A Matter of Life and Death (1946 film)

A Matter of Life and Death is a 1946 British fantasy romantic drama film written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Set in England during World War II, the film stars David Niven, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey, Kim Hunter and Marius Goring. The film was originally released in the United States under the title Stairway to Heaven, which derived from the film's most prominent special effect: a broad escalator linking Earth to the afterlife.

In 1999, A Matter of Life and Death was placed 20th on the British Film Institute's list of Best 100 British films. It ranked 90th in The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012 poll, regarded by some as the most authoritative in the world, and 78th in 2022.

Plot

In May 1945, Squadron Leader Peter Carter, a Royal Air Force pilot, is flying a badly damaged and burning Lancaster bomber over the English Channel after a mission over Germany. Carter is expecting to die, after ordering his crew to bail out without revealing to them that his own parachute has been destroyed. The only radio operator receiving him is June, at a United States Army Air Forces base on the coast of England. Carter converses with June before jumping from the Lancaster without a parachute.

Peter should have died at that point, but Conductor 71, the guide sent to escort him to the Other World, misses him in the thick fog over the Channel. The airman wakes up on a beach near June's base. At first, he assumes he is in the afterlife, but when a de Havilland Mosquito flies low overhead, he discovers to his bewilderment that he is still alive.

Peter meets June cycling back to her quarters after her night shift, and they fall in love. Conductor 71 stops time to explain the situation, urging Peter to accept his death and accompany him to the Other World, but Peter demands an appeal. While Conductor 71 consults his superiors, Peter continues to live. Conductor 71 returns and informs him that he has been granted his appeal and has three days to prepare his case. He can choose a defence counsel from among all the people who have ever died, but he has difficulty picking one.

Peter's visions are diagnosed by June's fascinated friend Dr Reeves as a symptom of a brain injury—chronic adhesive arachnoiditis from a slight concussion two years earlier—and he is scheduled for surgery. Reeves is killed in a motorcycle accident while trying to find the ambulance that is to take Peter to the hospital; this allows him to act as Peter's counsel.

Reeves argues that, through no fault of his own, his client was given additional time on Earth and that, during that time, he has fallen in love and now has an earthly commitment that should take precedence over the afterlife's claim on him. The matter comes to a head—in parallel with Peter's brain surgery—before a celestial court. The prosecutor is American Minuteman Abraham Farlan, who hates the British for making him the first casualty of the American War of Independence. Reeves challenges the composition of the jury, which is made up of representatives who are prejudiced against the British; the jury is replaced by a multicultural mixture of modern Americans whose origins are as varied as those they replace.

Reeves and Farlan both make comparisons with the other's nationality to support their positions. In the end, Reeves has June take the stand and prove that she genuinely loves Peter by telling her that the only way to save his life is to take his place, whereupon she steps onto the stairway to the Other World without hesitation and is carried away. The stairway then comes to an abrupt halt and June rushes back to Peter's open arms. As Reeves triumphantly explains, "... nothing is stronger than the law in the universe, but on Earth, nothing is stronger than love."

The jury rules in Peter's favour. The Judge shows Reeves and Farlan the new lifespan granted to the defendant; Reeves calls it "very generous", and Farlan jokingly complains, then agrees to it. The two then engage in supportive banter with one another, and against the stern Chief Recorder, who protests against the breach of law. In the operating room, the masked surgeon (whose face is revealed as that of the Judge) declares the difficult operation a success.

Cast

Cast notes

Goring was offered the role of Conductor 71, but insisted that he wanted to play Peter instead; however, Powell and Pressburger were set on Niven playing the part, and eventually told Goring that the Conductor was his only choice; if he turned it down, they would approach Peter Ustinov to play the part.Powell 1986, p. 489

Powell and Pressburger went to Hollywood to cast the role of June with no possible actress in mind except, possibly, Betty Field, who was in a play in New York at the time. The suggestion of Kim Hunter came from Alfred Hitchcock, who had recently used her to read lines from behind the camera for Ingrid Bergman's screen test for Spellbound. Hunter had stage experience and had been under contract to producer David O. Selznick for two years. Powell and Pressburger decided that she was right for the part almost immediately on their first meeting, and arranged with Selznick to use her.Powell 1986, pp. 519-20, 524-25

Michael Trubshawe was an old drinking buddy of Niven's and he was given a cameo in this picture by Niven.

Production

A Matter of Life and Death was filmed at D&P Studios and Denham Studios in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England, and on location in Devon and Surrey. The beach scene was shot at Saunton Sands in Devon, and the village seen in Dr Reeves' camera obscura was Shere in Surrey. Production took place from 2 September to 2 December 1945, used 29 sets, and cost an estimated £320,000, equivalent to £ in .IMDB "Filming Locations: 'A Matter of Life and Death' (1946)." IMDb. Retrieved: 23 May 2015."Business Data: 'A Matter of Life and Death' (1946)." IMDb. Retrieved: 23 May 2015.

A Matter of Life and Death had an extensive pre-production period due to the complexity of the production. The huge escalator linking this world with the other, called "Operation Ethel" by the firm of engineers who constructed it under the aegis of the London Passenger Transport Board, took three months to make and cost £3,000, . "Ethel" had 106 steps, each wide, and was driven by a 12 horsepower engine. The full shot was completed by hanging miniatures.Warman 1946 It has been claimed that the noise of the machinery prevented recording the soundtrack live and all scenes with the escalator were dubbed in post-production; however, in an interview incorporated into the Carlton DVD release, cinematographer Jack Cardiff recalls his surprise that it operated completely silently.

The decision to film the scenes of the Other World in black and white added to the complications. They were filmed in three-strip Technicolor, but colour was not added during printing, giving a pearly hue to the black-and-white shots, a process cited in the screen credits as "Colour and Dye-Monochrome Processed in Technicolor". This reversed the effect in The Wizard of Oz. Photographic dissolves between "Technicolor Dye-Monochrome" (the Other World) and Three-Strip Technicolor (Earth) are used several times during the film. There was a nine-month wait for film stock and Technicolor cameras because they were being used by the US Army to make training films.Powell 1986

Other sequences also presented challenges, such as the stopped-action table-tennis game for which Hunter and Livesey were trained by champions Alan Brooke and Viktor Barna; the scene where Carter washes up on the beach, the first scene filmed, where cinematographer Jack Cardiff fogged up the camera lens with his breath to create the look he wanted; and the long, 25-minute trial sequence, which required a set with a long by high backcloth.Stafford, Jeff. "Article: 'A Matter of Life and Death' (1946)." TCM.com. Retrieved: 23 May 2015.

Release A Matter of Life and Death was chosen for the first ever Royal Film Performance on 1 November 1946 at the Empire Theatre, in London, in the presence of George VI and his wife."Crowds Cheer the King and Queen". The Times (London), 2 November 1946, p. 4. The performance was in aid of the Cinematograph Trade Benevolent Fund and £30,000 (£ in pounds) was raised. It then went into general release in the UK on 15 December 1946."Cinemas." The Sunday Times, 15 December 1946, p. 8. The film subsequently had its US release in New York on 25 December 1946 under the name Stairway to Heaven.Betts, Ernest. "Spotlight." Daily Express (London), 27 December 1945, p. 2.

According to trade papers, the film was a "notable box office attraction" at British cinemas in 1947.Murphy, Robert (2003) Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939-48 p.209

In 1986, the film was screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival."Festival de Cannes: A Matter of Life and Death." festival-cannes.com, 17 July 2009.

Critical reception Upon its premiere in New York City, Bosley Crowther said "the delicate charm, the adult humor and visual virtuosity of this Michael Powell—Emeric Pressburger film render it indisputably the best of a batch of Christmas shows...the wit and agility of the producers, who also wrote and directed the job, is given range through the picture in countless delightful ways: in the use, for instance, of Technicolor to photograph the earthly scenes and sepia in which to vision the hygienic regions of the Beyond (so that the heavenly 'messenger', descending, is prompted to remark, 'Ah, how one is starved for Technicolor up there!'.)"

According to a 2006 book, "A spate of movies appeared just after the ending of the Second World War, including It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Stairway to Heaven (1946), perhaps tapping into so many people's experience of loss of loved ones and offering a kind of consolation."

In December 2017, a digitally restored version was shown in British cinemas. Kevin Maher, writing in The Times, said the restoration was "crisp" whilst describing the film as being a "definitive fantasy classic" and also as "essential viewing."

Preservation The Academy Film Archive preserved A Matter of Life and Death in 1999. The film underwent a 4K restoration at Sony Pictures Entertainment for a 2018 Criterion Collection blu-ray release.

Analysis

Title According to Powell in his A Life in Movies, the United States was the only market in which the film's name was changed, except that most European countries used "A Question of Life and Death" rather than "A Matter of Life and Death". The American title, "Stairway to Heaven", was the idea of Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin, two lawyers just starting out in the film business, who would be marketing the film in the US, and insisted that no film had ever done well there with the word "death" in the title. When Pressburger countered with the hit film Death Takes a Holiday, their response was to point out that it succeeded because the very fact that Death was on holiday meant that there would be no death in the film.Powell 1986, pp. 486-87.Stein, Ruthe. "Michael Powell's 'Age of Consent' on DVD." SFGate.com, 11 January 2009. Retrieved: 11 January 2009.

Carter's visions The film's narrative does not clarify whether Carter's visions are real, or hallucinatory. The fact that the same actor plays the celestial judge and the brain surgeon tends to indicate that they are a hallucination. To ensure that Carter's symptoms – including his visions – were consistent with the diagnosis and treatment depicted, the filmmakers read and integrated a significant amount of medical research, according to Diane Broadbent Friedman.Friedman, Diane Broadbent. "A Matter of Fried Onions." Seizure. Retrieved: 1 October 2009.