I think they were genuinely naive – she actually did say, ‘I’ve spoken to Stephen Tennant and I know all I need to know,’ which is touching on the one hand but it’s very naive on the other.” “In those days, it was sort of this idea that the love of a good woman will cure you.
“I think they were both naive,” Davies says of Sassoon and Gatty. In Benediction, Davies explores the tragedy behind such a life. Many LGBTQ+ people will relate to that experience. While Sassoon was one of the most prominent gay men of his generation, he ultimately married Hester Gatty and had a child, leaving his queerness behind.
The sex is incidental.” Benediction explores the tragedy of gay life in Sassoon’s era “The point of that scene is not that he’s having sex, but that he’s betrayed Glen Byam Shaw. “With sex scenes, people have got body make up on, they’ve all been to the gym, there’s all this panting and no one ever gets a cramp – no one ever farts!” Davies says. He’s not particularly enamoured by the general handling of sex in big-budge studio fare. Davies was surprised – and a little annoyed – when somebody told him the sex scene in the film is “not very good”.
