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A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
This new DVD makes me so happy. I've always loved this film in whatever format I've seen it, and yes, I've seen it at the theatre, but this thing is just so beautiful. That awesome tour of the universe which begins the film with stunning F/X and a humorous narrator segues perfectly into the intensely-romantic meeting between Peter (David Niven) and June (Kim Hunter) over the radio off the English coast just five days before Germany surrendered during WWII. A Matter of Life and Death isn't really for cynics or literalists, although the film can be perfectly interpreted in multiple ways. Yes, Peter could have jumped out of his burning airplane without a parachute and miraculously survived with some significant brain damage. Then again, he could just have easily been missed by Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) in the heavy fog, and the Afterlife is scrambling to try to retrieve him while also trying to deal with the fact that he's now in love with someone he would have never met if he actually died during his jump.
The American version was entitled Stairway to Heaven (see the above image), but Powell always hated that title. On the other hand, American distributors wanted to keep the word "Death" out of their post-WWII movies; ergo, the change in title. Roger Livesey is a standout as the neurologist who takes Peter's case, but the doctor is a complex character. The way he plays God over his small town by viewing everyone through his homemade camera obcura makes my wife's heart go pitter-pat (she desperately wants a camera obscura of her own). Powell's use of effects, offbeat camera angles and weird interpretations of time/space make the film incredibly ahead of its time. There are several scenes during the film where Conductor 71 shows up, but only Peter can see him because all the other characters are "frozen in time" while they talk "in space". The highlight of these many scenes is when June and the Doctor are playing ping pong (table tennis) and are frozen while Peter tries to get their attention. The scenes where Heaven appears as a giant semi-conductor or part of an enormous galaxy are also mind-boggling in this beautiful romance, which should not only make you laugh and cry a lot, but also just make you happy that there is such a thing as love to help most of us through this sometimes-unfair thing called life.
This new DVD makes me so happy. I've always loved this film in whatever format I've seen it, and yes, I've seen it at the theatre, but this thing is just so beautiful. That awesome tour of the universe which begins the film with stunning F/X and a humorous narrator segues perfectly into the intensely-romantic meeting between Peter (David Niven) and June (Kim Hunter) over the radio off the English coast just five days before Germany surrendered during WWII. A Matter of Life and Death isn't really for cynics or literalists, although the film can be perfectly interpreted in multiple ways. Yes, Peter could have jumped out of his burning airplane without a parachute and miraculously survived with some significant brain damage. Then again, he could just have easily been missed by Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) in the heavy fog, and the Afterlife is scrambling to try to retrieve him while also trying to deal with the fact that he's now in love with someone he would have never met if he actually died during his jump.
The American version was entitled Stairway to Heaven (see the above image), but Powell always hated that title. On the other hand, American distributors wanted to keep the word "Death" out of their post-WWII movies; ergo, the change in title. Roger Livesey is a standout as the neurologist who takes Peter's case, but the doctor is a complex character. The way he plays God over his small town by viewing everyone through his homemade camera obcura makes my wife's heart go pitter-pat (she desperately wants a camera obscura of her own). Powell's use of effects, offbeat camera angles and weird interpretations of time/space make the film incredibly ahead of its time. There are several scenes during the film where Conductor 71 shows up, but only Peter can see him because all the other characters are "frozen in time" while they talk "in space". The highlight of these many scenes is when June and the Doctor are playing ping pong (table tennis) and are frozen while Peter tries to get their attention. The scenes where Heaven appears as a giant semi-conductor or part of an enormous galaxy are also mind-boggling in this beautiful romance, which should not only make you laugh and cry a lot, but also just make you happy that there is such a thing as love to help most of us through this sometimes-unfair thing called life.