A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven). 1946. UK. Written and directed by Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger. With David Niven, Kim Hunter. Restored in 2017 in 4K by Sony Pictures Entertainment from the original Technicolor 3-strip picture negative. Digital image restoration by L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna. Additional restoration by MTI Film. Audio restoration by Deluxe Audio. Color grading, conforming, DCP creation at Deluxe Culver City. 104 min.
Moments before his plane crashes, RAF pilot Peter Carter (Niven) makes radio contact with an American operator named June. When the heavenly conductor dispatched to Earth to retrieve him gets lost in the thick fog over the English Channel, Peter awakes having cheated death, and he quickly falls for June. From that point, he is suspended between Heaven and Earth—and between black-and-white and Technicolor. This was a breakthrough film for Powell, who remarked, “From then on, there was no more realism in films, only surrealism.” The design centerpiece of the film is Alfred Junge’s spectacular stairway to Heaven.