Benediction (2022): Terence Davies’ Final Film, Biopic of British Poet Siegfried Sassoon

Inspired by the life of WWI-era British poet Siegfried Sassoon, Benediction, the latest film from writer-director Terence Davies explores redemption, regret, privilege, and love set in a time when homosexuality was not legalized in the U.K.

From doomed love affairs with Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine) to his later conversion to Catholicism, Davies depicts the sorrows and the joys of Sassoon’s life, resulting in a portrait of a complex man searching for meaning throughout his life.

Like many of Davies’ films, Benediction examines the lingering trauma of war on every aspect of life.

Although a decorated officer for his bravery on the Western Front, Sassoon was an outspoken critic of his government’s WWI policies, having seen the senseless slaughter during his time in the trenches.

Sassoon’s poetry described the horrors of trench warfare while also satirizing those who perpetuated the ideology of war. His dissent eventually landed him a stint in military psychiatric hospital where he formed close bond with fellow war poet Wilfred Owen.

Sassoon died in 1967, a few weeks before the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 passed. He sort of spent the last decade of his life in the shadow of the Wolfenden report.

Benediction intercuts archival footage of the war as it follows Sassoon (played at different ages by Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi) through various emotional phases in his turbulent life.

After premiering at the 2021 Toronto Film Fest, it took almost one year for the film to get theatrical release, in the U.K. by Vertigo Films on May 20, 2022, and in the U.S. on June 3, 2022 by Roadside Attractions.

Benediction turned out to be Davies’ final film before his death in October 2023.

In a career spanning more than four decades, Davies made nine feature films, and half a dozen shorts.

He is one pf the subjects of my book:

Gay Directors, Gay Films? By Emanuel Levy (Columbia University Press)

Sassoon’s life from WWI to the end of his life.

Terence Davies: I remember when homosexuality was a criminal offense, and seeing films like Victim. It was an important film because it helped change the law. But when you’ve grown up with it being a criminal offense, even though you’ve not done anything, and that coupled with being Catholic, made it much harder.

What has happened since then, there’s been a much wider acceptance of homosexual things. But I do think sometimes that it’s skin deep. But at least the law was changed. At least you’re not seen as corruptive, or in any way corrupt, because we didn’t do anything to anybody.

Good Acting?

You don’t really have to go into that with the actors, because they already know it. The great thing with really good actors is that, like virtuosi who plays violin or piano, you just say one thing, and they do it. You think: how did they get it that quickly? Astonishing. That was the most revelatory. That they get it so quickly.Sassoon looking for Catholicism late in life?He wanted redemption, and nothing can give you that. Certainly, religion can’t. You have to find that within yourself, or you don’t find it at all. I think that’s what he was looking for. And of all the religions to wander into, the most guilt-ridden is certainly a strange choice.

What kind of redemption?

I think in a sort of odd way, to be forgiven, but not for anything specific. Something wider. He did survive the First World War. Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen didn’t. He saw, to a certain extent, his work eclipsed by them, because death does confer on you some kind of special honor. I think that hurt him.

But when you’re looking for something that will balm your soul, would you ever find it? I don’t think anybody does. You either have that or you don’t. I’ve been looking for it for 76 years now and I’ve never found it.

Inspiration beyond Sassoon poems?

Not really, no. Because that was one of the main wellsprings of his life, obviously, of his being. But you have to look at it in terms of that life. He was very privileged, because none of those people were arrested for being gay. They all got away with it, because they were from upper class background. But in a way, you can’t draw other aspects of that from another. You can draw general things. Atmosphere. What did it actually look like? What was the texture of those lives? But it’s not just about textures, it’s about the emotional texture that runs beneath it. And that has to be newly made. You can’t find that anywhere. You have to start laying wallpaper. You have to do it yourself, because no one else will do it for you.

Benediction (2022): Terence Davies’ Final Film, Biopic of British Poet Siegfried Sassoon

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