MSN Movies Legend #48 - David Lean

 

A director who progressed seamlessly from small-scale literary adaptations to sweeping blockbuster epics. David Lean remains one of Britain’s most accomplished filmmakers. Early experience as a messenger, clapperboard assistant and editor gave him a thorough knowledge of his craft that enabled him to make definitive big-screen versions of Oliver Twist and Great Expectations before moving on to the Oscar-winning likes of Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai. Sad, then, he spent so many years towards the end of his life inactive, though with hindsight we can see 1984’s A Passage to India as an elegiac swansong.

 

If his Quaker parents had had their way, David Lean would have become an accountant. Their son had other ideas, though, joining Gaumont Films in the mid-‘20s in the lowly role of a tea-boy. Working his way through the ranks, Lean made his name as an editor for the likes of Michael Powell and Anthony Asquith. Indeed, by the time he worked on the Bernard Shaw adaptation Pygmalion, he was recognised as one of the best cutters in the business.

 

Spotting his talent, Noel Coward enlisted him as his co-director on his wartime drama In Which We Serve – a successful partnership which led to Lean directing screen versions of three of Coward’s plays (This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit and Brief Encounter). Lean then turned to the works of Charles Dickens, first with Great Expectations and then with Oliver Twist. Both starred Alec Guinness, who would go on to become an indispensable member of the director’s unofficial repertory company.

 

Despite his well-regarded version of Hobson’s Choice and Summertime, his first film in colour, the early ’50s were an undistinguished period in Lean’s career. With 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai, however, he began a startling new phase that would see him achieve both critical acclaim and box-office success. Both Kwai and its successor, desert epic Lawrence of Arabia, won the Oscar for best picture, while Russian romance Doctor Zhivago became an international sensation. Irish melodrama Ryan’s Daughter, however, was less warmly received, prompting Lean to take a self-imposed hiatus only interrupted by his final work, A Passage to India.

 

Married six times, Lean died in 1991 trying to get one last epic – a film of the Joseph Conrad novel Nostromo – off the ground. He left behind an unrivalled body of work, not to mention a Croydon cinema bearing his name.

 

Finest Hour
With five certifiable masterpieces to Lean’s credit it’s really a matter of personal taste. Anybody who has seen Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen, however, would be hard pressed not to name it as his finest achievement. From Freddie Young’s awe-inspiring cinematography and Maurice Jarre’s unforgettable score to Robert Bolt’s remarkable screenplay and Peter O’Toole’s iconic lead performance, this thrilling biopic of WWI hero TE Lawrence is a visually ravishing tour de force that combines a psychologically astute character study with some of the most spectacular images ever captured on film. Small wonder Spielberg considers it his favourite movie.

 

In His Own Words
“Actors can be a terrible bore on set, though I enjoy having dinner with them.”

 

 

 

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