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A Matter of Life and Death
which occur during scenes set in heaven, help to portray the afterlife in a distinctly light-hearted way.
For the filmmakers, one of the most interesting and realistically represented elements of the film appears to be Peter Carter’s actual condition. In her paper on the subject, A Matter of Fried Onions, Diane Broadbent Friedman exhaustively analyses Carter’s condition and the lengths that Powell and Pressburger went to in its research. She concludes that ‘this film depicts clinical details in such an accurate way that a clinician might diagnose the probable site of the lesion.’ The only loose-end appears to be the impossibility of Carter surviving the fall. However, the premise for the film was a genuine newspaper account, found by Pressburger, of an English airman who had actually survived a similar fall.
A Matter of life and death may have some politically motivated elements which are not necessarily part of the story; however like Titian painting Pope Paul III, Powell and Pressburger surpassed their political obligations to produce a work of great psychological merit.
Bibliography
Powell. M and Pressburger. E, A Matter of Life and Death, Pickwick, 1995. www.powell-pressburger.org