A Matter of Life and Death (film)
| A Matter of Life and Death | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by |
Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Produced by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger George Busby |
| Written by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Starring |
David Niven Roger Livesey Raymond Massey Kim Hunter Marius Goring |
| Narrated by | John Longden |
| Music by | Allan Gray |
| Cinematography | Jack Cardiff |
| Edited by | Reginald Mills |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Eagle-Lion Films (UK) |
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Release date
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1 November 1946 (UK premiere) 15 December 1946 (UK general) |
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Running time
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104 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £320,000 (est.) or £650,000. |
| Box office | $1,750,000 (US) |
A Matter of Life and Death is a 1946 British fantasy-romance film written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and set in England during the Second World War. 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. 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 the colour was not fully developed, 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.
In 1999, A Matter of Life and Death placed 20th on the British Film Institute's list of Best 100 British films. In 2004, a poll by the magazine Total Film of 25 film critics named A Matter of Life and Death the second greatest British film ever made, behind Get Carter.
On 2 May 1945, Squadron leader Peter Carter is a Royal Air Force pilot trying to fly a badly damaged and burning Lancaster bomber back to his base in England after a mission over Germany. He has ordered his crew to bail out, without revealing that his own parachute has been shot up. He manages to contact June, an American radio operator based in England and talks with her for a few minutes before jumping without a parachute.
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