A Matter of Life and Death
Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger's WW2-set fantasy is one of the most imaginative and stirring films to emerge out of the post-war period, in which a British Royal Air Force pilot (David Niven) narrowly avoids death, and has to bargain for his life, which ends up being debated in an existential trial of sorts. Thoroughly romantic with its musings on love as the most potent force on Earth, the film fleets between gorgeous technicolour imagery of Earth and monochrome for the afterlife, making A Matter of Life and Death one of the most artistically diverse and revolutionary films of its time period, alongside The Wizard of Oz. If the film's aesthetic contributions are made clear, its historical and cultural influence is perhaps less known; in the years following its release, it was suggested that A Matter of Life and Death helped to nurture better public relations and sentiment between the British and the Americans, given that many Britons resented the U.S. for turning up late to the war. The film, which features a British pilot falling for and ending up with an American radio operator, was said to ease the strain between the two countries, and with its on-screen romance, posit a meeting of the hearts and minds between the UK and the US. And that's all she wrote for the film branch of this year's entries. Click "next" to see the first of two British film personalities to enter the Registry.