It is definitely difficult to describe the feelings that were flowing through me when watching A Matter of Life and Death. It clearly was a daunting task for directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to create such a quintessential storyline that is as unconventional as one may believe. I found it way more compelling and intriguing than "Late Spring," in terms of the storytelling and the filmmaking.
There was a lot of unique elements thrown throughout "A Matter of Life and Death" that really took me by surprise, especially with how it all begins and how it all concludes.
It cannot be denied that there are questionable aspects about the film, but one cannot deny how incredible of an achievement this was for the time Powell and Pressburger brought this film to the big screen. The amount of practicality that the production team and visual effects team placed into "A Matter of Life and Death" blew me out of the water, which always impresses me when watching a film that didn't have the technology that is used on a majority of films nowadays. While I heavily admired the acting and dialogue, the technical aspects of this film are what stuck with me the most after my first viewing.
The visual scope of this film is unlike anything I might have ever seen and one that I feel all film students should study when attending school, because there is nothing that might be as extraordinary for a film of its time like "A Matter of Life and Death" and it is just impossible to beat around how impeccable the cinematography, production design and visual effects are for a film that is over seventy years old.
The first thing to bring up when discussing Jack Cardiff's cinematography is how he and the directors decided to shoot in both black-and-white and Technicolor, similar to how "The Wizard of Oz" had done it a few years prior. It was really fascinating to see how the team decided to utilize the black-and-white techniques for the heaven sequences because it definitely was off-putting to the audiences. When I first viewed the film, I had thought they were flashbacks as we saw one of Peter's co-pilots, but then it caught me in a loop when witnessing that it wasn't flashbacks that were in black-and-white. It was Heaven, did anyone expect that? I certainly didn't.
There were also quite of few usages of dolly shots, which definitely were incorporated when filming the sequences with the stairway to heaven. It was a very clever technique and one that definitely wouldn't have worked otherwise. I thought it was slightly distracting when it first occurred, but as the film continued — it won me over. Of course, there was also the frequent use of close-ups and extreme close-ups, especially in the first sequence of "A Matter of Life and Death" with the call between Peter and June, prior to him jumping out of the aircraft without the parachute.
The usages of wide shots were very fascinating too, especially when the sequence would freeze as Peter would have his visions. The visions would also involve shots going backwards and used in a "Memento"-like style. The cinematography was really awe-inspiring here and my favorite shot of the film was when the camera zoomed out slowly to show that the amphitheater was as large as a spiral galaxy. Overall, the look and feel of "A Matter of Life and Death" really blew me away and it was incredible to see the visions of each member involved with the crew brought to life in such a magical feeling that leaves you in awe.
