Michael Sheen’s Favourite Film Is A Must-Watch For Good Omens Fans

Keep Your Eyes Peeled For Easter eggs…

Season two doubles down on both those themes, so it is hardly surprising to see that this season features several direct references to A Matter of Life and Death tucked away as Easter eggs, as well as references to other works by Powell and Pressburger. In fact, every single episode features some kind of reference to their films. On 4th August, Amazon will be releasing their X-Ray feature for Good Omens season two on Prime Video, which will allow viewers to look up each and every one of the over 200 Easter eggs of various kinds dotted throughout the show, including the Powell and Pressburger references. In the meantime, we’ll point out just a few of the most notable references to Powell and Pressburger, and to A Matter of Life and Death in particular.

The most prominent is the American poster for the film, which appears in the opening title sequence in the World War Two section, and which can also be seen directly behind Aziraphale when he is standing in Maggie’s record shop in episode two . In fact, the posters on sale in Maggie’s record shop are all for Powell and Pressburger films! Another nod to their other works turns up in the title of Episode 3, ‘I Know Where I’m Going’. This is named for another 1940s film from the pair, a romantic comedy set during World War Two about an Englishwoman going to Scotland, dealing with an ancient curse, and finding she does not want the things (or the people) she thought she wanted – very appropriate for an episode largely set in Scotland.

The deepest cut Easter egg, though, is the book Gabriel/Jim uses to test the force of gravity in the same episode. The book, Alexander Alekhine’s My Best Games of Chess 1908-1923, and specifically the edition of it that Gabriel repeatedly plonks down on the table, features prominently in A Matter of Life and Death. Conductor 71 borrows it from Peter after visiting him at his doctor’s house and promises to return it. The doctor’s house is stacked with books in the manner of a true book-lover and Peter, who has been playing chess, may have been reading it. After the Conductor’s visit, Peter tells June and Doctor Reeves (Roger Livesey) that his heavenly visitor has walked off with the book. They, convinced he is suffering from a brain injury, largely ignore this.

Without spoiling the movie too much, we do later see Conductor 71 return the book by flinging it down the heavenly staircase/elevator, and it appears in Peter’s coat pocket. It is a key aspect of the film’s refusal to confirm one way or another whether Peter is really fighting angels and the forces of Heaven to get another chance at life, or whether he is brain-damaged and hallucinating as a result of jumping out of a plane without a parachute, and needs surgery. (Or, perhaps most likely of all, both). Did Conductor 71 borrow the book and return it to Peter’s pocket? Or did Peter, who is of course suffering from a brain injury, put it in his pocket and forget where he left it? Like the spinning top in Inception, the film refuses to answer the question definitively.

In Good Omens, of course, despite the well known atheism of at least one of its writers (Terry Pratchett), there is no such ambiguity. If there is no Heaven, Hell, angels or demons, then there is no story here. But the appearance of the book as Gabriel/Jim desperately tries to understand the world around him is not a coincidence. It is a reminder of how uncertain we really are about what is actually going on in the world around us, of how mysterious the world can be, and how we can never really be quite sure of what is going on, even if we think we know where we’re going.

If you have never seen A Matter of Life and Death/Stairway to Heaven, we cannot recommend it highly enough. Even the court case, which becomes a conversation about British and American prejudices against each other in 1945, manages to be both compelling and amusing, and the rest of the film is a truly romantic, epic, sweeping love story in which we are reminded that, “as Sir Walter Scott is always saying, ‘Love is Heaven, and Heaven is Love’”.