A Matter of Life and Death
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For the upcoming Iron Maiden album, see A Matter of Life and Death (album)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946) is a film by the British writer-director-producer team of Powell & Pressburger. The US title for the release was Stairway to Heaven, which was derived from the film's most prominent special effect: a broad escalator linking Heaven and Earth. The scenes that take place in Heaven are in black-and-white, and on Earth in Technicolor.
Story
Peter Carter (David Niven) is a World War II British pilot trying to nurse a badly shot-up Lancaster bomber home after a mission in May 1945. He manages to get in touch with June (Kim Hunter), an American radio operator based in England. In the few minutes before he is forced to jump without a parachute, he falls in love with her.
Peter should have died at that time, but doesn't because of a mistake on the part of Conductor 71 (Marius Goring), the guide sent from Heaven to collect him. They miss each other in the thick fog over the English Channel. Instead, Peter wakes up the next day on a beach near June's base, completely bewildered at still being alive.
Peter meets June who is cycling back from her night shift; the pair fall in love. Conductor 71 (a French aristocrat executed during the French Revolution) appears to Peter, stopping time to explain the situation and to convince him to accept his fate. Peter refuses and demands that the matter be put to a trial.
On Earth, Peter's visions of Conductor 71 are diagnosed by June's fascinated friend Doctor Reeves (Roger Livesey) as a symptom of a brain injury sustained in the fall from the plane, and he is scheduled for surgery. Reeves' death in a motorcycle accident makes him available to plead Peter's case, arguing that, through no fault of his own, he has fallen in love and now has an Earthly commitment which should take precedence over Heaven's claim on his soul.
The matter comes to a head - mirroring the outcome of the contemporaneous brain surgery - before a celestial court of the whole population of Heaven - the camera zooms out from an amphitheatre to reveal that it is as large as a spiral galaxy. Reeves and Abraham Farlan (Raymond Massey), the stern American prosecutor, call witnesses from history to give evidence. In the end, Reeves calls June to the stand (she is made to fall asleep in the "real" world by Conductor 71) and shows that she genuinely loves Peter by telling her that the only way to save his life is to take his place. She steps onto the stairway without hesitation and it begins carrying her away, leaving Peter behind. Then the stairway comes to an abrupt halt and June rushes back to Peter's welcoming arms. Nothing in the universe is more powerful than the law; but on Earth, nothing is more powerful than love.
Analysis
It is interesting to note that, while the film never specifically states whether Peter's visions are real, the actor playing the judge also plays the brain surgeon. There are other dual roles but attention is deliberately drawn to the judge/surgeon.There is no explicit reference to "the other world" as Heaven. The word is only used twice, in one conversation, where it may be taken as an adjective. Powell & Pressburger objected to the American distributor's renaming it as Stairway to Heaven but had to put up with it. The distributor believed that American audiences wouldn't want to see a film with the word "Death" in the title, especially just after World War II.
Trivia
- In 2004 the magazine Total Film named A Matter of Life and Death the 2nd greatest British film ever made in a poll of 25 film critics. It was beaten only by Get Carter.
- The film was chosen for the first ever Royal Film Performance on November 1, 1946 in aid of the Cinematograph Trade Benevolent Fund. It then went into general release in the UK on December 30, 1946. It premiered in New York City on December 25, 1946 and in Los Angeles on January 23, 1947.
- The architecture of the film's Heaven is noticeably modernist; vast and open plan, with huge circular observation holes beneath which the clouds of Earth can be seen. This vision of Heaven was later the inspiration for the design of a bus station in Walsall, England, by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, and the film's amphitheatre court scene was rendered by BT in an TV advertisement in about 2002 as a metaphor for communication technology, especially the Internet.
- The initial American release cut the scenes showing a naked young goatherd, but this is usually included in most versions available today, even those which are still titled Stairway to Heaven.
References
- Warman, Eric. 1946. A Matter of Life and Death. London: World Film Publications
- Christie, Ian. 2000. A Matter of Life and Death. London: BFI. ISBN 0-851704-794
External links
- [A Matter of Life and Death] at screenonline.org.uk
- [Bus to Paradise], a review of the AMOLAD Heaven inspired Walsall Bus Station.
- [Reviews and articles] at the [Powell & Pressburger Pages]
- [Trailer] at Virgin.net
| Powell and Pressburger The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger |
|---|---|
| 1930s | The Spy in Black | The Lion Has Wings |
| 1940s | Contraband | An Airman's Letter to His Mother | Forty-Ninth Parallel | One of Our Aircraft is Missing | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | The Volunteer | A Canterbury Tale | I Know Where I'm Going! | A Matter of Life and Death | Black Narcissus | The Red Shoes | The Small Back Room |
| 1950s | The Elusive Pimpernel | Gone to Earth | The Tales of Hoffmann | ''Oh... Rosalinda
|
| 1960s | Peeping Tom (not Pressburger) | They're a Weird Mob | Age of Consent |
| 1970s | The Boy Who Turned Yellow |
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