A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

If you want to be cynical and pedantic you could point out that the opening where a RAF Lancaster bomber is mortally wounded on the 2nd of May 1945 is somewhat unlikely since German air defences were as lively as Adolph Hitler on that day but this isn't a movie that should be viewed by a cynical audience and I guess a character being killed in literally the last hours of the war adds to the poignancy . In fact you'd have to have survived the second world war to fully appreciate the intellect , beauty and soul of Powell and Pressburger's masterpiece . The scenes of heaven are painfully twee when viewed today ? Again you have to view the movie of the context when it was made . RAF bomber command lost 58,000 men during the war , the same number that America lost in 'Nam but during a shorter period and a far , far smaller pool of active combatants , there's no atheists in a fox hole and I doubt if you'd lost a relative during the conflict you'd view material atheism as being a sensible thing . When Richar Attenborough's young pilot looks down in awe at the sight below him many war heroes must have openly wept at this scene as they remembered much missed comrades who didn't survive the war . Also bare in mind that despite losing several million people from 1939-45 there seems to be very few people from Germany passing through the pearly gates . it's obvious Nazis don't go to heaven

The plot itself where dashing young pilot Peter Carter arguing for his life in front of a celestial court wouldn't have had much appeal to me if it wasn't for the subtext , you see A MATTER OR LIFE AND DEATH is a highly political and visionary film that laments the end of the British empire as it's replaced by American ambitions . There's little things that show up the film as being made by people aware of American history and culture . One is the ethnic mix of America , even today many Britons think that the USA is overwhelmingly composed of White Anglo Saxon Protestants when in fact only 51% of Americans are " White European " . The film rightly contains a scene where a multitude of different races confess " I am an American " as Peter is judged by Abraham Farlan , an Anglophobe who was the first revolutionary killed by British forces in The American War Of Independence . As for the " special relationship " between Britain and America - What special relationship ? Powell and Pressburger know their history when it comes to Britain and America . They obviously know their future too

So remember to watch this movie with some of your mind in the past and some of your mind in the present . It's strange , beautiful , poignant and clever but most of all it's a film that would never ever work if it were made in the last 40 years . Can you imagine if the story was set in 2003 and revolved around a British soldier killed in Iraq ?

Fmovies: WW2. RAF pilot Peter Carter's plane is shot to pieces and his parachute is destroyed. In his final distress call he talks to American WREN June on the radio and they bond at that time, when Peter knows he is doomed. They bid farewell and Peter jumps to his death. Later he wakes on a beach to find he survived and he runs to meet June and the two quickly fall in love. However, in heaven there is panic as one of the collectors of souls admits he missed collecting Peter at the moment of his death due to the thick fog all round. When Peter learns of this he appeals and a heavenly court case is convened in order to decide his fate.

This film was made on request from the MOD (ministry of defence). At the time they wanted a film that was set in wartime and stressed the importance of Britain and America overcoming any cultural differences between them and to stand together. The end result could have easily been a big flag waving exercise that would have been historically added to the pile of average propaganda made around the time (albeit for good reason).

However the actual end result is that the film transcends what it could have been and turns into something that is quite wonderful – witty and moving at the same time. The actual story is a little cheesy and on paper sounds like it could be a disaster and in reality it could have been. The film is never clear if it is real or if it is all in Peter's head and it doesn't matter. The plot allows plenty of nice touches as well as romance. The romantic/emotional side of films don't always wash with me but here I was gripped from the start simply by the powerful radio scene. It's very British (stiff upper lip) but still very moving.

The film just about hangs in there during the middle section where Peter falls in love and his supposed hallucinations are discussed by doctors but the film really comes strong in it's climactic court scene. It is witty and plays on national stereotypes really well and makes the point without forcing it down our throats. It works very well and even the sentimentality is well handled and is never as sugary as it could have been.

Niven is superb and is typically British in the lead. Hunter is pretty good but a little too sappy. The strength of the film is in it's support cast – the final courtroom scene relies more on the support cast than Niven or Hunter (who are barely in it towards the end) and yet it works very well. In fact the best characters are all in the afterlife and not the film's real world. The best element of the film is that the direction and sets are great. The gimmick of b/w and colour works better than expected and the use of it really works well – but shouldn't heaven be in colour and earth in monochrome? Maybe that was the point, I guess. The sets are really good and it's easy to be impressed by that staircase even by today's standards – not technically but just in the power of the image.

Overall this is a solid film. I don't think it deserves all the praise that it gets and if I had to list my top 100 then I'm not sure it would be in there but that's not to take away from it because it is a wonderful piece of work. The emotion is powerful without being sentimental and the film is witty and moving in equal measure.

This movie has the most beautiful opening sequence ever made. I've seen this movie for the first time a week ago, since then every day I see the opening and every time I feel as thrilled as I felt the first time I heard David Niven uttering the immortal words from Sir Walter Raleigh's The Pilgrimage:

Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope's true gage; And thus I'll take my pilgrimage (Â…)

Do you know why it would be a truism to say Michael Powell's and Emeric Pressuburger's lives are thoroughly justified for having crafted such a wonderful opening? Because they had been already admitted in the Paradise of Poets long before they made this movie.

I imagine both of them facing trial during Doomsday and saying nonchalantly to an irate God: I beg your pardon, Sir. So, do You want to know what have we done during our lifetime? Well, well you'll see: We've written directed and produced: I know Where I'm Going, Colonel Blimp, Red ShoesÂ… do you think that enough Sir? It is rather obvious that these two great artists had already fulfilled their duty with God, Nature the Muse or Whatever you may call It when they shot A Matter of Life and Death. The fact that other people's lives would be justified for their deeds could be not apparent to everybody, notwithstanding I feel my life would have a meaning had I never done anything else that to see this movie.

Of course old-timers will be tempted to say: They don't do movies like this one any more. They'll be partially mistaken; they didn't make movies like this in the past times either.

I've have already quoted Keats here, but I'll repeat his words: A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

A Matter of Life and Death fmovies. To me A Matter of Life and Death is just that- simply the best film ever made.

From beginning to end it oozes class. It is stimulating, thought provoking, a mirror to the post war world and the relations between peoples.

The cinematography is simply stunning and the effect of mixing monochrome and Technicolour to accent the different worlds works seamlessly. The characters and plot development are near perfect and the attention to detail promotes a thoroughly believable fantasy.

No matter how many times I watch the film - and I have watched it a lot - it never fails to touch me. It makes me smile, it makes me laugh, it makes me think, it makes me cry. It is as fresh today as it was in 1946.

If I were allowed just one film to keep and watch again A Matter of Life and Death would be that film.

The opening flourishes left me purring with delight at their inventiveness - the altered version of the Archers' logo, the introductory disclaimer, the way the camera pans over the cosmos. It's strange to think that `It's a Wonderful Life' came out in the same year. No great coincidence: the 1940s was awash with heaven-and-earth films; but the glowing cotton wool nebulas and cutesy angels of the competition look tattered, something best passed over in silence, when placed next to Alfred Junge's vision.

It continues to look great all the way through, as more and more striking ideas are sprung upon us. I'm not a great fan of mixing colour with black and white in general. One of the two visual schemes almost always looks ugly when placed next to the other. Not so here. Powell dissolves colour into monochrome and monochrome into colour as if it's the most natural thing in the world, a mere change of palettes. Both the colour photography and the black and white could stand on their own.

As for the story ... this may be Pressburger's best script, or at least it would have been had the conclusion been a more logical outcome of preceding events. Other than that it's tight, yet with more going on than I can possibly allude to here. Was the heavenly stuff real or imaginary? (Or both? Perhaps Carter dreamt up a fantasy that was, as it so happened, true.) Everyone says we're meant to neither ask nor answer this question, but I don't see why. I'm sure we ARE meant to ask the question. The film even gives us clues as to what the answer is - indeed, the problem is that there are too many clues and they seem at first to be pointing in different directions. The fact that other things ought to occupy our attention as well doesn't mean that this shouldn't occupy us as well. There is, as I've said before, a lot going on.

Consider the scene in which Abraham Farlan (Heaven's prosecuting lawyer) plays a radio broadcast of a cricket match, and contemptuously says, `The voice of England, 1945.' Dr. Reeves (the defence) acknowledges the exhibit with a great deal of embarrassment, and then produces one of his own: a blues song from America, which Farlan listens to as though he's got a lemon in his mouth. Reeves looks smug.

Snobbery? Well, I don't see why it's snobbish to condemn blues music - and that's not what Powell and Pressburger are doing, anyway. As the song is being played, we get a shot of the American soldiers listening to it: several of them nod their heads to the rhythm, perfectly at home. THEY don't find it incomprehensible. There's something valuable about the song and neither Reeves nor Farlan knows what it is. Reeves probably realises as much. All English audiences (and all Australian, Indian, etc. audiences as well) know without being told that there is something of value in the cricket broadcast, too; and that while Reeves understands THAT, he is unable to explain it to Farlan - hence the blues broadcast, which shows that people can understand each other without sharing an understanding of everything else. It's a clever scene.

One last thing. I found David Niven a bit cold, without the charisma he would acquire later in his career; but even so, I don't think a film has grabbed my heart quite so quickly after the action began, as this one did.

The great talents of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger are noticeable in their wonderful "A Matter of Life and Death". It was part of the recent tribute to Mr. Powell that played at the Walter Reade in New York. This film, in particular, shows us one of the best British films from that, or any other era.

"A Matter of Life and Death" has a brilliant cinematography by Jack Cardiff, a man who knew how to work wonders with a camera. Particularly impressive is the contrast from the monochromatic tones given to the scenes played in heaven, and the colored ones when the action comes back to earth. This was quite a coup, and well ahead of its times. The black and white sequence that involves the long staircase where Peter and the Conductor are chatting has to be one of the most amazing things on any film.

Much has been said in this forum about the film, so our comment will be about the great acting Powell and Pressberger got out of the large, distinguished cast, who responded magnificently to the directors' guidance.

David Niven, is Peter, whose aircraft is hit and his best friend dies as a result of it. This film marked one of the highlights in Mr. Niven's career. He was an excellent film actor as he shows us in this movie. Kim Hunter is surprisingly good as June, the woman who talked to Peter as his plane was falling from the skies. As fate would have it, Peter and June fall in love at first sight.

Some of the best British film actors grace this film with their presence. Robert Coote, is Bob, the man who is admitted to heaven, but he is surprised his friend Peter never made the trip with him. An excellent star turn by Marius Goring, who as the Conductor 71 steals the film. Mr. Goring, who had worked with the directors, is one of the best things in the movie. Also, Roger Livesey, as Dr. Frank Reeves, does one of the best appearances of his career, as well as Raymond Massey, who is seen as Abraham Farlan.

"A Matter of Life and Death" is a timeless film that will always be seen with gratitude toward its creators.