A Matter of Cultural Identity

     In Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946), a British airman, torn between life and the afterlife, falls in love with an American servicewoman. In order to gain more time with his newly found love, an “appeals trial,” of sorts, is held in order to grant a stay-of-execution on the young airman’s death. Central to the argument of the prosecution, the Continental Soldier Abraham Farlin, is that this Englishman is little more than a corrupting influence on the life of a young, Bostonian woman. The defense, personified by the airman’s friend, the late Dr. Frank Reeves, argues, in turn, that America and England are more alike than even the superficial and historical similarities.

“Does [a glass] break because it faulty or because it is glass?” The prosecution asks. “We are all as God made us,” he argues -- asserting that the difference between an American and an Englishman is as clear-cut as the difference between an American and a banana. Reeves is quick to point out the fallacy in this argument, in that Americans and Englishmen (in many cases) share a common ancestry. While it is not overtly messaged within the film itself, it is worth noting that, despite their geographical difference, most Colonial Americans considered themselves as British citizens. For these, Mr. Farlin’s ancestors, the delineation of nationality is slightly more muddled “Who experiences their child's conception and birth without dimly apprehending a combined connectedness, fortuity, and fatality in a language of 'continuity'?” (Anderson 51).

Farlin dismisses the point, arguing that if his ancestors were so loving of England, they’d have never become colonists in the first place. He asserts that England’s decline has only intensified in modern decades, playing a Radio broadcast of a dull, unbuttered, and dispassionate cricket commentator. Reeves ripostes with a boogie-woogie crooner, showcasing the apparent vulgarity and nonsense inherent in American culture. Both points are equally fallacious, however. Neither of these traits are inherent in either Puritanical America or over-indulgent Britain. Though Powell and Pressburger were not blessed with the foresight, one would wonder how each party would feel, in the coming decades, when England’s irreverent music would lead to a colloquial British “invasion,” while America, itself, was gripped in the throes of conservative McCarthyism. “Modern societies are therefore by definition societies of constant, rapid, and permanent change.” (Hall 599).