Roger Livesey goes to heaven.

Regular Shadowplayer Alex Livingstone nominates this classic sequence from Powell & Pressburger's A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (AMOLAD for short), which ably shows off Pressburger's superb story construction (one thing Powell definitely needed help with), Roger Livesey's authoritative-but-loveable performance, Jack Cardiff;s cinematography (with Christopher Challis shooting second unit on the bike crash) and oh, many many other things. Alex wrote:

i nominate the bit in a matter of life and death where roger livesey crashes his motorcycle and dies, only to turn up in heaven and save the day. i can’t watch it without my breathing getting disrupted - i always wind up gasping and a bit wet-eyed, as if i’ve stuck my head into a supermarket freezer and inhaled really hard

on a more puerile note, when marius goring meets roger livesey for the first time he makes a little noise of agreement like someone honking a clown’s nose

Into each film some rain must fall, and I would regretfully note that Bob Arden's scene in the ambulance with Kim Hunter is maybe one of only two ropey performances in P&P's oeuvre -- but hey, he's in good company, the other is Laurence Olivier in FORTY-NINTH PARALLEL as a French-Canadian trapper with what sounds like a Pakistani accent. It's a cameo that makes P&P fan David Mamet thank God that Olivier was prevented from starring in THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (because Winston Churchill didn't approve of the script).

Arden was later thrilled to be cast in MR ARKADIN by no less than Orson Welles (according to my friend Lawrie Knight, a drinking buddy of Arden's), then less than thrilled when the film took years to open in the UK, and even less than less than thrilled when his own performance in it was singled out for unflattering comment. But Arden is arguably effective in that role: for whatever reason, Welles seemes to have aimed to make Arden's character as unappealing as possible, and he exploits all Arden's worst qualities, both physical and performaive, to do it.

Arden never became a star, but he earned a regular living playing Americans in British films for the rest of his days.

Roger Livesey is terrific in THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, but really he owes Powell his place in cinema. Nobody else would cast him at first -- extraordinarily, they didn't like his voice.

Lawrie didn't really have warm memories of Livesey. When they met, Lawrie was a junior assistant on AMOLAD and Livesey asked him what he'd done in the war. When Lawrie said he was in the air force, Livesey 'sort of made a face, and said "That explains it."'

Lawrie never knew what was behind this hostility, but I just found out. Good old Wikipedia:

At the outbreak of World War II, Livesey and Jeans were among the first volunteers to entertain the troops before he volunteered for flying duties in the R.A.F. He was turned down as too old, so he went to work in an aircraft factory at Desford aerodrome near Leicester to "do his bit for the war effort".

The rejection must have rankled! Poor Roger. But that failure to attain active service is what made him available to star in COLONEL BLIMP, and thence to IKWIG and AMOLAD. And thence to immortality.

More suggestions for pulse-pounding, spine-tingling moments of cinematic greatness will be cheerfully received.

Οι Iron Maiden είναι ένα heavy metal μουσικό συγκρότημα από την Αγγλία. Είναι από τους δημοφιλέστερους εκπροσώπους του heavy metal και ειδικά του New Wave Of British Heavy Metal παγκοσμίως για πάνω από 25 χρόνια. Κομμάτια όπως το The Τrooper, Number of the Beast, Fear of the Dark, Run to the Hills και Hallowed be Thy Name αποτελούν ιστορικές στιγμές όχι μόνο για το metal αλλά και γενικά για την rock σκηνή. Στο ενεργητικό τους έχουν πολλές πρωτιές σε εμπορικό επίπεδο αλλά έχουν βραβευτεί πολλές φορές και από κριτικούς αλλά και από το κοινό.

Ιστορία

Δημιουργήθηκαν το 1975 από τον Steve Harris (μπάσο) ο οποίος μαζί με τον Dave Murray (κιθάρα) είναι και τα μόνα μέλη που παραμένουν μέχρι σήμερα στην σύνθεση της μπάντας. Το όνομά τους προέρχεται από τη Σιδηρά κόρη της Νυρεμβέργης, ένα όργανο βασανισμού. Ο πρώτος τραγουδιστής της μπάντας ήταν ο Paul Di Anno ο οποίος και είχε μια εντονότερη αίσθηση πανκ, από τον μετέπειτα αντικαταστάτη του Bruce Dickinson, του οποίου οι φωνητικές ικανότητες έδωσαν πραγματικά σημαντική ώθηση στις συνθέσεις του συγκροτήματος. Πολύ αργότερα ο Ντίκινσον αντικαταστάθηκε από τον Μπλέιζ Μπέιλι για κάποιο διάστημα. Στο συγκρότημα επέστρεψαν το 1999 ο Bruce Dickinson και ο Adrian Smith.

Δισκογραφία

* 1979: The Soundhouse Tapes
* 1980: Iron Maiden + Bonus Disc
* 1980: Live!! + 1
* 1980: Metal For Muthas Vol 1 (Reissue-2000)
* 1981: Killers + Bonus Disc
* 1982: The Number of the Beast (A-Remastered-1998) + Bonus Disc
* 1983: Piece of Mind + Bonus Disc
* 1984: Powerslave + Bonus Disc
* 1985: Live After Death (2CD) + Bonus Disc
* 1986: Somewhere in Time + Bonus Disc
* 1988: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son + Bonus Disc
* 1990: No Prayer for the Dying + Bonus Disc
* 1992: Fear of the Dark + Bonus Disc
* 1992: Live At Donnington (2CD)
* 1993: A Real Dead One
* 1993: A Real Live One
* 1995: The X Factor
* 1996: Best Of The Beast (2CD)
* 1998: In Profile
* 1998: Virtual XI
* 1999: Ed Hunter (2CD)
* 2000: Brave New World
* 2002: Eddie's Archive-Beast Over Hammersmith (2CD)
* 2002: Eddie's Archive-BBC Archives (2CD)
* 2002: Eddie's Archive-Best Of The B΄Sides (2CD)
* 2003: Edward The Great
* 2003: Dance of Death
* 2004: Rock In Rio (2CD)
* 2003: Dance Of Death
* 2005: Death On The Road (2CD)
* 2005: The Essential Iron Maiden (2CD)
* 2006: A Matter Of Life And Death
* 2006: The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
* 2006: Different World

Here, David cameos in his first ever film (as unit runner), GREGORY'S GIRL. More on this little beauty in Euphoria #32.

At our recent outing to SWEENEY TODD, I twisted David's arm and got him to think of some favourite film moments for this spot: scenes that create the kind of rosy glow and feeling of well-being that can be detected on Geiger counters.

To his great credit, the first title past David's lips was Powell & Pressburger's 1946 A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (or STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN, for those of you afflicted with an oceanic handicap). He subsequently volunteered several OTHER great suggestions, but we're keeping them for later. We veered back and forth between the rose and the table tennis scene, but I finally put my foot down and insisted on the rose, since I have more to say about it.

At this point I must hand over to my deceased friend Lawrie -- a fellow assistant director of David's, though of an earlier generation, present on the set as these sequences were shot.

'David Niven, you know had odd hands, like a labourer, so whenever there was a close-up of hands to be done, they would say, "Get Lawrie."'

(So that's Lawrie's hands we see holding the flask.)

'The line was written as, "One is so starved of colour up there," but we'd done several takes, and Marius Goring, who was one of the cleverest actors I ever knew, was bored, so he said, "One is so starved of Technicolor up there," and we all fell about laughing. He was just having fun, but Mickey [Powell] must have liked it.'

Sharp-eyed Shadowplayers will have spotted the fairly heavy lip-flap on that line: Goring's mouth movement's don't quite synch with what he's saying. My theory is that Powell must have decided he liked that improv later, but didn't have a good take of it, so he used a "straight" take and dubbed the sound in from Goring's ad-lib, or else got Goring in to post-synch the line.

Powell said that when he heard the audience laugh at that line, he knew there was no such thing as realism in the cinema. It's true, too. All films bear a purely allegorical relation to reality -- it may suit their purposes sometimes to strive for an illusion of "naturalism", but it may not. British cinema seems to have arrived at something close to a "house style" which is either faux-naturalism (Loach) or FAILED faux-naturalism (almost everyone else) and which excludes nearly everything that can be enchanting or exciting about film art. One could pretty easily draw up a Dogme 95 list of commandments for British film and see that nearly all of them tow the line. (Note to self: try this and see if you're talking crap.)

What else to say? Well, I purposely kept this clip long, because I just couldn't stop it. It's the same when I watch the film or show the opening to students. It takes a rare force of willpower to hit the STOP button. That's cinema.

But the moment that primarily concerns us is the transition from b&w to colour on the rose, and the line afterwards. When Pressburger first suggested mixing media in this way, Powell assumed that the earthly scenes would be monochromatic, with fantasy otherworld in colour, as in THE WIZARD OF OZ. Pressburger set him straight: "Look around you: the world is in colour, therefore it's Heaven that must be in black and white."

Les hele bandhistorien i kategorien 'Under Lupen'.

First things first; straight to brass tacks. The unsettling tale of the new pricing policy of the National Theatre's programmes continues to intrigue the luminaries of the Whingers Circle .

Regular readers will recall that the price of a programme on our last visit to the National to see Rafta Rafta had mysteriously dropped to £2 from the customary £3 (the price of the chocolate, the ice cream and the wine sadly remaining unaffected).

Happily the equilibrium of the universe seems to have been restored and the price of the programme last night was again three of your puny earth decimal pounds. And that is the most important thing we have to report.

More? OK. For the third outing in as many weeks, the Whingers sat stony-faced (Andrew's face looks like a collapsed pile of loose chippings anyway and Phil's resembles something rejected from Easter Island) while many around them roared with delight. First there was Hound of the Baskervilles, then Vernon God Little and now A Matter of Life and Death.

This production is based on the classic 1946 Powell & Pressburger movie, a particular favourite of both Whingers who consequently turned up at the National Theatre with the best wills in the world - a very rare experience for them.

AMOLAD (as Powell and Pressburger themselves referred to it) tells the tale of a young RAF pilot Peter (Tristan Sturrock) forced to bale out from a burning aircraft without a parachute. His last act is before he jumps to seemingly certain death is to flirt with June (Lyndsey Marshal), an air control girl he has never met. They fall in love.

He jumps but doesn't die - an administrative cock-up in heaven means that his fate has not been sealed and one of heaven's "conductors" is sent down to persuade him to come peacefully. Anyway, finding himself trapped between life and death he has to appeal to the heavenly authorities to stay alive. His main defence is that he has fallen in love, and that that changes everything.

It's a classic film and we are assuming that everyone is familiar with Damian Sutton's seminal work Rediagnosing A Matter of Life and Death in the learned journal Screen (2005 46(1):51-61). If not, this abstract should bring you up to speed:

Beginning with a new ‘diagnosis’ of epilepsy and Cotard's syndrome in Peter Carter, the article reviews the film as a narrative of trauma that uses its central character to work through the social issue of the returned (maimed) soldier to society. However, underlying this ‘rediagnosis’ is the treatment of time developed in analyses of both temporal lobe epilepsy and traumatic memory. The article suggests that both conditions act to expose the ordinary operation of past and present as simultaneous co-existence, developed theoretically by Henri Bergson and others, that we normally experience as the passing of time (chronology).

Anyway, in the hands of Kneehigh (and boomps-a-dasiy?) Theatre this sublime, very English film with its clever under-stylisation (heaven is portrayed in black and white; earth in colour) has been transformed into an all singing, all dancing, all fire-starting, all bed-flying extravaganza with some campanology thrown in for good measure.

The first few minutes begin promisingly enough with a vast and empty, blue-lit atmospheric stage, which the company couldn't wait to clutter up like a new Ikea cutlery draw.

An awful lot of beds, bicycles climbing frames and people were wheeled onto the Olivier stage - plus a band. Andrew had been very excited when he saw in the programme that one of the performers was named Andy Williams and was settling down for a bit of easy-listening (forgetting there is no easy-listening in the acoustically retarded Olivier auditorium). There was indeed a singer, but what's that? Rap music? Oh no. Oh yes! This is 1945. Of course.

Now there's one thing that's guaranteed to hoist their hackles: rap is not music to the Whinger's ears, in fact in the not-so-humble opinion of the Whingers it should never be used at all. It was one of the many reasons that forced them to make a hasty interval departure at the execrable Daddy Cool. To be fair, we had been tipped off about this by Sam London but we weren't prepared for the awfulness of the whole thing.

Things continued to be wheeled on, spun around, clipped to flying wires and unclipped again. Actors descended on wires and ropes, were clipped into flying harnesses and unclipped. Yes there was no shortage of clipping.

Some of the actors pranced around doing silly dances and gurning at the audience; they were meant to be hilarious.

Any touching dramatic moments were obliterated by redundant but intensely showy things going on, above, behind and around them. Noises and music which are presumably intended to underscore the story succeeded only in working against it - distracting from, rather than enhancing, the tale.

A particularly cruel gag was the projection of a clock onto a high circular screen which had Phil constantly glancing at his watch as well as serving to make him ponder that the few remaining minutes of his own life were ticking away while he sat through this travesty. It was such an unmitigated shambles it made the Young Vic's Vernon God Little look fluid and cohesive.

To be fair, the showiness is done very well (especially the bed fire) but Andrew just found himself asking "why?" repeatedly. The answer, presumably, is that this is what Kneehigh does. But quite how the spectacle of nurses bicycling upside down on hospital beds was supposed to enhance the story remained unclear to the Whingers.

What did rapidly become clear was that it would be A Matter of Stay or Leave. But removing the interval was probably the wisest artistic decision of the evening (do they know they have a stinker on their hands?). At 2 hours 15 minutes (P & P told the story in 104 minutes) it's very demanding on the bladder. The Whingers toughed it out although once again the couple next to Andrew couldn't quite hack it (Phil has his own theories on why this happens so frequently) and departed before the end despite being stuck in the middle of row B of the stalls.

The Whingers may have turned up with good will but as it finally dragged to a close Phil had lost the will to live. He'd also started mentally rewriting his will - the programme contains an appeal thoughtfully asking the Whingers to leave the National Theatre a legacy when they finally go to the great wine bar in the sky (does the National know something the Whingers don't?). Andrew is not sure what the outcome of Phil's reflections are, but he suspects that Mr Hytner is not destined to be the chief beneficiary of Phil's porcelain thimble collection after all.

In the film version when Conductor 71 (Marius Goring) first arrives on earth to visit Peter (David Niven) he comments: "One is starved for Technicolor up there". Two hours of this and we guarantee he would have changed his tune.

David Niven and Marius Goring in the film.