NFR Project: 'Let There Be Light' (1946)

 

NFR Project: “Let There Be Light”

Dir: John Huston

Scr: John Huston, Charles Kaufman

Pho: Stanley Cortez, John Doran, Lloyd Fromm, Joseph Jackman, George Smith

Ed: William H. Reynolds, Gene Fowler Jr.

Premiere: Jan. 16, 1981

58 min.

Here’s a film that was kept out of sight until 35 years after it was made.

Director John Huston volunteered for military duty in World War II and was assigned the making of documentaries. His first two, Report from the Aleutians and The Battle of San Pietro, were successful. This, his third effort, would run into snags.

The Army thought it would be a good idea to profile the treatment and recuperation of soldiers with mental wounds from battle. Although not physically hurt, these men suffered cognitive and emotional distress from exposure to combat. Approximately 20 percent of wartime casualties were estimated to be mental in nature. The Army wanted to show that, given therapy and treatment, these men could reintegrate into society successfully.

Huston and his crew went to the Edgewood State Hospital in Long Island and embedded themselves with an incoming group of patients. Setting up cameras, they followed these men through their course of treatment. They filmed approximately 70 hours of interaction between the patients and staff. From this immense amount of footage, they pared the documentary down to an hour’s length.

Whether termed shell shock, battle fatigue, or psychoneurosis, the trauma these men suffered was real and lasting. Men are shown coming in with stutters, lapses in attention, hysterical paralysis, overwhelming sorrow and anxiety. Using the drugs available at the time, counseling, and group therapy sessions, the viewer is shown the gradual transition of these men from hopeless to functional, and eventually to their release.

However . . . when the brass saw the movie, they walked out. It turns out that no one in command structure wanted to show soldiers as vulnerable and mentally ill – they wanted to pretend that everyone came home happy and healthy. The film was suppressed. In fact, the Army went even further – they created a fictionalized copy of Let There Be Light called Shades of Gray. This film used actors to play the patients, speaking dialogue transcribed from the original film. In addition, all the black soldiers in Let There Be Light were replaced by white actors, and all the mental problems encountered were attributed to the patients’ civilian lives, not the horrors of war.

Finally, in 1981 the film was released. This portrait of men in crisis is still powerful, all these decades later.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: My Darling Clementine.