A Matter of Life and Death

‘Just before his aeroplane crashes, the pilot, Peter Carter, makes radio contact with an American radio operator called June and falls in love with her immediately. When the heavenly messenger, sent to Earth to collect him, gets lost in the thick fog, Peter wakes up: he has escaped death. From that moment on, he hovers between heaven and earth – and between black-and-white and Technicolour. This was a breakthrough for Powell, who remarked: ‘From then on, there was no more realism in film, only surrealism.’ The creative centrepiece of the film is Alfred Junge’s spectacular staircase to heaven.” (MoMA, June 2024)

‘People have such a strong connection to this film. Many people have told me that it evokes an emotion they’ve never felt in films by other directors. It was very unusual, especially for a British film of that era, to convey so much emotion. But of course it was never, ever sentimental. It was genuine emotion.’ (Thelma Schoonmaker, BBC Culture, Dec 2021)