Benediction
Jack Lowden embodies Siegfried Sassoon in another masterwork from Terence Davies, one of Britain’s finest directors.
Jack Lowden
In theory it would be natural to regard this film by Terence Davies as a companion piece to its immediate predecessor, 2016’s A Quiet Passion. That film after all was an outstanding portrait of the American poet Emily Dickinson and Benediction is on the face of it a biopic of another poet, an English one, Siegfried Sassoon (1886 to 1967). Clearly both these lives brought out a close response from Davies blending as they did a troubled existence with artistic capabilities. But, if it is evident that Davies loves the poetry of Emily Dickinson, one suspects that the poems of Siegfried Sassoon although quoted from time to time in Benediction are less central an influence. It seems that it is not by chance that the poem most prominent in this new film is not one by Sassoon but by his acquaintance Wilfred Owen who tragically failed to survive the First World War. That can be seen as a pointer to these two films having very different purposes at heart.
Benediction looks at the life of Siegfried Sassoon as a whole and accordingly the role is divided between Jack Lowden as the younger Sassoon and Peter Capaldi who portrays him in old age. Although Davies has chosen to move back and forth in time in the course of the film, the life does largely unfold in chronological order with an emphasis on three distinct phases. First come Sassoon’s war years when as a young man he won the Military Cross but then famously denounced the generals of the First World War claiming that the combat had on our part become a war of aggression and conquest. His changed attitude was attributed to shellshock and he was sent to Scotland to the Craiglockhart War Hospital where he was treated by the sympathetic psychiatrist Dr Rivers (Ben Daniels) and came to influence a younger poet, Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson), who was an inmate there.
This phase of Sassoon's life has already been treated on film in the excellent Regeneration (1997) but here it represents a step in his development revealing his reserve over his love for Owen since holding back was inevitable at a time when homosexuality was the love that dare not speak its name. But with peace declared Benediction moves on to portray Sassoon's life in artistic circles in which gay sex flourished as a recognised but illegal way of life to be kept out of the public gaze. Sassoon himself would have affairs with among others the popular actor composer Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine) and the gadfly playboy Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch). But these relationships were with uncommitted men and they left Sassoon hurt and unsatisfied.
It was in 1933 that Sassoon sought a form of stability by marrying Hester Getty (Kate Phillips) who accepted his homosexuality and they remained married for some twelve years during which time they had a son, George (Richard Goulding). Another kind of stability entered Sassoon's life in old age when he became a Catholic, but with Davies being no lover of the Church it is unsurprising that Benediction largely portrays Siegfried Sassoon's later years as something of a living death. Despite that, after showing father and son at loggerheads, the film does allow for a later reconciliation all the more touching because it is underplayed.
It is well known that Terence Davies has long seen himself as a loner regretful of the fact that he is gay and alienated from much that is to be found in the gay scene. That attitude fits with this film’s portrayal of the gay life of the 1920s and 1930s which brought Sassoon so little satisfaction and what Davies gives us here is a compellingly believable view of that era and of the cynicism and cruelty to be found in the behaviour of men like Tennant and, most strikingly of all, the self-centred Novello. But the disapproval so strongly felt by Davies does not hinder him from writing dialogue which, however caustic, comes close to a Wildean wit (this aspect does echo A Quiet Passion because both works are set in an intellectual milieu where language used in this way feels realistic). Furthermore, it needs to be stressed that Benediction also contains very sympathetic portraits of gay men such as Dr Rivers, the actor Glen Byam Shaw (Tom Blyth), Robbie Ross (Simon Russell Beale) and, of course, Wilfred Owen. Sassoon himself despite his later chosen life-style is viewed with a sad compassion.
Although Benediction is a long film lasting well over two hours, the range of the material justifies the length and the large cast is splendid (besides those mentioned already there are cameos by Gemma Jones, by Geraldine James and in a rather cruel view of Edith Sitwell by Lia Williams). Most notable of all in supporting roles are Ben Daniels and Jeremy Irvine while Jack Lowden’s portrayal of Sassoon is positively brilliant (Capaldi’s role as the older Sassoon offers more limited opportunities but he hits the right note). This time around the photography is by Nicola Daley and, as ever in a Terence Davies film, it is very fine.
What is at times more open to question is the film’s construction. There are occasions when the time switches are uneasy but it can work the other way (a sequence showing Anton Lesser as an elderly Stephen Tennant is beautifully counterpointed by being followed by a scene with Calam Lynch as his younger self). Once or twice Davies also shows the change of age by morphing a younger image into an older one and where one character is represented by two actors there is always an apt choice of players visually. The First World War images which recur beyond the opening segment of Benediction are the real thing and therefore in black and white but the mix works. Davies is usually brilliant when it comes to selecting music for his films and here the work of Vaughan Williams plays a key role in the film's concluding scene. That makes it very odd that in one instance the war footage is accompanied by the song ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ which is inappropriate twice over (its lyrics refer to the Wild West and for those with long memories it evokes the hit parade of the late 1940s).
On a first viewing there is certainly a feeling that the switches in time can be abrupt and disruptive but they are probably necessary as a pointer to the fact that Benediction will increasingly veer away from mere naturalism. There are occasions when scenes are handled with a splendid simplicity akin to the pared down approach often apparent in A Quiet Passion – it applies, for example, to the talks between Siegfried and Dr Rivers. Nevertheless, an element of stylisation becomes increasingly important in this new film as when it enables us to admire a moment in which an unfolding series of mirror images recall past associations. But, most importantly of all, the style is building towards the film’s final scene on a park bench. It is here that Davies brings home to us that Benediction is a film about repression. More than one kind is involved. There is the repression of horrors too vivid to be faced (the way in which so many First World War soldiers did not talk about their experiences); there is the repression of gay sexuality when to do otherwise could ruin one’s career; there is the repression of being English and keeping a stiff upper lip because showing emotion is seen as bad (an attitude that may lead to emotional ineptitude in relationships). It is these aspects of Sassoon's life that make him an ideal subject for Davies who is at his peak in the finale of Benediction. With stylisation established he can give us a scene in which Capaldi morphs into Lowden and the latter on behalf of both of them and on behalf of us can let the emotion that has been held back come out at last. This is one of the great moments in all of British cinema.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Jack Lowden, Peter Capaldi, Simon Russell Beale, Jeremy Irvine, Kate Phillips, Gemma Jones, Ben Daniels, Richard Goulding, Calam Lynch, Geraldine James, Julian Sands, Anton Lesser, Lia Williams, Suzanne Bertish, Harry Lawtey, Tom Blyth, Matthew Tennyson, Edmund Kingsley, Jude Akuwudike.
Dir Terence Davies, Pro Michael Elliott, Screenplay Terence Davies, Ph Nicola Daley, Pro Des Andy Harris, Ed Alex Mackie, Costumes Annie Symons.
EMU Films/BBC Films/BFI/Lipsync Productions/Creative England/M.Y.R.A. Entertainment-Vertigo Releasing.
137 mins. UK/USA. 2021. UK Rel: 13 May 2022. US Rel: 3 June 2022. Cert. 12A.