In what can already be regarded as one of the best films to date in Terence Davies’ body of work, Benediction, Jack Lowden gives one of the most riveting performances of the year as the poet Siegfried Sassoon. After the world premiere at TIFF, reviewed for ICS by Walter Neto here, the film plays in the official competition in San Sebastian. Cédric Succivalli sat down with the Scottish actor to talk about the film, working with the meticulous yet sensitive director, the enraging futility of war, and Davies’ dislike of the word ‘queer’.
CS: Of working with Terence Davies, Rachel Weisz (who starred in Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea) said that he was “a charmer” and “a man with high highs and low lows”; and Eric Stoltz (The House of Mirth) called him “brilliant, but so sensitive that he worried about him (Stolz, ed.), out in the world”. What was your experience, as an actor, with Davies?
JL: Very similar. He is an incredibly sensitive human being, which is strange sometimes for a director who has to lead an entire group of people. But he dealt with it well. It means that everything that you do, every single moment, is felt very strongly by him. In particular with this film, which I think Terence was waiting to make for quite some time. A lot of Terence is in the character. That became apparent very early in the shoot, and I thought, “I think I’m playing Terence, I don’t think I’m just playing Sassoon.” To listen to him more, and to try and grapple with his vision of the character is difficult, but it’s very rewarding when you can give yourself over.
CS: In his last film A Quiet Passion, he said it was important to cast an actor (Cynthia Nixon, ed.) who was able to recite poetry, which is different from scripted dialogue. In this film you mesmerizingly recite a lot of poetry, in voice over, which to me was one of the strongest elements of the film. Can you talk a bit about the process of reciting Sassoon’s poetry, finding the emphasis, the right tone, the rhythm?
JL: It was strange, because we did all of that on one day in a little sound studio, before we shot the film. So before I actually played the character. I found that quite a hard thing to do. Not necessarily the poetry, because Sassoon’s poetry is so stark and hard-hitting when compared to others that it’s quite easy to speak, but his letter that he wrote to say he didn’t want to be in the army anymore, not fight in war anymore. That was the hardest one to read, because that is what he wrote and submitted to the army council. It was terrifying to me because that was one of the bravest things for someone of his class to do, back in those days; to stand up and say, “I don’t want to fight anymore“.
CS: Some of the best scenes in the film are the therapy scenes with Dr. Rivers, played by Ben Daniels. Parts of those scenes were part of your audition tape, I believe. Of this Davies said that he was taken by the way you spoke the line, “I don’t know why I come here, it doesn’t do any good“. What was it about that specific line that resonated for you, and for Terence?
JL: For me it is the breaking of a pretense. He comes in very stoic and thinks it’s a stupid idea, and what I love in that moment is that he throws caution to the wind and gives up, thinking “This is not helping, I’m a mess“. He’s hitting rock bottom. I imagine that happens a lot in therapy. I did it in one take, and Terence really loves it. I don’t know why, but he can’t stop talking about it.
CS: Sassoon was a man who fought many battles, both physically in World War I and mentally with regards to his identity. How did you find the nuances in such a complex character, especially one whose internal struggles were far more disconcerting than his actual battles?
JL: I think it was key that he had to be very different to the others around him. His greatest fear was of not being remembered, or being remembered in a bad light. To me that translates to being very withdrawn and careful, and being not as slapdash with your emotions. It was very key that he had that reserved element.
CS: Terence Davies is a somewhat intimidating figure in terms of cinema and directing because of his intense passion for his films and the meticulousness with which he crafts them. How is it for you as an actor to work with someone like that?
JL: I’ve worked with one or two now, and what’s fantastic is that if you start to struggle you have so much trust and confidence in these people, because they are so convinced that their vision is the one and only truth. Whether you like that or not, in film in particular that has to exist. When you do work with someone with such singular vision, you have to leave a lot of yourself and your ego at the door, which actors find very difficult, and which I found very difficult at first. But you do it and you give yourself over. And the guy’s made some very good films, so that makes it easier (laughs).
CS: Much of Sassoon’s work reflects his own loneliness and feeling of isolation. Yet your depiction is filled with warmth and genuine curiosity. How did you bring that to the story of a man whose depictions of both war and the challenges of having a ‘deviant’ identity in British society are often so heartbreaking and full of melancholy?
JL: In the relationship with his mom it was easy, because I have a close relationship with my own mother. To imagine my mother having her son going off to war, I can imagine what she would be like. So that wasn’t difficult at all. But in terms of warmth, all the actors I was surrounded by had so much of it. In particular Simon Russell Beale, who I think is one of the best actors in the world; is one of the warmest, most generous actors I have ever worked with. He is the nicest soul, and he held my hand through a lot of it. And the other actors as well, like Ben Daniels. It was great that we had a cast of older actors, because they know the film doesn’t live or die by them, it’s a collective effort. It’s very much like theater, and they’re all brilliant theater actors.
CS: There is a thematic sentiment that underpins this film, where it seems like Sassoon was born in the wrong period. Based on playing the character and studying him for the role, do you think that Sassoon may have thrived in or benefitted from the more progressive world we live in today?
JL: I think he would be exactly the same. He was very openly vain and insecure in his memoirs. Even if you can call him a progressive, I think he would still have found something to irk him and make him feel like an outsider. I don’t think it would have made a difference at all. He would have felt just as lost and unfulfilled.
CS: To go back to the theme of war, and to quote one of Sassoon’s lovers, Wilfred Owen: “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” Did that cross your mind, that this biopic of a great poet and his traumas are still so relevant?
JL: Yes, and in particular the first World War, which was an absolute waste. It has always made me so angry, because the reasons it happened were just ridiculous, and an entire generation of people were robbed of their life. That was when Britain was at the peak of its class system, and they were just chucking man after man after man. And for what? And Sassoon was a member of this upper class, and he fought in the war. So when you have an intelligent and articulate man like that stand up in the middle of the war and say, “What are we doing? This is shit“, that speaks a thousand words. As a kid I walked almost every day past a WWI memorial, and to think these guys died for nothing… It’s insane.
CS: There are so many hauntingly lyrical moments in this film, like in Davies’ other films. He is a master of filming memories and feelings. Several of these moments deal with footage from the war, young dead bodies, and the narration of his poems, which Davies pieces together in post-production. How was it to shoot these sequences, were you reacting to something in particular?
JL: Sometimes Terence would sit off-camera and read a poem when it was necessary, but most of the time it was just pretending, which is what acting mostly is. It was lovely acting in little vignettes. It’s always fun to walk through a door and then there’s nothing there.
CS: The film is still relevant when you look at both the wars that are still being fought around the globe today and the way homosexuality is regarded in many societies. The life of this one man becomes an almost universal message. How is the reaction to the film so far?
JL: It’s been very positive, people seem to react incredibly well to it. Everybody keeps talking about the last shot (laughs). You know, Terence always says that he feels out of date all the time, which is just not true. Love is love is love, so it doesn’t matter.
CS: Terence Davies said this morning that he hated the word ‘queer’, which is fabulous for a 70-year-old gay man to say. To me the film transcends queerness: it is just about love, albeit broken love, and it doesn’t really matter whether it’s gay or not. What are your thoughts about this?
JL: I think if the gay element is there to be commented on, it’s mostly because of the time it is set in, since it was obviously illegal back then. Other than that I think sexuality doesn’t play much of a role in the film. As you said, it’s all about love. Terence Davies has made an incredibly progressive, forward-thinking film, where Sassoon’s sexuality is not commented on over and over again by the filmmaker. Some things in the film are a consequence of his sexuality, certainly, but the whole film is not defined by the fact that he is gay. In a time in which everybody is desperate to label themselves one thing or another, I think Terence, as a gay man himself, has made a film that should be listened to, and that it’s not just about the young generation. Just like you said with him hating the word ‘queer’, but then you have a whole generation running away with the word now. Everybody in the community should be listening to him. It is not popular to say, but you have a 70-year-old man who grew up in the 1950s when it was still illegal. So he should be listened to. Just like Sassoon, I don’t think Terence’s sexuality defines him. Whenever there’s a gay character in film right now, people want that to be sort of opened up and be defining. But Terence will first talk to you about regret, redemption, love; not about the fact that he’s gay, because it is not as important to him, and it wasn’t to Sassoon either.