Peter Giordano – A Matter of Life and Death, October 2011

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (also called A STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN) is a film made at the very end of World War II. I’ve been thinking about it because it is a film about hope and love and it was made during one of the most violent times in human history.

For me the film resonates because it’s about the need to connect, the need to open our eyes and see how close we are to each other, to see not only that it’s a small world but it’s a small universe.

This film is also important to me and my family because it is one that we’ve shared together many times over the years. Once, when my lovely wife was heartbreakingly sad, I turned on the TV and there was this lovely film explaining to us that love and faith would see us through the hard times.

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN might be the most romantic movie ever made; it’s about how love blooms everywhere and all the time. It teaches us that even when we are facing the most drastic catastrophes we still have time for love. In CASABLANCA, another romantic movie made during the war, we’re warned that “it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” But STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN teaches us that we’re insane if we don’t fall in love in middle of all this craziness.

Here’s the opening of the film:
We are floating through space, Planets and stars fly around us.
“This is the universe.  Big, isn’t it?” a voice says as we fly; the voice has a calm and reassuring tone. “Thousands of suns, millions of stars, separated by immense distances and by thin floating clouds of gas. The starlight makes the gas transparent. Where there are no stars it appears as dark, obscuring clouds like that great black cone over there.

“Hello, there’s a nova. A whole solar system exploded. Someone must’ve been messing about with the uranium atom.
“No, it’s not our solar system, I’m glad to say.
“Ah, those are called a globular cluster of stars. Rather fine.
“Down here in the right-hand corner, see that little chap rather like a boy scout’s badge? It’s a mass of gas expanding at thousands of cubic miles a minute.”
We’re flying in closer to earth, free falling past the moon.
The voice continues. “Ah, here we are, we’re getting nearer home. The moon, our moon, in the first quarter, and here’s the Earth, our Earth, moving around in its place, part of the pattern, part of the universe.
“Reassuring, isn’t it?”
We’re now gliding over the globe; we see the familiar landmarks of Europe through the clouds. Then thunder and explosions and here’s that voice again,  “It’s night over Europe. The night of the 2nd May, 1945. That point of fire is a burning city.  It had a thousand-bomber raid an hour ago.”  We are closer to the explosions now. Suddenly we go over the English Channel.
“And here, rolling in over the Atlantic, is a real English fog.      I hope all our aircraft got home safely. Even the big ships sound frightened. Listen to all the noises in the air.”

The reassuring voice fades away and we hear the cacophony of radio sounds in the night air: Morse code signals, Churchill on the radio, French sailors pleading for help, American jazz, German radio messages. From the jumble of noises assaulting the ether, it is possible to separate the words of a girl calling anxiously into space:
“Request your position. Come in, Lancaster. Come in, Lancaster.”
We’re in a burning British bomber plane, with a fantastically vivid red-orange fire burning behind the pilot’s shoulder. He doesn’t seem to notice: he maintains a terrifying gentlemanly cheerfulness throughout the scene. His name is Peter and he’s played – of course – by David Niven and is nominally calling for help, although he seems to be talking to himself.

JUNE: Request your position, request your position, come in Lancaster, come in Lancaster
PETER: Position Nil, repeat nil, age 27, 27.  Did you get that? That’s very important. Education interrupted, violently interrupted. Religion church of England, Politics conservative by nature, labour by experience. What’s your name?
JUNE: I cannot read you, cannot read you, request your position, can you see our signals?
PETER: Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,  my staff of faith to walk upon,  my scrip of joy, immortal diet,  my bottle of salvation,  my gown of glory, hope’s true gage;and thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.   .Sir Walter Raleigh wrote that, I’d rather have written that than flown through Hitler’s legs.
JUNE: I cannot understand you, hello Lancaster, we are sending signals, can you see our signals? come in Lancaster, come in Lancaster,
flying noise
PETER: But at my back I always hear, times winged chariots hurrying near, and yonder all before us lie, deserts of vast eternity. Andy Marvel, What a Marvel. What’s your name?
JUNE: Are you receiving me? repeat are you receiving me? request your position. Come in Lancaster
PETER: You seem like a nice girl, I can’t give you my position, instruments gone, crew gone too, all except Bob here,  my sparks, he’s dead, the rest all bailed out on my orders time Oh three thirty-five, d’you get that?
JUNE: Crew bailed out Oh three thirty-five.
PETER: Station Warrenden bomber group A G George, send them a signal got that?
JUNE: Station Warrenden bomber group A apple G george.
PETER: They’ll be sorry about Bob we all liked him.
JUNE: Hello G George, Hello G George, are you all right? are you going to try to land, do you want a fix?
PETER: Name’s not G George it’s P Peter, Peter D Carter, D’s for David,  Squadron Leader Peter Carter. No I’m not going to land, undercarriage is gone, inner port’s on fire, I’m bailing out presently, I’m bailing out. ……Take a telegram.
JUNE: Got your message, received your message, we can hear you,
PETER: Telegram to my mother, Mrs Michael Carter, 88 Hamstead Lane, London North West.
JUNE: 88 Hamstead Lane, London
PETER: Tell her that I love her, you’ll have to write this for me but what I want her to know is, that I love her very much, that I’ve never shown it to her, not really, but that I’ve loved her always, right up to the end. Give my love to my two sisters too, don’t forget them
JUNE: Received your message, we can hear you, are you wounded? repeat are you wounded? Are you bailing out?
PETER: What’s your name?
JUNE: June
PETER: Yes June I’m bailing out, I’m bailing out but there’s a catch, I’ve got no parachute,
JUNE: Hello, hello Peter, do not understand, hello hello Peter, can you hear me?
PETER: Hello June, don’t be afraid its quite simple, we’ve had it and I’d rather jump than fry. After the first 1000 feet what’s the difference I shan’t know anything anyway, I say I hope I haven’t frightened you.
JUNE: No, I’m not frightened
PETER: Good Girl
JUNE: Your sparks you said he was dead, hasn’t he got a chute?
PETER: Cut to ribbons, cannon shell. June? Are you pretty?
JUNE: Not bad I …
PETER: Can you hear me as well as I can hear you?
JUNE: Yes
PETER: You’ve got a good voice, you’ve got guts too, its funny I’ve known dozens of girls,  I’ve been in love with some of them but its an American girl whom I’ve never seen and never shall see who’ll hear my last words, its funny, its  rather sweet. June, if you’re around when they pick me up, turn your head away
JUNE: Perhaps we can do something Peter, let me report it.
PETER: No, no one can help, only you. Let me do this in my own way. I want to be alone with you June. Where were you born?
JUNE: Boston
PETER: Mass?
JUNE: Yes
PETER: That’s a place to be born, history was made there. Are you in love with anybody, no, no don’t answer that.
JUNE: I could love a man like you Peter
PETER: I love you June, you’re life and I’m leaving you. Where do you live? On the station?
JUNE: No in a big country house about 5 miles from here, Lee Wood House
PETER: Old house?
JUNE: Yes very old,
PETER: Good I’ll be a ghost and come and see you, you’re not frightened of ghosts are you? It would be awful if you were.
JUNE: I’m not frightened.
PETER: What time will you be home?
JUNE: Well I’m on duty until 6, I have breakfast in the mess and then I have to cycle half an hour, I often go along the sands. …This is such nonsense.
PETER: No it not it’s the best sense I’ve ever heard.  I was lucky to get you June. Can’t be helped about the parachute, I’ll have my wings soon anyway, big white ones. I hope they haven’t gone all modern I’d hate to have a prop instead of wings. What do you think the next worlds like? I’ve got my own ideas
JUNE: Oh Peter
PETER: I think it starts where this one leaves off or where this one could leave off if we’d listened to Plato and Aristotle and Jesus. With all our little earthly problems solved but with greater ones worth the solving. I’ll know soon enough anyway. I’m signing off now June, goodbye, goodbye June
JUNE: Hello G for George, hello G George, hello G George, hello……….
Sobs….
In the burning cockpit Peter is clearly doomed. He climbs over his dead friend and prepares to jump into space.
PETER: So long Bob, I’ll see you in a minute. You know what we wear by now, prop or wings. He salutes Bob and jumps out of the plane without. He has no parachute.
This would be a great way to end a film, but it’s an even better way to begin one. To learn more about the film :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Matter_of_Life_and_Death_%28film%29

To see a clip of the opening: http://youtu.be/zM2c6q7g3Dw