147: A Matter of Life and Death (a.k.a. Stairway to Heaven)

The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are held in such high regard by the likes of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola that it can be difficult to see one without already having heard all about it.  These two directors have been credited with leading the “re-discovery” of the Powell/ Pressburger filmmaking team and have produced and recorded much of the supplementary material available on the DVD releases of their films.  Suffice it to say that the information one could glean from the viewing and listening to all such introductions and commentary tracks would be immense.  And yet, I’ve never quite understood the obsession with this English/Hungarian duo’s films that is held by this pair of Italian American directors. 

It’s not that most of the movies made under the Powell/Pressburger Archer logo are bad, but until seeing their A Matter of Life and Death (a.k.a. Stairway to Heaven; 1946) I’d never viewed one that I thought was truly great.  It was a film produced during the heart of their most prolific run from 1943 to 1948 which included such titles as The life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), I Know Where I’m Going (1945), Black Narcissus (1947), and The Red Shoes (1948).  Of these films, the most critical praise has been lavished on the latter two releases, which I personally didn’t get much out of.  However, of the films that the Archer team released during this period, A Matter of Life and Death is the only feature to have yet to receive the Criterion treatment.  This is a travesty, as it makes finding this film on DVD particularly difficult.  Trust me though when I say that the search will be worth your time.        

The ever talented and ever-so-British David Niven is perfectly cast here as an English airmen, P.D. Carter, who is supposed to have been killed in a leap for the burning fuselage of his plane while returning from a bombing raid.  He submits his dying words to an American servicewoman manning the night radio watch on the ground.  However, when the English fog prevents a “conductor,” an angel of death figure, from finding his descending body, he awakens the following morning having washed ashore unharmed.  When the conductor finally catches up with the pilot later that day, he has fallen in love with the woman, June (Kim Hunter), whom he spoke to over the radio.

Believing that this burgeoning love happened as a result of an error on the part of the Heavenly bureaucratic machine, Carter petitions his conductor to be allowed a stay of execution of sorts.  His conversations with the conductor, played by a pitch-perfect Marius Goring, exist outside of the time of the earthly world and are dismissed as hallucinations by the medical personnel assigned to investigate Carter’s strange survival.  Earthly events seem to have Heavenly counterparts as the script builds toward a medical operation which coincides with Carter’s trial for his life up in Heaven. 

These events play out against a backdrop of set pieces that would incite wonder in any audience knowledgeable that they were created long before the advent of C.G.I.  The “Stairway to Heaven” of which the U.S. release title speaks is alone worth placing this film high on your “To See” list.  Likewise creative cinematography, including a “within the eyeball” shot and a distinct choice of color vs. black and white to note earth and Heaven respectively, make this film visually spectacular. 

Tipping the scale to greatness however is the screenplay’s ability to touch on deep philosophical issues within the Heavenly High Court scene.  The film was intended as a piece aimed at easing strained relations between England and the U.S. at the close of WWII.  The relationship between a British pilot and USAAF servicewoman opens the door for debate between the English and American inhabitants of the eternal paradise.  I realized watching this piece that the truths they speak of in this scene, of inalienable rights and debunking injustices, are not distinctly English or American ideals, but universal ones.  Perhaps this is what evokes the admiration of two Italian American virtuosos for their British and Hungarian counterparts’ films.          

Grade: 4 Hats Off