A Matter of Life and Death (1945))

Emetic Pressburgsr abd Michael Powell were amongst our greatest filmmakers.  Colonel  Blimp is a classic and so is A matter of Life and Death  which was on BBC2 yesterday.  The story is surreal.  David Niven plays Squadron Leader George Carter who bails out of his plane during World War Two. His last communication is over a walk-in talkie with June ( Kim Hunter) on the ground.  NivenCarter says it’s rather ironic as the debonair airman had known many women but his dying conversation is with some one he had never met. He falls to the ground and the film switches to heaven where there is confusion as he is marked down as an arrival

 

Has he survived? You really don’t know. His surgeon played but Roger Livesey  who was Colonel Blimp dies in a motor bike accident before he can operate for brain damage.  Another surgeon performs the operation and the action is frozen buy a visitor from heaven dressed as 19th century French dandy ( Marius Goring). Carter is then tried by a celestial court  Roger Livesey is defending counsel and Raymond Massey the  prosecutor. It all ends happily with  Niven /Carter taking June in his arms.

 

Dated.?  In some ways but in others daring and futuristic. Mention must be made of that superb cameraman Jack Cardiff. His list of credits including The African Queen is impressive and years ago I attended a lecture given by him. Yhe modern British critic rarely mentions camerawork but that is how Stanley Kubrick started and now there is a tribute film to Breathless. Jean Luc Godard was also a master of camerawork. The filming particularly the celestial trial and close ups of Raymond Massey are stunning.

Pressburger and Powell were an unlikely combination. Pressburger was an emigre from central Europe whose  mother died in Auschwitz whilst Powell was very British and posh. However they were both brilliant story tellers and imaginative film makers.