ABSTRACT
The parallel and interlinked worlds of the physical and the metaphysical have rarely been so adroitly woven together, making A Matter of Life and Death virtually a manifesto for the discipline of medical humanities. In North American terms, the film was made just before World War Two – that is to say, production took place during the early months of 1941 and it was released that August. So in A Matter of Life and Death, Reeves articulately explores what kinds of values were considered worth defending in World War Two, with a view to working out how to rebuild after it. Conversely, Doug Lee in Dive Bomber is a palimpsest presenting the processes that a country needs to undergo before a war. Regeneration was about a war that had less clear ideological ends; rather, the First World War has become culturally synonymous with a futility bordering on absurdity. MASH, was made when the USA was engaged in a war.
