I love these write ups. Even when I haven't seen the film in question, it sparks my interest significantly. Thanks for taking the time to do these among the current reviews and other essays.
I'd never heard of this one and the photo that accompanied the article made me reflexively think it would be the sort of old-timey romance melodrama that generally isn't my cup of tea (shallow, I know. But hey at least I didn't say "dated" Scott!).
But the write-up has me completely intrigued and I'm excited now to check it out.
I think you guys are too harsh on the Other World sequences, I was really amused by them, especially the no-nonsense WAC who's been on the door for hundreds of years. And the staging and sets for these sequences was amazing.
It's just that specific stretch that seems to lose sight of the main characters to deal with British/American history that feels a little elongated to me. The trial in general I like. Just a small quibble, really.
There definitely was a hunger for fantasy in the immediate aftermath of World War 2. I’m thinking also of Jean Cocteau’s LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE and my personal favorite, Claude Autant-Lara’s SYLVIE ET LE FANTÔME.
I rewatched this film with students this summer in a class in Heaven. I was shocked that one student was very critical of the opening sequence. He felt it was completely untrue to what love actually is (time and hard work) and couldn’t get past that to see anything good in the rest of the movie. (He had the same problem with DEFENDING YOUR LIFE. )
Yeah, yeah, he's right about love, but the magic of cinema is that maybe sometimes, especially when you have people as charismatic as Niven and Hunter, love *is* that easy
This is my favorite film of all time, so I'm a bit biased. I find I can't put it on without almost immediately getting very emotional. That opening scene is certainly part of it. But I also think it's the film's insistence that life and love is the most beautiful thing we're likely to encounter (a shocking and probably naive thesis coming right out of WW2, but damn if the film doesn't stick to it) and heaven, if it exists, which it probably doesn't outside Peter's mind, couldn't possibly compare to the beauty of being alive.
Alas, a quick Google search of "best atheist films" or even "best humanist films" reveals a lot of Ricky Gervais nonsense, but no one ever has the imagination to include a film that spends this much time in the afterlife.
As for that trial sequence, that I'll admit seems like it belongs in an entirely different film, the idea of Powell and Pressburger saying "Yes, yes, the romance is lovely but now lets take a few minutes and get weird with it" only seems to further endear the film to me. It's as if Peter's life just can't escape the ever-presence of geo-political conflict (I suppose none of ours can, which makes an appreciation of being alive even more essential).
My favorite dialogue is a more subtle exchange (and I'm paraphrasing despite having seen this film a dozen times):
This is great. It's still so powerful now, but I really can't imagine what it must have been like to see a film like this in 1946. It had to be overwhelming.
One more thought. This film always strikes me as an interesting companion to It's a Wonderful Life which came out the same year and is also a film that begins in the cosmos, is about heaven intervening in a man's life (as he contemplates leaping to his death) and eventually saving him, even though it's the love of others that truly saves him. It feels very much like the British vs. American interpretation of the same basic idea (circa 1946 at least)
The fact that I'm thinking of this in terms of British sensibilities vs. American sensibilities means I've learned nothing from this film.
Thank you for pointing out that Jack Cardiff only shot three films for Powell and Pressburger. His work is gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but I always felt like he tends to receive too much credit for the visual splendor of their films, but really, everything--everything--Powell directed is drop dead beautiful. I feel like not enough praise is given to poor Christopher Challis, the longest-employed DP for The Archers, and whose work for them is equally stunning in B&W (The Small Back Room) and color (The Tales Of Hoffmann, which is as visually ravishing as any movie I've ever seen).
But as far as Cardiff's work here--I think the reason the opening sequence works so well is simply because of the visuals. Three-strip Technicolor is so rich and vivid, and so expertly deployed here--those deep orange flames!--that you swoon at the sheer beauty before anything even happens.
I've taken issue with a lot of the previous movies but this is exactly the type of film I want on these lists. It's accessible to a wide audience yet made with a great deal of ingenuity and craft. It's memorable, visually alive, resonant...I really like it. And it's here because of its merits as a film, not because of a misguided attempt to MOVE THE CANON towards checking representational boxes.
Way to go everybody. And yeah, love those dated British/American tension plot points!
Back in the days of The Dissolve we did a column called "You Must Watch" where we talked to a notable person about a movie they wanted everyone to watch. I interviewed the comic book (and now MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS) writer Matt Fraction about this movie and remember it being a great, smart conversation. But I cannot find it online. If anyone more search-savvy than I knows how to dig it up, I'd love the help and to be able to link to it as supplemental reading.
I've commented this before somewhere but first time I saw this movie I damn near burst into tears when Niven, who thinks he's dead and assumes the beach he's walking on is heaven, sees a dog looking at him and smiles, saying "I always hoped there'd be dogs."
Wasn't familiar with this before (part of a general lack of experience of most films pre-1972, give or take--I know how benighted this makes me, and I am deeply shamed by it), but now I'm adding it to my Amazon wishlist, and not just because DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (which is an all-time Top 30 film for me) is mentioned in this discussion.
Tangentially: I'm colorblind. Red is sometimes green, green is sometimes brown, blue is sometimes purple and vice versa. I wonder if one reason why--in my limited exposure--the wonders of Technicolor aren't terribly impressive to me is because I literally can't see them. (Autumn foliage similarly lacks any appeal.) Just a thought.
This is very much sounding like a broken record, but once again, here's a movie we never would've watched if not for The Reveal. Thank you as always! Just finished it last night.
It's hilarious that so many romcoms spend so much energy and ingenuity with the engineering of the meet-cute. Turns out you can do it in five minutes if you just let two really good actors proclaim their love for one another, no muss, no fuss. I have to say, because they are so convincing (and because it's a super heightened situation, i.e., a plane going down with no parachute), I never even had a chance to doubt it. And the movie just never really lets up (a special-effects-laden afterlife, a cameo by Jurassic Park's owner, a Frenchman made up with clown-level makeup who can stop time, hair-raising motorcycling in the rain, brain surgery, etc.), so I'm just along for the ride.
1946 has a special place in my heart, because the movie that won Best Picture that year, The Best Years of Our Lives, is one of my all-time favorites. And what I find hard to believe is that the same year, a movie that is as fantastic (literally and figuratively) as this also came out?!! TBYoOL is fairly down-to-earth realistic that I just assumed all the movies of that era were likely as "normal." There is nothing normal about this film -- that staircase! The stop-motion! The furious ping-pong action (really, I was so impressed by both Hunter and Livesey, they could take on Forrest Gump) -- I don't know what I loved more, the action of the ball or the action of the camera that swung with the ball.
Now one thing that I found curious is that this movie was not even nominated for a single Academy Award. Initially I thought it was because it was British and maybe they didn't come over or something back then, but Lawrence of Arabia won everything a few years before, and that was very much a British film. So was this movie just not well regarded back then? Did the discussion of "The Special Relationship" turn critics off? I'd think if nothing else, they would've garnered noms for art direction, cinematography, or special effects? All of these categories were live for the 19th Oscars, but nary a mention for A Matter of Life and Death. According to Wikipedia, this was the first Oscars since the 2nd where they capped the noms to 5 max per category, but art dir for color had 3, art dir for b&w had 3, cin color and b&w each had just 2 each, and special effects also only had 2. WTF!?!?
All I can say about this film is that almost 80 (!) years later, it still works. Sure, it's a bit wordy at times, and yes, the third act especially is very much of its time, but whether in black and white or in Technicolor, it always lights up the screen.
I love these write ups. Even when I haven't seen the film in question, it sparks my interest significantly. Thanks for taking the time to do these among the current reviews and other essays.
I'd never heard of this one and the photo that accompanied the article made me reflexively think it would be the sort of old-timey romance melodrama that generally isn't my cup of tea (shallow, I know. But hey at least I didn't say "dated" Scott!).
But the write-up has me completely intrigued and I'm excited now to check it out.
I think you guys are too harsh on the Other World sequences, I was really amused by them, especially the no-nonsense WAC who's been on the door for hundreds of years. And the staging and sets for these sequences was amazing.
It's just that specific stretch that seems to lose sight of the main characters to deal with British/American history that feels a little elongated to me. The trial in general I like. Just a small quibble, really.
I do agree that the propaganda gets lathered on rather too thick in the second half.
The exchange "Any USO shows here? No. Then we'll stay" always makes me laugh.
There definitely was a hunger for fantasy in the immediate aftermath of World War 2. I’m thinking also of Jean Cocteau’s LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE and my personal favorite, Claude Autant-Lara’s SYLVIE ET LE FANTÔME.
I rewatched this film with students this summer in a class in Heaven. I was shocked that one student was very critical of the opening sequence. He felt it was completely untrue to what love actually is (time and hard work) and couldn’t get past that to see anything good in the rest of the movie. (He had the same problem with DEFENDING YOUR LIFE. )
Grade: F
I suppose it would have been unprofessional of you to rolls your eyes and/or sigh loudly at these criticisms?
Yeah, yeah, he's right about love, but the magic of cinema is that maybe sometimes, especially when you have people as charismatic as Niven and Hunter, love *is* that easy
This is my favorite film of all time, so I'm a bit biased. I find I can't put it on without almost immediately getting very emotional. That opening scene is certainly part of it. But I also think it's the film's insistence that life and love is the most beautiful thing we're likely to encounter (a shocking and probably naive thesis coming right out of WW2, but damn if the film doesn't stick to it) and heaven, if it exists, which it probably doesn't outside Peter's mind, couldn't possibly compare to the beauty of being alive.
Alas, a quick Google search of "best atheist films" or even "best humanist films" reveals a lot of Ricky Gervais nonsense, but no one ever has the imagination to include a film that spends this much time in the afterlife.
As for that trial sequence, that I'll admit seems like it belongs in an entirely different film, the idea of Powell and Pressburger saying "Yes, yes, the romance is lovely but now lets take a few minutes and get weird with it" only seems to further endear the film to me. It's as if Peter's life just can't escape the ever-presence of geo-political conflict (I suppose none of ours can, which makes an appreciation of being alive even more essential).
My favorite dialogue is a more subtle exchange (and I'm paraphrasing despite having seen this film a dozen times):
Dr. Reeves: How did your father die?
Peter: Same way I did.
Dr. Reeves: Brain?
Peter: War.
This is great. It's still so powerful now, but I really can't imagine what it must have been like to see a film like this in 1946. It had to be overwhelming.
One more thought. This film always strikes me as an interesting companion to It's a Wonderful Life which came out the same year and is also a film that begins in the cosmos, is about heaven intervening in a man's life (as he contemplates leaping to his death) and eventually saving him, even though it's the love of others that truly saves him. It feels very much like the British vs. American interpretation of the same basic idea (circa 1946 at least)
The fact that I'm thinking of this in terms of British sensibilities vs. American sensibilities means I've learned nothing from this film.
Thank you for pointing out that Jack Cardiff only shot three films for Powell and Pressburger. His work is gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but I always felt like he tends to receive too much credit for the visual splendor of their films, but really, everything--everything--Powell directed is drop dead beautiful. I feel like not enough praise is given to poor Christopher Challis, the longest-employed DP for The Archers, and whose work for them is equally stunning in B&W (The Small Back Room) and color (The Tales Of Hoffmann, which is as visually ravishing as any movie I've ever seen).
But as far as Cardiff's work here--I think the reason the opening sequence works so well is simply because of the visuals. Three-strip Technicolor is so rich and vivid, and so expertly deployed here--those deep orange flames!--that you swoon at the sheer beauty before anything even happens.
I've taken issue with a lot of the previous movies but this is exactly the type of film I want on these lists. It's accessible to a wide audience yet made with a great deal of ingenuity and craft. It's memorable, visually alive, resonant...I really like it. And it's here because of its merits as a film, not because of a misguided attempt to MOVE THE CANON towards checking representational boxes.
Way to go everybody. And yeah, love those dated British/American tension plot points!
Updated with a clarification about Cardiff brought to our attention by a reader.
"...or at least one that does its best to suppress Nazis, as all right-thinking places should..."
Love this gem of a jab at your hosting platform.
Yes, I gave Keith a clap in my edit.
Back in the days of The Dissolve we did a column called "You Must Watch" where we talked to a notable person about a movie they wanted everyone to watch. I interviewed the comic book (and now MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS) writer Matt Fraction about this movie and remember it being a great, smart conversation. But I cannot find it online. If anyone more search-savvy than I knows how to dig it up, I'd love the help and to be able to link to it as supplemental reading.
Here it is! Had to dig it out of the Wayback Machine (with a link courtesy the extremely lo-fi https://powell-pressburger.org/:
https://web.archive.org/web/20131103200633/https://thedissolve.com/features/compulsory-viewing/250-comics-matt-fraction-on-the-film-that-inspired-him/
Oh wow. Thanks. I was starting to wonder if I did the interview but it never ran because we got shut down.
Funny, I had the same thought about the Muhammed statue, eleven years later.
I just watched it last night and my jaw dropped at that, even if they didn't show it
I've commented this before somewhere but first time I saw this movie I damn near burst into tears when Niven, who thinks he's dead and assumes the beach he's walking on is heaven, sees a dog looking at him and smiles, saying "I always hoped there'd be dogs."
Powell was apparently very fond of dogs, so this detail feels like a personal touch.
Wasn't familiar with this before (part of a general lack of experience of most films pre-1972, give or take--I know how benighted this makes me, and I am deeply shamed by it), but now I'm adding it to my Amazon wishlist, and not just because DEFENDING YOUR LIFE (which is an all-time Top 30 film for me) is mentioned in this discussion.
Tangentially: I'm colorblind. Red is sometimes green, green is sometimes brown, blue is sometimes purple and vice versa. I wonder if one reason why--in my limited exposure--the wonders of Technicolor aren't terribly impressive to me is because I literally can't see them. (Autumn foliage similarly lacks any appeal.) Just a thought.
This is very much sounding like a broken record, but once again, here's a movie we never would've watched if not for The Reveal. Thank you as always! Just finished it last night.
It's hilarious that so many romcoms spend so much energy and ingenuity with the engineering of the meet-cute. Turns out you can do it in five minutes if you just let two really good actors proclaim their love for one another, no muss, no fuss. I have to say, because they are so convincing (and because it's a super heightened situation, i.e., a plane going down with no parachute), I never even had a chance to doubt it. And the movie just never really lets up (a special-effects-laden afterlife, a cameo by Jurassic Park's owner, a Frenchman made up with clown-level makeup who can stop time, hair-raising motorcycling in the rain, brain surgery, etc.), so I'm just along for the ride.
1946 has a special place in my heart, because the movie that won Best Picture that year, The Best Years of Our Lives, is one of my all-time favorites. And what I find hard to believe is that the same year, a movie that is as fantastic (literally and figuratively) as this also came out?!! TBYoOL is fairly down-to-earth realistic that I just assumed all the movies of that era were likely as "normal." There is nothing normal about this film -- that staircase! The stop-motion! The furious ping-pong action (really, I was so impressed by both Hunter and Livesey, they could take on Forrest Gump) -- I don't know what I loved more, the action of the ball or the action of the camera that swung with the ball.
Now one thing that I found curious is that this movie was not even nominated for a single Academy Award. Initially I thought it was because it was British and maybe they didn't come over or something back then, but Lawrence of Arabia won everything a few years before, and that was very much a British film. So was this movie just not well regarded back then? Did the discussion of "The Special Relationship" turn critics off? I'd think if nothing else, they would've garnered noms for art direction, cinematography, or special effects? All of these categories were live for the 19th Oscars, but nary a mention for A Matter of Life and Death. According to Wikipedia, this was the first Oscars since the 2nd where they capped the noms to 5 max per category, but art dir for color had 3, art dir for b&w had 3, cin color and b&w each had just 2 each, and special effects also only had 2. WTF!?!?
All I can say about this film is that almost 80 (!) years later, it still works. Sure, it's a bit wordy at times, and yes, the third act especially is very much of its time, but whether in black and white or in Technicolor, it always lights up the screen.
As I write this on Feb. 15, A Matter of Life and Death is back on the Criterion Channel.
As part of their Interdimensional Romance series (including a number of movies mentioned in this write-up!)