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- Title
Rediagnosing A Matter of Life and Death.
- Authors
Sutton, Damian
- Abstract
The article focuses on the British motion picture "A Matter of Life and Death," and discusses various incidents during the making of the film. In a scene in the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's film, actors Roger Livesey and Kim Hunter play a game of table tennis whilst David Niven sleeps in another room. The striking sequence, shot by Jack Cardiff with a lemon filter to emphasize its otherworldly effect, came from an idea by Pressburger to illustrate how Niven's hallucination takes place "in space but not in time." The table tennis sequence is, of course, striking as a visual effect, as the game is stopped in mid-rally, and Niven walks up to the frozen Hunter and Livesey. However, this was not a chance illustration but a carefully organized one, Livesey and Hunter had to train for weeks with British Table Tennis champion Alan Brook, whilst various effects were tested to get the mixture of live and frozen action right. According to the author, the table tennis sequence is an uncanny illustration of the difference between the organization of time and our experience of it. The tick-tock sound of the ball as it is passed from player to player is abruptly stopped, ball in mid-air, as if a clock were stopped. Time itself appears to be interrupted and the present exists only as an internal experience.
- Subjects
MATTER of Life &; Death, A (Film); FILMMAKING; BRITISH films; POWELL, Michael; PRESSBURGER, Emeric, 1902-1988; FILM characters; HALLUCINATIONS &; illusions in motion pictures
- Publication
Screen, 2005, Vol 46, Issue 1, p51
- ISSN
0036-9543
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/screen/46.1.51