Let There Be Light (1946)

Directed by

John Huston

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

58 min

Rating

7.3 of 10 from 44 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary follows American soldiers returning from World War II as they undergo psychiatric treatment for what was then called shell shock or combat fatigue. It shows therapy sessions and the men's gradual recovery without dramatic narration or staged scenes.

unsettlingintimateclinicalsoberrestrainedobservationalhumanisticraw

What happens

Let There Be Light (known to the U.S. Army as PMF 5019) is a documentary film directed by American filmmaker John Huston (1906–1987). It was the last in a series of four films directed by Huston while serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II. The film was produced in 1946 and was intended to educate the public about post-traumatic stress disorder and its treatment among returning veterans, but its unscripted presentation of mental disability caused the U.S. government to suppress the film, and it was not released until the 1980s. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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