Regeneration (1997 film)
| Regeneration | |
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| Directed by | Gillies MacKinnon |
| Produced by |
Allan Scott Peter R. Simpson |
| Written by |
Pat Barker (novel) Allan Scott (screenplay) |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Mychael Danna |
| Cinematography | Glen MacPherson |
| Edited by | Pia Di Ciaula |
| Distributed by | Artificial Eye (UK) |
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Release date
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Running time
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114 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom Canada |
| Language | English |
Regeneration is a 1997 British film, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Pat Barker. The film is directed by Gillies MacKinnon. It was released as Behind the Lines in the US in 1998. The film follows the stories of a number of Officers of the British Army during World War I who are brought together in Craiglockhart War Hospital where they are treated for various trauma. It features the story of Siegfried Sassoon, his open letter reprinted in The Times criticising the conduct of the war and his return to the front.
The film starts by referring to Siegfried Sassoon's open letter dated July 1917, inveighing "against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed". The letter has been published in The Times and has received much attention in England particularly because Sassoon is considered a hero for several (perhaps suicidally rash) acts of valour - and has been the recipient of the Military Cross which we see Sassoon throwing away. With the string-pulling and guidance of Robert Graves, a fellow poet and friend of Sassoon, the army decides to send Sassoon to Craiglockhart War Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Scotland, rather than court-martialling him. At Craiglockhart, Sassoon meets Dr. William Rivers, a Freudian psychiatrist who encourages his patients to express their war memories as therapy.
There is no clear main character in this film, but there is more focus on several of the characters; notably, Billy Prior, Siegfried Sassoon and Dr. Rivers himself. A very important secondary character, Wilfred Owen, is linked to Sassoon’s storyline.
Prior, at first an unsympathetic character, presents a challenge to Dr Rivers, who needs to discover what experience in the trenches caused the loss of Prior's ability to speak. Prior regains his speech suddenly then goes into the town in search of female companionship and begins a relationship with Sarah, a munitions worker. He has a strong sense of social class, setting himself apart from the other officers ("public school toffs") and refers to incidents that have caused him to distrust the military authorities. There are a number of references to the difference in treatment between the privates and the officers, including the most glaring, Craiglockhart itself which only caters for officers. When Prior is finally ready for hypnosis, he and Rivers discover that his trauma was caused by the death of one of Prior's men in the trench, blown to bits by a bomb. Prior lost his power of speech after having picked up the eyeball of the killed private and asked what should be done with "this gobstopper". This seems strange to Prior who had expected his condition to be caused by some action for which he was responsible. He feels he has to return to active duty in the trenches to prove to himself and the world that he is as fully competent as before.
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