BENEDICTION
****
Director: Terence Davies
Screenwriter: Terence Davies
Principal cast:
Jack Lowden
Peter Capaldi
Simon Russell Beale
Jeremy Irvine
Kate Phillips
Calam Lynch
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 137 mins.
Australian release date: 9 June 2022.
After the magnificent A Quiet Passion, released in Australia in 2017, veteran English director Terence Davies has chosen to cover the life of another acclaimed, tortured poet in his latest work. In his last film, it was the American poet Emily Dickson who was the subject of his lens and pen; this time it’s the great British war poet Siegfried Sassoon in Benediction. When Davies was approached by the British Film Institute in 2015 to direct and write a film about Sassoon, he admits he didn’t know a lot about him. “Only when I started reading about his life, did I realize what a huge subject it was,” he concedes. So how could I write it and make sense of it? All within a two-hour film. There was so much to shape - and so much to lose. I thought the best idea was to concentrate on those things that interested me. I didn’t know Sassoon was gay, nor that he had converted to Catholicism. Being an ex-Catholic, that was quite a shock for me.” As a result, Benediction has autobiographical elements running through it and keen-eyed viewers will see where Davies has, in part, drawn on his own life experiences for his screenplay. The film’s producer, Michael Elliott, agrees, saying, “I think there’s a lot of Terence’s personality in this film. You know there are touchstones for him there - Sassoon’s sexuality and his conversion to Catholicism. You could see that the combination of Terence telling [Sassoon’s] story was an interesting thing. It felt like fertile ground for Terence - and it feels quite autobiographical in a way in this adaptation.”
The film begins in London in 1914, shortly before Siegfried (Jack Lowden when he’s young, Peter Capaldi when he’s aged) and his brother Hamo (Thom Ashley) enlist for duty in the First World War. We are then quickly transported to the trenches of the Western Front, where Sassoon’s bravery earnt him a Military Cross but also opened his eyes to the horrors of war. After returning to England to be treated for “trench fever,” he declined to go back to active service, his anti-war feelings having developed during his convalescence. Instead, he wrote a declaration to his commanding officer, saying, “I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest.” It was a bombshell because the poet was already well-known, so the Army decided to silence him rather than court-martial him, thus they diagnosed him with ‘shell-shock’ and sent him to a psychiatric hospital. Davies intersperses these scenes with shockingly graphic real-life footage of the death and destruction on the battlefield while Sassoon’s evocative poetry is read out over the images. It’s extremely moving and goes a long way to explain the profound and on-going effect the war had on the poet; he was haunted by what he had seen. The latter part of Benediction is taken up with Sassoon’s post-war life and loves, especially his affairs with actor/entertainer Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine) and ‘Bright Young Thing’ Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch) and, ultimately, his marriage to Hester Gatty (Kate Phillips when Hester is young, Gemma Jones when older). As Davies puts it, “He did what lots of gay men did back then - they got married. I think he genuinely thought ‘The love of a good woman could cure me.’”
In writing Benediction (a pun for a poet? Good wording?), Davies has taken an episodic approach to the biography because, as he explained in the earlier quote, it was “a huge subject.” Sassoon knew everyone that mattered in London, especially those involved in the world of arts and letters, tried his hand at many things and lived to the ripe old age of 80, so it would have been a daunting task deciding what to leave in and what to leave out. As a result, some episodes are treated in depth, others more lightly, and this is problematic when dealing with Sassoon’s finding of faith and his conversion to Catholicism; not helped by the fact that he became very taciturn in later life. The motivation for his separation and divorce from Hester is a mystery, too.
Production-wise, as in all of Davies’ films, the art direction and costumes, sets and locations, are all superb, ensuring that the audience is immersed in Sassoon’s milieu. Cinematographer Nicola Daley learnt her trade at the Australian Film, TV and Radio School, training under Aussie DoPs Andrew Lesnie and Peter James, and she’s in top form here. She’s mainly made documentaries and shorts prior to Benediction but her work on this film guarantees that there will be many more features to follow. The lighting is warm and glows in autumnal shades; her camera barely moves, capturing the action in long, slow takes, each wide-screen image suitable for framing. It is a beautiful-looking film.
Judging by Davies’ take on the man on display in Benediction, Siegfried Sassoon suffered from PTSD as a result of his war service. Of course, this diagnosis was yet to be classified in the period in which he lived but, despite times of happiness, his was a sad life. He was the victim of a double tragedy: the suffering stemming from being a sensitive soul brutalised by a terrible war and the suffering stemming from being a gay man at a time when to act on his sexuality was a criminal offense - gay men had to live their lives “in the shade.” The director opines that Sassoon was constantly seeking redemption but, tragically, never found it “because you can’t find redemption in anyone or anything. You have to find it in yourself.” Regrettably, that was the one place he never looked.
Screenwriter: Terence Davies
Principal cast:
Jack Lowden
Peter Capaldi
Simon Russell Beale
Jeremy Irvine
Kate Phillips
Calam Lynch
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 137 mins.
Australian release date: 9 June 2022.
After the magnificent A Quiet Passion, released in Australia in 2017, veteran English director Terence Davies has chosen to cover the life of another acclaimed, tortured poet in his latest work. In his last film, it was the American poet Emily Dickson who was the subject of his lens and pen; this time it’s the great British war poet Siegfried Sassoon in Benediction. When Davies was approached by the British Film Institute in 2015 to direct and write a film about Sassoon, he admits he didn’t know a lot about him. “Only when I started reading about his life, did I realize what a huge subject it was,” he concedes. So how could I write it and make sense of it? All within a two-hour film. There was so much to shape - and so much to lose. I thought the best idea was to concentrate on those things that interested me. I didn’t know Sassoon was gay, nor that he had converted to Catholicism. Being an ex-Catholic, that was quite a shock for me.” As a result, Benediction has autobiographical elements running through it and keen-eyed viewers will see where Davies has, in part, drawn on his own life experiences for his screenplay. The film’s producer, Michael Elliott, agrees, saying, “I think there’s a lot of Terence’s personality in this film. You know there are touchstones for him there - Sassoon’s sexuality and his conversion to Catholicism. You could see that the combination of Terence telling [Sassoon’s] story was an interesting thing. It felt like fertile ground for Terence - and it feels quite autobiographical in a way in this adaptation.”
The film begins in London in 1914, shortly before Siegfried (Jack Lowden when he’s young, Peter Capaldi when he’s aged) and his brother Hamo (Thom Ashley) enlist for duty in the First World War. We are then quickly transported to the trenches of the Western Front, where Sassoon’s bravery earnt him a Military Cross but also opened his eyes to the horrors of war. After returning to England to be treated for “trench fever,” he declined to go back to active service, his anti-war feelings having developed during his convalescence. Instead, he wrote a declaration to his commanding officer, saying, “I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest.” It was a bombshell because the poet was already well-known, so the Army decided to silence him rather than court-martial him, thus they diagnosed him with ‘shell-shock’ and sent him to a psychiatric hospital. Davies intersperses these scenes with shockingly graphic real-life footage of the death and destruction on the battlefield while Sassoon’s evocative poetry is read out over the images. It’s extremely moving and goes a long way to explain the profound and on-going effect the war had on the poet; he was haunted by what he had seen. The latter part of Benediction is taken up with Sassoon’s post-war life and loves, especially his affairs with actor/entertainer Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine) and ‘Bright Young Thing’ Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch) and, ultimately, his marriage to Hester Gatty (Kate Phillips when Hester is young, Gemma Jones when older). As Davies puts it, “He did what lots of gay men did back then - they got married. I think he genuinely thought ‘The love of a good woman could cure me.’”
In writing Benediction (a pun for a poet? Good wording?), Davies has taken an episodic approach to the biography because, as he explained in the earlier quote, it was “a huge subject.” Sassoon knew everyone that mattered in London, especially those involved in the world of arts and letters, tried his hand at many things and lived to the ripe old age of 80, so it would have been a daunting task deciding what to leave in and what to leave out. As a result, some episodes are treated in depth, others more lightly, and this is problematic when dealing with Sassoon’s finding of faith and his conversion to Catholicism; not helped by the fact that he became very taciturn in later life. The motivation for his separation and divorce from Hester is a mystery, too.
Production-wise, as in all of Davies’ films, the art direction and costumes, sets and locations, are all superb, ensuring that the audience is immersed in Sassoon’s milieu. Cinematographer Nicola Daley learnt her trade at the Australian Film, TV and Radio School, training under Aussie DoPs Andrew Lesnie and Peter James, and she’s in top form here. She’s mainly made documentaries and shorts prior to Benediction but her work on this film guarantees that there will be many more features to follow. The lighting is warm and glows in autumnal shades; her camera barely moves, capturing the action in long, slow takes, each wide-screen image suitable for framing. It is a beautiful-looking film.
Judging by Davies’ take on the man on display in Benediction, Siegfried Sassoon suffered from PTSD as a result of his war service. Of course, this diagnosis was yet to be classified in the period in which he lived but, despite times of happiness, his was a sad life. He was the victim of a double tragedy: the suffering stemming from being a sensitive soul brutalised by a terrible war and the suffering stemming from being a gay man at a time when to act on his sexuality was a criminal offense - gay men had to live their lives “in the shade.” The director opines that Sassoon was constantly seeking redemption but, tragically, never found it “because you can’t find redemption in anyone or anything. You have to find it in yourself.” Regrettably, that was the one place he never looked.