TimR

Well, I don't want to upset you, Stevie....

But...

I must admit I thought they were hallucinations as well......

I would rather they were not, so if I am wrong, I will gladly admit my mistake.

Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you

penfold

But it doesn't explain the sudden reappearance of the book, and the judge being the double of the surgeon Carter never sees...PnP, as in Blimp on occasion, like to leave things.....a matter of opinion. TimR, if you would like a good background on this great film, get hold of Ian Christie's monograph on it in the BFI's Film Classic series.. BFI Filmstore Individual Film Guides It's particularly good on the sources, and the Shakespearean, Miltonian aspects of it.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Steve Crook

To say nothing of the other repeated character. Kathleen Byron plays the Angel in "the other place". But she's also the one that holds the garage door open for Doc Reeves.

Some people have suggested that like The Wizard of Oz, all the characters in "the other place" are people that Peter Carter knew on earth.

Other people have suggested that Peter is struggling to avoid the rigid bureaucracy that we see there.

But that all misses the vital point that Peter never gets to the top of the escalator. Or not where we see him do so. Although he does describe quite a lot about the organisation there to Doc Reeves (who then tells the American doctor about it). But Peter might have heard that second hand from Conductor 71.

And is that "rigid bureaucracy" so terrible? It's only the reception area. Do we judge a city by its airport?

The American airmen led by Bonar Colleano make a big fuss, have a coca cola, sign in, get their wings and then they walk through a doorway. As they walk through the door that we never see through - leading into heaven itself we assume and one of the city boys, who's been quite brash up until then says "Home was never like this" and the quiet country boy says in a lovely mid-west twang "Mine was" <sob>

Steve

penfold

Are you sure about this???....I'm assuming you mean when he's wheeling his bike into the rain that last fateful ride - I'm pretty sure that's his previously seen Housekeeper.....

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

TimR

I just read through that - it appears clear that it was supposed to be an elaborate hallucination. Otherwise, why would P&P go through all the trouble of following closely some very specific - and unique - medical details?

Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you

Steve Crook

Yes, watch again - closely
She's only lit by flashes of lightning, but it's Kathleen. She's also briefly visible in the doorway of the study when they're getting ready to go to the hospital. The housekeeper June speaks to on the phone has quite a different face

Steve

Steve Crook

Because they went to some amazingly detailed trouble for things that you hardly notice on first viewing - and also because they could take that much time and trouble. As Diane mentions in her paper, Michael Powell's father in law was a surgeon in the team run by Archibald McIndoe at East Grinstead. They dealt with all the severe physical traumas of the second world war, particularly pilots who had been badly burned. They pioneered a lot of amazing techniques to do with early reconstructive surgery and plastic surgery. As well as the physical damage they also had to deal with psychological damage to the young men. It was while Micky was talking to Joe Reidy about various injuries that Joe came out with the phrase about things moving in time, but not in space, which led to Conductor 71's ability to stop time.

Emeric was also a great researcher and he found another source of information about olfactory and optical hallucinations caused by clots on the brain in A Journey Round My Skull by Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy. The narrator wittily & ironically recounts the onset of hallucinations and the brain operations he had to get rid of them. Often without anaesthetic so he could experience somebody prodding around inside his head!

For another example of the care they took over the smallest of details, watch the scene where Conductor 71 goes down to earth to collect Peter from the operating table. Then watch carefully as they all walk into the ante-room where June is waiting. They walk straight through a glass panelled door! It's done so well and so beautifully that most people don't notice it. But then try to figure out how long it would have taken them to create that effect which is only on screen for about 5 seconds and that most people won't notice

Steve

TimR

Seeing the whole film is only a hallucination does change my view of it. Still a very fine film, of course, but I don't usually like films that portray transcendent experiences as merely hallucinations. Disappointing.

Must think about it....

Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you

Steve Crook

I don't understand why you're so sure it's all just a hallucination.
Diane's work just offers one possible reason. And she is mainly interested in discovering the accuracy of the description and diagnosis of a medical condition that would have only been recognised by a handful of people in 1946.

Steve

rskershaw

I saw Scorcese's 'Cape Fear' again last night. The deliberate artificiality of many scenes presumably was homage to P&P and/or maybe the original film? Also scenes fading into a screen of blank primary colours reminded me of P&P, particularly "The Red Shoes".

And what's all this about me having me leg off?

Steve Crook

When Canterbury Christ Church University opened their new Film & TV building, called "The Powell Building" of course, one of the guests of honour was Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese's multiple Oscar winning editor and Michael Powell's widow (Scorsese introduced them)

Thelma gave us an illustrated talk on the influence of P&P in Scorsese's films. She started by saying that she'd asked Marty which were the best examples and he'd said that their influences are all over his films. But he doesn't copy anything from them, it's more subtle than that. It's because he knows P&P's films so well that they influence a lot of what he does. Of course they're not his only influence, but they are a major one.

Marty's at the top of the list of Famous Fans of P&P

Steve

Third Man

I've found A Matter of Life and Death works better for me from the premise that Powell and Pressburger were asked to make a film by the Ministry of Information with the mandate of protecting the relationship and goodwill between Britain and the USA.

As with the medical condition I see basically everything in one world - where Peter is gravely ill, is reflected in another world with a large dollop of irony, the filmmakers must of had a lot of fun making this film.

This film can be dissected to many thousands of pieces and looked at under a microscope for years to come and film scientists would still come out with different answers a multitude of hypothesis and conjecture and all come up with different answers because there is no one absolute in this film, why try and narrow such a wonderful film down to one explanation when its possibilities are endless, it's like taking a walk in The Elysian Fields.

Simon

TimR

I came to that conclusion based on your post about the medical info. I think what it comes down to is that I am thoroughly confused.

Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you

Steve Crook

Oh, sorry about that. I didn't mean that post make you reach any positive conclusion one way or the other. But there's no need for confusion either, just leave it as ambiguous

It's really more like Schrödinger's cat. Peter could be imagining it all due to his medical condition, or it might have all really happened. Or maybe he died when he jumped and all of this is just what he wished happened.

The film leaves it ambiguous and you can either plump for one answer or another, or leave it as ambiguous. Not everything has to be neatly resolved

Steve

batman

I would say it was P&P related, IMHO the original has a production style that is far from artificial.

I wish I had claws.