A Matter of Life and Death (film)
A Matter Of Life And Death is a 1946 film by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, the ninth release from their production company, The Archers. The title is often abbreviated to AMOLAD when being discussed, for instance by the Powell & Pressburger Appreciation Society.
Warning: Plot is discussed
The film stars David Niven as Peter Carter, an WW2 British bomber pilot forced to bale out without a parachute; Kim Hunter as June, the radio operator who talks to him in the few minutes before he jumps and with whom he later falls in love; Roger Livesey as Dr. Reeves, a doctor friend of June, who cares for and later pleads for the life of Carter before the celestial court; and Marius Goring as the unfortunate Conducter 71, who fails to catch Carter's soul as his body drops from the plane, and who therefore is responsible for Carter being alive beyond the date appointed for his death.
The film's action takes place on Earth in Technicolor, and in Heaven in and black and white. In essence, Carter, who should have died, does not do so since Conductor 71 was unable to see him falling owing to the "English Fog" over the channel; Conductor 71, a Frenchman, is unimpressed. Carter lands on a sandbank, and is found by June who is cycling back from her nightshift; the pair fall in love. Conductor 71, appears, stopping time to discuss with Carter the reasonableness of Carter coming immediately to Heaven, since his time was up. Carter, in love, refuses and, inter alia, demands that the matter of his death be put to trial.
In earthly time, meanwhile, Carter's visions of Conductor 71 are diagnosed by Reeves as arising from a brain injury sustained in the fall from the plane, and he is scheduled for surgery. The death of Doctor Reeves in a mororcycle accident makes him available in Heaven to plead his friend's case which is that through no fault of his own, Carter has fallen in love and now has an earthly commitment which should have precedence over Conductor 71's claim on Carter's soul.
The matter comes to a head before a celestial court of the whole population of heaven - in cinimatographic terms, we zoom out from an amphitheatre to disover that the extent of its size is a spiral galaxy. Carter steps on to a mammoth moving stairway to Heaven, as the trial takes place, calling witnesses from history to provide evidence for one side or the other.
The architecture of AMOLAD's Heaven is noticably modernist; vast and open plan, with huge circular observation holes beneath which the clouds of earth can be seen. AMOLAD's Heaven was later the inspiration for the design of a bus station in Walsall, England, by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, and AMOLAD's amphitheatre court scene was rendered by British Telecom (?) in an TV advertisment in about 2002.
The film garners praise, often couched in sentences including words such as subversive, surreal ... surrealistic cinematic bravura ...an outrageous fantasy full of wit, beautiful sets and Technicolor, and perfectly judged performances.
See also
External Links
- The Powell and Pressburger Appreciation Society
- Bus to Paradise - Review of the AMOLAD Heaven inspired Walsall Bus Station