with black & white, but I’m not sure anyone else this side of The Wizard of Oz has made it so oddly and determinedly conceptual. The heaven scenes are the ones that are in black & white, which is counterintuitive to say the least. I’m not sure it works. It makes heaven more like something out of the past, and somewhat monotonous and dreary. That said, I appreciate the cognitive dissonance—and yes, some of these transitions are worth the price of admission alone.
An interesting point of the narrative—built into the screenplay deliberately by the Archers—is a good deal of ambiguity about Carter’s experiences as he reports them, the business with the conductor and all that. On one level, the cognitive dissonance continues in that, in heaven, time not only seems to exist, but is at least as dictatorially ruthless as it is here. On Earth, however, the curious French angel has the ability to stop time entirely, which is when Carter has his vivid experiences that can no way be corroborated by anyone. It’s an interesting narrative point, but I must note that freeze-frames are in no way convincing for showing time has stopped.
The screenplay was written to give Carter specific symptoms of epilepsy, although epilepsy in 1946 was still too stigmatized to be discussed as such by the medical characters here. But they take Carter’s symptoms seriously enough that they see the need for brain surgery. Serious business—a matter of life and death, you might say. Thus it’s quite possible that all the fantasy elements here are delusions taking place only inside Carter’s malfunctioning head. No heaven. No angel. No trial. Only brain activity and the necessity for immediate surgery.
The trial in heaven (or “trial in heaven”) involves, among other things, a lot of jingo-patriotic shouting about the relationship between the recently allied but former foes Britain and the US. At one point the inferior culture of the US is displayed by the Brits (defending Carter) with a rhythm and blues song called “Shoo Shoo Baby,” written by Phil Moore and sung by the Andrews Sisters in the 1943 picture Three Cheers for the Boys. The Archers apparently believe in the inferiority of it themselves, as the male singer is unidentified and not even Wikipedia seems to know who it is. It’s not a bad R&B song at all, and the scene comes across now, unfortunately, as cretinous racism. You may feel as indignant as I did. Come on, man! But, as always, “the times, the times.” A Matter of Life and Death is a sturdy little fantasy dreamboat and perfectly enjoyable as such, especially if you are in a mood for a big swooning romantic picture. Keep a hanky handy.
An interesting point of the narrative—built into the screenplay deliberately by the Archers—is a good deal of ambiguity about Carter’s experiences as he reports them, the business with the conductor and all that. On one level, the cognitive dissonance continues in that, in heaven, time not only seems to exist, but is at least as dictatorially ruthless as it is here. On Earth, however, the curious French angel has the ability to stop time entirely, which is when Carter has his vivid experiences that can no way be corroborated by anyone. It’s an interesting narrative point, but I must note that freeze-frames are in no way convincing for showing time has stopped.
The screenplay was written to give Carter specific symptoms of epilepsy, although epilepsy in 1946 was still too stigmatized to be discussed as such by the medical characters here. But they take Carter’s symptoms seriously enough that they see the need for brain surgery. Serious business—a matter of life and death, you might say. Thus it’s quite possible that all the fantasy elements here are delusions taking place only inside Carter’s malfunctioning head. No heaven. No angel. No trial. Only brain activity and the necessity for immediate surgery.
The trial in heaven (or “trial in heaven”) involves, among other things, a lot of jingo-patriotic shouting about the relationship between the recently allied but former foes Britain and the US. At one point the inferior culture of the US is displayed by the Brits (defending Carter) with a rhythm and blues song called “Shoo Shoo Baby,” written by Phil Moore and sung by the Andrews Sisters in the 1943 picture Three Cheers for the Boys. The Archers apparently believe in the inferiority of it themselves, as the male singer is unidentified and not even Wikipedia seems to know who it is. It’s not a bad R&B song at all, and the scene comes across now, unfortunately, as cretinous racism. You may feel as indignant as I did. Come on, man! But, as always, “the times, the times.” A Matter of Life and Death is a sturdy little fantasy dreamboat and perfectly enjoyable as such, especially if you are in a mood for a big swooning romantic picture. Keep a hanky handy.
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