Regeneration (1997 film)

Regeneration
Directed byGillies MacKinnon
Written byPat Barker (novel)
Allan Scott (screenplay)
Produced byAllan Scott
Peter R. Simpson
Starring
CinematographyGlen MacPherson
Edited byPia Di Ciaula
Music byMychael Danna
Distributed byArtificial Eye (UK)
Release date
  • 21 November 1997 (1997-11-21)
Running time
114 minutes (United States 96 minutes)
CountriesUnited Kingdom
Canada
LanguageEnglish

Regeneration is a 1997 British film, directed by Gillies MacKinnon, an adaptation by Allan Scott of the 1991 novel of the same name by Pat Barker. 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 taken to Craiglockhart War Hospital where they are treated for various mainly psychological traumas, including shell shock, using the then relatively novel fields of psycho-analysis and psychiatry under the supervision of Dr William Rivers. It brings together a number of noted War poets, featuring the story-line of Siegfried Sassoon in the main story — after his open letter reprinted in The Times condemning the conduct of the War — along with Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves and their return to the Western Front. Though the main characters and the main plot points are matters of fact, some characters, such as Billy Prior, and the story itself are fictional.