Talk:A Matter of Life and Death (film)

message: Does anyone know if and when this film is slated for release on DVD?  It's a classic and one of Niven's finest perfomances. -- Jason Palpatine 01:53, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Check the "Coming soon on DVD" on my page of all Powell & Pressburger films on DVD or tape. We've been hearing rumours about a Region 1 DVD release of AMOLAD since April 2003. Still no definite word on it though. It is available on Region 2 DVD (PAL format) if you can play those. SteveCrook 07:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

text: That's the cover of the Region 2 DVD mentioned above. It's still eagerly awaited on a Region 1 DVD for the Americans that can't play Region 2 DVDs -- SteveCrook 02:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: DVD

message: I'm not sure, but I think June can be called during the trial because she fell asleep in the "real" world. Can somebody verify this? Clarityfiend 07:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Conductor 71 put her to sleep to make her available for the trial - SteveCrook 22:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  I wanted to add that to the plot. Clarityfiend 03:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: June

message: I removed the "cused by fall from plane" line, before finding a reference  which reminds us that:
:Diagnosis proposed by physician in the film: "chronic adhesive arachnoiditis (from concussion two years earlier) affecting the olfactory nerve." Dr Reeves says he saw this condition at the l'Hopital de la Pitie in Paris. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tagishsimon (talk • contribs) 00:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, that word was a flyer; but I seem to recall that the urgency of the operation was based on the likelihood that the condition would degenerate. AMOLAD was on the telly a few days ago. Excellent stuff. And yes, A Matter of Fried Onions  is an interesting read. --Tagishsimon (talk)
Tagishsimon, I have to query that last change about Peter & June not falling in love until after Conductor 71's mistake. It's due to the mistake by Conductor 71 that they met and fell deeper in love which made Peter more determined not to leave her. But as part of his defence he says "We fell in love before we'd ever met". When he's being questioned by Farlan, just after the "enamoured" gag. Sorry to be pedantic and I don't want to put anyone off contributing anything to this or any other article. But it is my favourite film. After hundreds of viewings I'm still in tears every time I see it. Peter's argument was more that despite being in love with June (or her voice and what she said) he was ready to die whe he jumped. But because of Conductor 71's mistake he survived the jump and met June. They had some time together and now it would be more cruel to split them up. -- SteveCrook 03:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm happy to bow to your analysis of this, Steve. Para 3 of the spoiler also mentions him falling in love. Perhaps we should make changes to state he falls in love in P1, and further in love in P3. You or I can re-edit it later; but I have to go to work now. Oh, and FWIW, I wonder if we should / could add some more info on the "other place" ... Trubshaw (?) does not get a look in in our explanation, and we might be able to say something about the record keeping &c.  --Tagishsimon (talk)
I asked Diane Friedman, the lady that wrote the "A Matter of Fried Onions" article and she says that even though it's causing him more and more problems, Peter's problem shouldn't be called degenerative. She suggests we use the phrase "a rapidly progressing brain injury" because the origin is amiguous. Diane is an advanced-practice nurse from Illinois specialising in neurology and sleep disorders and is very interested in treament of trauma, epilepsy and other brain related problems. We could add a whole other section about the accuracy of the medical references that Diane has identified. They show that Powell & Pressburger really did their homework. Sometimes for things that are only on screen very briefly but are medically accurate and would only have been known by a few people in 1946.
The article could do with a whole lot of other work. What about Dr. Reeves, Abraham Farlan, Conductor 71, they could all do with more explanation and description. What about the naked goat herd, the Americans rehearsing A Midsummer Night's Dream, Dr. Reeves' diagnosis, Conductor 71's stopping time? The poetry, the metaphysical discussions, the staircase, the "other place".
The trouble is that I love the film so much and it hits me right in the emotions so I find it hard to write about it in a neutral way. -- SteveCrook 11:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cause of the head injury

message: If there was a dead crewmate aboard the bomber, why didn't Peter just take his parachute? Clarityfiend 08:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question. Bob Trubshaw (?), the dead navigator, turns up in the other place and hangs around waiting for Carter; and specifies that he knew (once dead) that Carter's 'chute was shot-up. I can't recall Trubshaw offering an explanation for Carter not nicking Trubshaw's parachute. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Parachute

message: If the character of June is taken as being the same age as the actress Kim Hunter (born 1922), it makes her 22 years old when the film is set. As, according to the conductor, she is to live until she is 97, she is still alive today and will pass away in 2020.
I know some people don't like trivia sections, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who would find this both interesting and charming - any thoughts? fizzybrain 87.81.62.83 (talk) 17:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's interesting to those of us that love the film. But I don't think it's of enough general interest to include it. Shame she died in 2002, aged 79 -- SteveCrook (talk) 23:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trivia - is this interesting? 

message: Ah, I see now why you put them in blockquotes Ed. The Salwolke book is full of errors . I'll try to find the original quotes or passages that he copied from (and see if he got them right) -- SteveCrook (talk) 19:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be great - I got the quote second hand through the TCM article.  Information on IMDB about the number of steps on the escaltor contradicts what Salwokle wrote, but since it came from the IMDB Trivia section and was unattributed, I went with the citable material.  Please feel free to correct, dissect and unquote! Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 20:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I put the trivia item in the IMDb - and I got it from the Eric Warman book which has a photo of the escalator and quite a bit more information about it. I think it's more the case that Salwolke contradicts what everyone else wrote :) -- SteveCrook (talk) 00:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's great, since they're your words, you can use them verbatim again!  I would have done that, since they were just fine as is, but wanted to avoid copyvio.  Excellent. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 01:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blockquote 

message: "In 2004, A Matter of Life and Death was named the second greatest British film ever made by the magazine Total Film in a poll of 25 film critics,[1] behind only Get Carter."
There is only one first place, if you come second, so to say "behind only Get Carter" (my emphasis) is superfluous.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.148.235.4 (talk) 12:33, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  In 2004, A Matter of Life and Death was named the second greatest British film ever made, etc. 

message: So that's what ultimately happened to the crazed nun. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Check the release dates. Kathleen was an angel before she was a crazed nun. Maybe she was a fallen angel? :)  -- SteveCrook (talk) 06:28, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Nunsense. In the "real" world, Black Narcissus gives the impression of being set in the British Raj before the Second World War. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:48, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: But neither of them are in the "read world"  :)  -- SteveCrook (talk) 08:06, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Kathleen Byron

message: The 'Budget' section in the Template:Infobox_film says that it should be "the approximate production budget of the film. This is the cost of the actual filming, and does not include marketing/promotional costs". The £320K was the initial budget allocated to the film. There aren't any reports of it going wildly over-budget so I suspect that the £650K quoted from the book about Rank films is what it cost Rank, including the cost of being the first Royal Command Film and all of the initial advertising, possibly including distribution costs at home and abroad -- SteveCrook (talk) 16:10, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Budget

message: For us completists - according to this page, the last Lancaster raid of WW2 (possibly talking only of the European theatre) was the night of 25 April 1945, on a synthetic oil plant at Tonsberg, Norway. The page (based on a DSO citation for the commander of the plane, then FO John Wainwright, 463 Squadron) says that the plane was hit by a JU-88 fighter and safely landed in Sweden.
Skeptic12 (talk) 00:12, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Last Lancaster raid of the War IRL 

message: Is the escalator to heaven in Tom & Jerry short Heavenly Puss an homage to this one, or are they both referencing a common trope?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.114.154.111 (talk) 05:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've always thought that was just a common trope. A "Stairway to heaven" is a very common idea used in things like Pilgrim's Progress and many other tales. I usually say that if it doesn't have the statues then it isn't a reference to this film. Many things do have the statues like The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964) with a Staircase to Heaven with statues (of cats) on either side. Or like Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991) with statues on the stairway (including statues of Powell & Pressburger) when Bill & Ted go to heaven with Death. Or even like "The Simpsons: Bart Gets Hit by a Car" (#2.10) (1991) with Bart on the Stairway to Heaven (with statues) or "The Simpsons: Homer's Triple Bypass" (#4.11) (1992) and also "Homer Simpson In - Kidney Trouble" (#10.8) (1998) with a view through a closing eye. There's a list of all the references to P&P films that I know of at  -- SteveCrook (talk) 18:34, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tom & Jerry 

message: I feel sure that this article used to contain information about differences between the British and American releases of the film. What happened to this? DuncanHill (talk) 21:04, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Differences between British and American releases 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on A Matter of Life and Death (film). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121002162748/http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/919/year/1986.html to http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/919/year/1986.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120913061654/http://movies.yahoo.com:80/movie/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-2/trailers/harry-potter-wizard-s-collection-blu-ray-clip-favorite-films-30552052.html to http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-2/trailers/harry-potter-wizard-s-collection-blu-ray-clip-favorite-films-30552052.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:43, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've removed :Category:Depictions of Muhammad. A bust seen in passing is not much of a "depiction" IMO. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:49, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not "a bust seen in passing". It's a full sized statue with his name on the plinth. But it correctly doesn't show his face -- SteveCrook (talk) 02:09, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I stand corrected, but it's still too trivial for a category IMO. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:18, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll agree with that  :) -- SteveCrook (talk) 02:23, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Busted categorization 

message: I have deleted the link to the illicit hosting of this British film on Internet Archive. Michael Powell did not die until 1990, so UK copyright subsists until the end of 2060. As a non-US film still under copyright in its country of origin on 1 January 1996, it is protected in the US for 95 years after publication, so to the end of 2041. Nick Cooper (talk) 23:10, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright status 

message: When young Richard Attenborough says "It's heaven isn't it". Does he mean that the place is "Heaven" or does he really mean that it's heavenly, using it as an adjective rather than a noun? The producers generally took pains never to refer to "the other place" as Heaven, as they felt that was restrictive. What do other Wikipedians think? -- SteveCrook (talk) 13:51, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Heaven, with a capital haitch IMO. The phrasing indicates he believes he's in God's country. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:42, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heaven or heavenly?