REGENERATION (1997) - Owen meets Sassoon

[@bluespaceoddity]

"One morning at the beginning of August, when I had been at Craiglockhart War Hospital about a fortnight, there was a gentle knock on the door of my room and a young officer entered. Short, dark-haired, and shyly hesitant, he stood for a moment before coming across to the window, where I was sitting on my bed cleaning my golf clubs. A favorable first impression was made by the fact that he had under his arm several copies of the Old Huntsman." Sigfried's Journey - S.Sasson (p.58)

[@enchi6138]

He was so smitten by Sassoon, it's adorable.

[@lesliegordon2313]

A beautifully acted scene. And so well written.

[@HerrMikael]

This movie is a true gem

[@Yandross]

Yes, it is.

[@bluespaceoddity]

"My dear Leslie, At last I have an event worth a letter. I have beknown myself to Siegfried Sassoon. Went to him last night (my second call). The first visit was one morning last week. The sun blazed into his room making his purple dressing suit of a brilliance - almost matching my sonnet! ..." Wilfred Owen, Letter to Leslie Gunston. 22 August 1917, Craiglockhart (The First World War Digital Poetry Archive)

[@lesliegordon2313]

One of my my all-time favourite scenes of any movie.

[@xvoissurtoncheminx]

Trying to work out if Owen's fall down the grassy hill was intentional...

[@ignatiussun3325]

Upon first sight I thought it’s a genius moment that made Owen so real, such an Owen moment! likely it was Stuart the actor’s accident that’s kept in the film

[@RIDETHESUNSHINE]

“But the old man would not so, but slew his son, And half the seed of Europe, one by one.” ― Wilfred Owen, The War Poems

[@blackirontarkus3997]

The Parable of The Old Man and The Young, funnily enough we're learning Owen poetry in schl and came across this poem recently

[@bluespaceoddity]

"My own dear Mother, I have been waiting for the address. The most momentous news I have for you is my meeting with Sassoon. He was struggling to read a letter from H.G. Wells when I went in. ..." Wilfred Owen. Letter to Susan Owen 22 August 1917, Craiglockhart. (The First World War Digital Poetry Archive)

[@misshelenhardy]

LOL at owen falling down the hill! he's soooo cute :3 xxx

[@manthasagittarius1]

Kind of thing that happens when you're shooting a film. Someone does something unintended and it works, so they keep it in. The whole soliloquy from Saving Private Ryan, when the private tells the captain about his brothers back home, was improvised by Matt Damon to amuse Tom Hanks, who was tired and having a bad day. It was so good and all of a piece, and in character, that they kept it.

[@rockguitar2012]

@bluespaceoddity Thanks for posting those letters :) It's clear how much Owen looked up to Sassoon and how much their meetings meant to him

[@sakura_rain4915]

sounds like he flirting with Sassoon...moon eyes

[@chawanmushii]

In the description "Their meeting is narrated in...", I read it as "Their wedding is narrated in..." and I was SHOOKETH

[@SMaryG]

Well, it depends on your tastes. I read the novel by Pat Barker, I had already studied the war poets at uni, so when I heard about the movie I tried to get the DVD and I loved what I saw. I think it is one of the best war movie I've ever seen.

[@SMaryG]

You are right. In the book S.Sassoon is in his room at Craiglockhart when "a short, darkd-haired man sidled round the door, blinking in the sudden blaze of sunlight. Sassoon , sitting on the bed, looked up from the golf club he'd been cleaning." (p. 80)

[@Theresabrown1805]

Craiglockhart hospital became a convent after world war I and a girl school and teacher training college my mother went to school there. Now Craiglockhart house is now part of Napier University.

[@fahrenheit45one]

I like this scene. Thans for posting it. This is one of my favourite films, but I don't own it on DVD.

[@sebastiangrumman8507]

You might try looking for it under the title "Behind the Lines". That is how I got it in the U.S.

[@waverider8549]

From what I know of Sassoon he wouldn't have rudely continued playing golf when approached by Owen. But a beautiful movie nonetheless

[@maryamhabib1443]

why dont someone upload full movie .its awsm

[@C1gar..Nymph0]

Go check out “what waters” channel they have the whole movie in two parts :)

[@andrewjohnstone963]

I was born in 1960 but from and early age i discovered history and Geography too my liking especially WW1 my great grandfather fought at Gallipoli and survived Grandmother's cousin Won posthumously his.VC at the 3rd Ypres battle his name William Clamp from Lanarkshire I developed a love of poetry Owen Sassoon Graves and many other war poets entered my life These poet's told me another side not jingoism but the brutal reality or close to it Nobody can imagine the unspeakably tragic horrors unless witnessed Sassoon rallied Owen and he produced his best work Devastatingly beautiful but haunting words and a particular haunting world inhabited by all that evil can supply but in the midst this wonderful poetr⏳️

[@whippoorwill1124]

I can't recommend this movie too highly, or the book it's based on. Pat Barker is the pre-eminent author of World War I historical fiction; her writing's evocative and hard-hitting yet exquisitely nuanced. I've read her Regeneration trilogy many times over and I never tire of it. Pleased to see that a commenter has quoted from Owen's Parable of the Old Man and the Young. If ever a poem ended with a punch between the eyes, surely that's it. In our time as in his, there are those who - while dodging all danger and responsibility themselves - would shamelessly risk "half the seed" of their nations for their own vainglorious greed. The people whom Barker wrote about, flawed though they were, put their lives on the line to oppose that - Owen paid with his. They bought us the right to oppose it too, by voting instead of having to fight.

[@Rex1987]

i did not know there was a movie made based on the book? i read it in high school in english (i live in Denmark)

[@SMaryG]

Maybe because he was extremely sensitive, creative and intelligent?

[@bluespaceoddity]

If you like that perhaps you'll also like reading Edmund Blunden's work -whose experiences have been identified [Duckworth a.o.] among the many inspirations for Pat Barker's novels. The excerpt -in 3 posts- is from Blunden's 1928 "Undertones of War": "The old trench lay silent and formidable, a broad gully, like a rough sunk lane rather than a firing trench. It was strewn with remains and pitiful evidences. The whole region of Festubert, being marshy and undrainable, smelt ill enough,

[@horselover100]

LOVE OWEN!

[@bluespaceoddity]

Meanwhile, so many bullets cracked with whip-like loudness just over our heads that it seemed that were being actually aimed at, though it was night and the enemy at half a mile's distance. We went on, through straggling wire and wet grass, and then by a wooden track until the lee of Cover Trench rose in view; we entered it by an opening known in that time and district as a "rally port" a term readily connecting us wit Marlborough's wars."

[@lukasmiller486]

If Lawrence of Arabia had been made in the 80’s or 90’s, James Wilby would have been a great Lawrence!

[@ignatiussun3325]

To everyone as touched by this film as I, How can human race survive three world wars within one century? Pray for peace at Ukraine and Russia. May the spirit of these war poets in heaven look down on us and no more “killing half the seeds of Europe, one by one”.

[@bluespaceoddity]

but this trench was peculiar in that way. I cared little to stop in the soft drying mud at the bottom of it; I saw old uniforms, and a great many bones, like broken bird-cages. One uniform identified a German officer: the skeleton seemed less coherent than most, and an unexploded shell lay on the edge of the fragments. What an age since 1914!

[@daithiy14]

o before you comment again on my grammar in these comments ill point them out 4 u it's understandable what would you know but text. i love the way there wrote there poems is that OK for you

[@smc1942]

While the actor's look nothing like the men they're portraying, this is a moving scene. I thought they met indoors....Owen walked down the hall, & knocked on Sassoon's door. Sassoon being very withdrawn at the time. He was embarrassed to be at this Hospital. What a loss when Owen was killed in the last week of the war. But so were countless other's on both side's. Of all the wars of the 20th century, this one made the least sense....it was in NO ONE'S National Interest to go to war in 1914....yet they all did. Over 9,000,000 DEAD (I write it this way deliberately! The number's are brutally honest!) young men from all around the world. And for what? That is the greatest tragedy of our time. It NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED.

[@mikeharvey9811]

And should never happen again but the generals carry on.......they have blood on their hands

[@smc1942]

@@mikeharvey9811 ; Evenmoreso, the politicians.

[@jimmycakes7158]

Millions of German soldiers tried to conquer France and were stopped, that's what for. If it happened today we'd go again to try and stop it. Many go to Ukraine.

[@stevekaczynski3793]

I think the actor playing Sassoon has a pretty close resemblance to at least some photos of the real Sassoon.

[@misshelenhardy]

@bwoibetterrun lollllll