Remembering David Lean! (Part Two)

Lean went on to partner with Spiegel on his next two feature films that were both released by Colombia Pictures.  This marks the shift in Lean's career from making films pretty much every year back to back to making motion pictures on a much greater scale with understandable multi year gaps between projects.   

First of all I need to highlight that the plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay were almost entirely fictional. This is a narrative feature film and not a documentary so that is totally fine! The film depicts many historical inaccuracies regarding the construction of the actual Burma Railway. I must also point out one of the inaccuracies in the film is that the conditions that the POW and civilian labourers were subjected to were far, far worse in reality than the depiction of these conditions in the film. 

This film is a must see for any cinephile. The scale of this film is something to behold, Its shot in CinemaScope and glorious Technicolor,  Jack Hildyard's Cinematography is stunning  and all the performances are wonderful. 

The critics were bowled over at the time,

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the film as'

"a towering entertainment of rich variety and revelation of the ways of men".

Mike Kaplan, reviewing for Variety, described it as,

"a gripping drama, expertly put together and handled with skill in all departments."

Kaplan further praised the actors, especially Alec Guinness, later writing,  

"the film is unquestionably his". 

William Holden was also credited for his acting for giving a solid characterization that was "easy, credible and always likeable in a role that is the pivot point of the story".

Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times claimed the film's strongest points were for being "excellently produced in virtually all respects and that it also offers an especially outstanding and different performance by Alec Guinness. Highly competent work is also done by William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa".

Time magazine praised Lean's directing, noting he demonstrates "a dazzlingly musical sense and control of the many and involving rhythms of a vast composition. He shows a rare sense of humor and a feeling for the poetry of situation; and he shows the even rarer ability to express these things, not in lines but in lives."

As you may expect the film was a hit.  It wasn't a cheap film for the time having a production budget of $2.8 million ($30.9m in 2024) and it grossed  $30.6 million ($341m in 2024)

At he 30th Academy Awards ceremony was held on March 26, 1958,

"The Bridge on the River Kwai"

Won Best Picture - Sam Spiegel

Won Best Director - David Lean
Won Best Actor -  Alec Guinness
Won Best Adapted Screenplay – Michael Wilson & Carl Foreman. (Pierre Boulle*)
Won Best Cinematography - Jack Hildyard 
Won Best Film Editing - Peter Taylor
Won Best Original Score - Malcolm Arnold

*On the night the screenwriting Oscar was awarded to Pierre Boulle the french writer of the source material who did not speak or write in English.

The screenwriters who wrote the film were Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, Who had both been blacklisted by Hollywood due to their political beliefs and were living in exile in England and could could only work on the film in secret. The two did not collaborate on the script; Wilson took over after Lean was dissatisfied with Foreman's work. The Academy took until 1984 to correct the record by retroactively awarding the Oscar to Foreman and Wilson, after both men had passed away. 

This film is iconic, a masterpiece, a true cinematic epic in every sense of the word not only clocking in at 227 minutes but the film is just on an epic scale with it's vivid sweeping vistas. The production crew consisted of over 200 people and when you add the cast and extras, over 1,000 people worked on this film. It was apparently made for $15 million ($154m in 2024).

Previous films about T. E. Lawrence had been planned, There was almost one made in the 1940's with Laurence Olivier starring but that fell through. David Lean had been approached by the Rank Organisation to direct a version in 1952 but again it didn't happen.

At the same time as the 1962 film was in pre-production, Terence Rattigan was developing his play "Ross" which centred primarily on Lawrence's alleged homosexuality. The play "Ross" had begun as a screenplay, but was re-written for the stage when the film project fell through.

Dirk Bogarde had accepted the role in the film production of "Ross"; he described the cancellation of the project as "my bitterest disappointment".

David Lean's friend Alec Guinness played the lead role in "Ross" on stage.

"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) producer Sam Spiegel grew furious about the existence of the play and attempted to have it suppressed, which helped to gain publicity for the film and I'm sure also the play. 

"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) is based on "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" written by T.E. Lawrence himself, is the autobiographical account of his experiences in the British Army serving as a military adviser during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire 1916 to 1918.

The script was written by screenwriter Robert Bolt who obviously had to adapt the biography which may have been somewhat exaggerated into an entertaining film script with a cohesive narrative so it's only understandable it does not adhere exactly to historical events.  I'm not going to list historical inaccuracies here they are all online if you care but people complain Peter O'Tool was too tall to play Lawrence...there is just no entertaining some people!! 

In real life T.E. Lawrence was an enigma and people have lots of opinions about him based on rumours, Innuendo and assumptions.  He lived privately and operated using pseudonyms various assumed names after the war to avoid attention yet people brand him an ego maniac, A journalist who knew Lawrence said he could take pictures of him by tricking him, the same man said "Lawrence had a genius for backing into the limelight"

I think it could just be he was an interesting man with an interesting life and fame found him. 

Lawrence's sexual orientation remains a controversial topic among some historians but in all honesty it's none of anyone's business, Lawrence himself didn't discuss his sexuality in his biography but Bolt the screenwriter seems to have been influenced by a book written by Richard Aldington called "Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry" (1955) who seems to have posited Lawrence was a "pathological liar" casting doubt on his accomplishments and he called him an "exhibitionist and homosexual". To me it reeks of prejudice saying if he wasn't straight how could he have done what he claims. Lawrence may have been gay, bi or Asexual but he lived the last years of his life as a recluse at a time where being queer was unacceptable and even illegal, I find that sad. Even though him being a recluse may have nothing to do with his sexuality.   

Alec Guinness had played Lawrence in the play Ross and was briefly considered for the part but Lean and Spiegel thought he was too old. 

After seeing the premiere of the film  Noël Coward quipt regarding O'Toole's looks,

"If you had been any prettier, the film would have been called Florence of Arabia".

Faisal was going to be played by Laurence Olivier but Olivier dropped out. Guinness had performed in other David Lean films and he got the part when Olivier dropped out. 

Reportedly Jack clashed with Lean several times during filming. Hawkins became great friends with O'Toole during filming and the pair would celebrate the end of a day's filming with impromptu dances and the two often improvised dialogue during takes, much to Lean's dismay.

Even with its massive amount of cast and extras numerous crew members were pulling double duties and appear in the film, First assistant director Roy Stevens played a truck driver, the sergeant who stops Lawrence and Farraj and says "Where do you think you're going to, Mustapha?" was set builder Fred Bennett and the films screenwriter Robert Bolt has an ironically wordless cameo as an officer watching Allenby and Lawrence confer in the courtyard while he smokes a pipe, The film's gaffer Steve Birtles played the motorcyclist at the Suez Canal and Lean himself is rumoured to have dubbed the motorcyclist's voice shouting "Who are you?",  Continuity supervisor Barbara Cole also appeared as one of the nurses in the Damascus hospital scene.  

David Lean apparently watched John Ford's "The Searchers" (1956) to help him get his head around how he would approach shooting the film. A few scenes directly pay homage to Ford's film, most notably Lean “put the horizon on the bottom of the frame or the top of the frame and avoided the middle of the frame" (I couldn't resist). Principal photography began on 15th of May 1961 and ended on the 21st of September 1962. Desert scenes were shot on location in Jordan, Morocco and Almería and Doñana in Spain. 

Believe it or not! The Yorkshire born O'Toole was not used to riding camels and found the saddle uncomfortable. He bought a piece of foam rubber from a market and lined the camels saddle. Many of the extras copied the idea and foam can be seen in the film on many of the horse and camel saddles. The Bedouin cast members nicknamed O'Toole "Abu-'Isfanj" which means "Father of the Sponge". During filming O'Toole was nearly killed when he fell off his camel, but the camel then straddled over him, preventing the extras' horses trampling the actor to death.

The film was shot using Super Panavision technology, meaning that spherical lenses were used instead of anamorphic ones, and the image was exposed on a 65 mm negative, then printed onto a 70 mm positive to leave room for the soundtracks. On this large widescreen format rapid cuts were distracting so this limitation of the format meant film makers had to think differently and shoot using  longer more fluid takes the wide ratio also produced  some  unwanted effects during projection, such as a "flutter" effect and blurring in certain parts of the image. To avoid this being a problem directors would modify how they approached  blocking scenes. It's amazing thinking how much the so called "limitations" of shooting in that format, long fluid takes on the huge wide screen really informed the look of "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962).

It should come as no surprise by now if you read my blog that a film of this calaber and lasting cultural significance received mixed reviews from critics at the time.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called the film "vast, awe-inspiring, beautiful with ever-changing hues, exhausting and barren of humanity". He went on to say Lawrence's characterisation was lost within the spectacle, "reduces a legendary figure to conventional movie-hero size amidst magnificent and exotic scenery but a conventional lot of action-film cliches".

Variety wrote that the film was "a sweepingly produced, directed and lensed job. Authentic desert locations, a stellar cast and an intriguing subject combine to put this into the blockbuster league." However, it later noted Bolt's screenplay "does not tell the audience anything much new about Lawrence of Arabia nor does it offer any opinion or theory about the character of this man or the motivation for his actions".

Philip K. Scheuer of The Los Angeles Times was more respectful writing: "It is also one of the most magnificent pictures, if not the magnificent, and one of the most exasperating ... The awesome majesty of the landscapes in Jordan and elsewhere, the mass movements of Bedouins and British and Turks with, of course, the ever-present camels, sweep against the eye long after one has lost the ability to exclaim in astonishment over them. And all this is Technicolor and Super Panavision 70, the finest process, under F. A. Young as director of photography. Maurice Jarre composed a score to match."

Time magazine felt that while Lawrence of Arabia "falls far short of Kwai in dramatic impact, it nevertheless presents a vivid and intelligent spectacle". It further praised O'Toole's performance, writing he "continually dominates the screen, and he dominates it with professional skill, Irish charm and smashing good looks".

Chicago Tribune wrote the photography was "no less than superb" and felt the script "is taut and expressive and the musical score deftly attuned to the tale, but they personally felt the film was too long, the running time is 221 minutes, or 20 minutes short of 4 hours"

Newsweek praised the film as "an admirably seriously film ... The size, the scope, the fantastical scale of his personality and his achievement is triumphantly there." It also praised the ensemble cast as "all as good as they ought to be. And Peter O'Toole is not only good; he is an unnerving look-alike of the real Lawrence. He is reliably unreliable, steadily mercurial."

Regardless of the mixed critical reception the film grossed $70m durring its theatrical run ($720m in 2024) It had a production budget of $15 million ($154m in 2024).

At 1963 Academy Awards the film was nominated for 10 Oscars, Winning 7 on the night,

Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography – Colour, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction – Colour, Best Music Score, Best Sound. 

O'Toole did not win the Best Actor Oscar, Gregory Peck won for playing Atticus Finch in

"To Kill a Mockingbird". O'Toole did win the BAFTA.

Omar Sharif did not win The Best Supporting Actor Oscar it went to Ed Begley for playing  – Tom Boss Finley in "Sweet Bird of Youth"... You know! that film...

The other accolades the film has received over the years really does go to show there is a lot of confusion over the films nationality, 

In 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

In 1998, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked Lawrence of Arabia in fifth place in their list of 100 Years...100 Movies.

In 1999, the film placed third in the British Film Institute's poll of the best British films of the 20th century. In 2001, the magazine Total Film called it "as shockingly beautiful and hugely intelligent as any film ever made" and "faultless".

It was ranked in the top ten films of all time in the 2002 Sight and Sound directors' poll.In 2004, it was voted the best British film of all time by over 200 respondents in The Sunday Telegraph poll of Britain's leading filmmakers.

In 2006, AFI ranked the film #30 on its list of most inspiring movies.

In 2007, it was ranked in seventh place in their updated list and listed as the first of the greatest American films of the "epic" genre.

In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed the film as the seventh best-edited of all time based on a survey of its membership.

In March 2024, Robbie Collin of The Telegraph ranked Lawrence of Arabia as the greatest biographical film of all time.

O'Toole's performance is often considered one of the greatest in cinema history, topping lists from Entertainment Weekly and Première.

T. E. Lawrence, portrayed by O'Toole, was selected as the tenth-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute.

I think it is fair to refer to this film as "Significant" 

The film is not brief and I couldn't cover it in a brief way. 

On the subject of not being brief, Lean's next picture was 27 minutes shorter than Lawrence but that is still 200 minutes long.  

I'm going to try and be brief with this one, 

Doctor Zhivago is a 1965 epic historical romance directed by David Lean with a screenplay by Robert Bolt, based on the 1957 novel by Boris Pasternak of the same name. The story is set in Russia during World War I and the Russian Civil War. The film stars Omar Sharif in the title role as Yuri Zhivago, a married physician and poet whose life is altered by the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war, and Julie Christie who plays his love interest Lara Antipova.

While being popular in the West, Pasternak's book was banned in the Soviet Union for decades. So shooting in Russia was out of the question, the film was mostly shot in Spain.

Lean and producer Sam Spiegel had parted ways after "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) due to a  serious falling out, When Lawrence of Arabia movie was over schedule and over budget, Spiegel sent a telegram to Lean, saying,

“If you do not move faster, I shall have to come out there with a big broom and make a clean sweep -- and replace the whole crew."

Lean then got a broom from the crew and instructed people to film him in 70mm! Lean was filmed sweeping sand in the Jordanian desert. he then looked straight at the camera and said,

"Here I am in this fucking desert, making this fucking film. You come out here, you bugger, and try having a go in my place. You wouldn't last an hour."

He then sent the film out to Spiegel in Hollywood as a 'memo.' The pair's professional relationship was over after "Lawrence". 

So "Doctor Zhivago" was an international co-production between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood and Italian producer Carlo Ponti.

Critics at the time were critical of its length at over three hours (and this film would have been exhibited with  an intermission) It was also suggested that the film trivialised the history of the Russian revolution but acknowledged the intensity of the love story and the film's treatment of human themes.

At the 38th Academy Awards, Doctor Zhivago was nominated for 10 Oscars, It won five Oscars: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design.

It also won five awards at the 23rd Golden Globe Awards including Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama for Sharif.

Lean made the movie for $11m ($108.5m in 2024) 

The film went on to gross $111.7m ($1.1B in 2024) that was in the US & Canada alone and it is thought that the film was seen by over 250 million people on its theatrical run in the rest of the world. This film was MASSIVE!   

In 2022, it was the eighth highest-grossing film of all time in the United States and Canada, adjusted for inflation.

It is also one of the top ten highest-grossing films worldwide after adjusting for inflation.

In 1998, it was ranked by the American Film Institute 39th on their 100 Years... 100 Movies list.

The British Film Institute the following year listed it as the 27th greatest British film of all time.

Lean went straight on to develop his next cinematic epic.... 

"Ryan's Daughter" (1970)

Directed by David Lean, Written by Robert Bolt, Produced by Anthony Havelock-Allan, Music by Maurice Jarre, Cinematography by Freddie Young, Edited by Norman Savage, Starring
Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, Christopher Jones, John Mills, Leo McKern & Sarah Miles.
Epic drama of love and scandal set in a small village on the West Coast of Ireland during World War One. Trapped in a loveless marriage to a schoolteacher, Rosy Ryan embarks on a passionate affair with a British soldier, but the village idiot unwittingly proves the undoing of the couple.

For full transparency before doing the research for this blog I had never heard of this film.

I cannot know everything! I have now ordered the film on Physical media and I will be checking it out ASAP.

This film was Lean's third consecutive collaboration with Screenwriter Robert Bolt, music composer Maurice Jarre and cinematographer Freddie Young having made "Lawrence" and "Zhivago" with them, Lean obviously had no desire to break up a winning team.   

The production was largely filmed on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland, in 1969. But due to inclement Irish weather, many of the beach scenes were filmed in South Africa.

Lean had to wait a year before a suitably dramatic storm appeared to film. 

Robert Mitchum did not have a great time working with Lean, saying "Working with David Lean is like constructing the Taj Mahal out of toothpicks" but in later life Mitchum confided to friends and family that he felt Ryan's Daughter was among his best roles and he regretted the negative response the film received. Mitchum did say in an interview that, despite the difficult production, Lean was one of the best directors he had worked with.

The film "Ryan's Daughter" received quite a hostile reception from many film critics on its release,

Roger Ebert gave it two stars out of four and wrote that,

"Lean's characters, well written and well acted, are finally dwarfed by his excessive scale."

Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the screenplay,

"the kind of book-club fiction that should be read under a hair-dryer, a fact that cannot be disguised by the elaborate production (Mr. Lean built his own, brand-new Irish village for the film) and the almost metaphysical style."

Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called the film a

"brilliant enigma, brilliant, because David Lean achieved to a marked degree the daring and obvious goal of intimate romantic tragedy along the rugged geographical and political landscape of 1916 Ireland; an enigma, because overlength of perhaps 30 minutes serves to magnify some weaknesses of Robert Bolt's original screenplay, to dissipate the impact of the performances, and to overwhelm outstanding photography and production."

Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Poor casting, heavy-handed direction that becomes comical during the big love scene and empty-headed characters make David Lean's 'Ryan's Daughter' an epic disappointment." Charles Champlin of The Los Angeles Times wrote,

"The original love story which Robert Bolt has set in these desolate seascapes seems both too frail and too banal to sustain the crushing weight of 3 hours and 18 minutes of Super Panavision."

Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote,

"There is no artistic or moral rationale for this movie—only expediency ... The emptiness of 'Ryan's Daughter' shows in practically every frame."

Apparently, Time Magazine critic Richard Schickel asked Lean "how someone who made Brief Encounter could make a piece of bullshit like Ryan's Daughter." There is a thought that the negative reviews come from critics having far too high expectations, following the three epics Lean had made in a row before Ryan's Daughter. The preview cut of the film was 220 minutes and was criticised for its length and poor pacing. Lean then cut 17 minutes of footage before the film's actual release. The missing footage has never been restored or even found.

The film ended up being moderately successful at the worldwide box office but was one of the most successful films of 1970 in the UK. The film was not a financial hit in the style of "Zhivago" or "Lawrence" but it made money, The film ran in one London cinema for almost two years straight.

One of the areas of criticism levelled at the film would be unlikely to resonate with an English audience, The film seems to depict the Irish proletariat as uncivilised. An Irish commentator in 2008 called them "the local herd-like and libidinous populace who lack gainful employment to keep them occupied". It has also been said the film attempts to negate the legacy of the 1916 Easter Rising and the following Irish War of Independence in relation to the eruption of "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland around the time of the film's release.

Apparently Lean took all the criticisms very personally, claiming at the time that he would never make another film. People dispute this, referencing that Lean did try to get a string of projects off the ground including his vision for the film "The Bounty". So historically it looked like Lean may have been unable to make another film not that he lacked the desire to do so. 

Leans next and final motion picture was released 14 years after "Ryan's Daughter"

I think it's wonderful that Lean got to make this film. After more than a decade after his disappointment with "Ryan's Daughter" at the age of 75 he wrote, directed and edited

"A Passage To India". The film also reunited Lean with Alec Guinness.    

she said, "I thought, 'Oh dear, I really don't want to do it', but it's very difficult to turn down a Lean film".

The film received widespread critical acclaim on release,

Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it "Lean's best work since The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia and perhaps his most humane and moving film since Brief Encounter. Though vast in physical scale and set against a tumultuous Indian background, it is also intimate, funny and moving in the manner of a film maker completely in control of his material … Though [Lean] has made A Passage to India both less mysterious and more cryptic than the book, the film remains a wonderfully provocative tale, full of vivid characters, all played to near perfection."

Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times observed that "Forster's novel is one of the literary landmarks of this century, and now David Lean has made it into one of the greatest screen adaptations I have ever seen … Lean is a meticulous craftsman, famous for going to any length to make every shot look just the way he thinks it should. His actors here are encouraged to give sound, thoughtful, unflashy performances … and his screenplay is a model of clarity."

Variety called the film "impeccably faithful, beautifully played and occasionally languorous" and added, "Lean has succeeded to a great degree in the tricky task of capturing Forster's finely edged tone of rational bemusement and irony."

The film was a financial success having a production budget of $14.5m ($43.3m in 2024) and grossing approximately $40m ($119.5m in 2024) 

Lean embarked on pre-production for a film adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 1804 novel Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard. Lean planned to assemble an all-star cast, including Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, Peter O'Toole, Christopher Lambert, Isabella Rossellini and Dennis Quaid. Lean also wanted Alec Guinness to play Dr. Monygham, but the 75 year old actor turned him down in a letter from 1989:

"I believe I would be disastrous casting. The only thing in the part I might have done well is the crippled crab-like walk."

As with Empire of the Sun, Steven Spielberg came on board as producer with the backing of Warner Bros., but after endless rewrites and disagreements on the script, he left the project. 

Lean decided to write the film himself with the assistance of Maggie Unsworth who he had worked on the scripts for Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and The Passionate Friends.

Lean was planning on shooting the film in Mexico but decided to film in London and Madrid, to secure O'Toole, who had insisted he would take part only if the film was shot close to home. Nostromo had secured a budget of $46 million.

Six weeks away from the start of principle photography David Lean passed away.

It was rumoured that John Boorman was going to take over directing the project, but the production collapsed.

Lean was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1953.

He was nominated for 11 Oscars winning 2 for Best Director

He was nominated for 14 BAFTA's winning 6 

He was nominated for 5 Golden Globe Awards winning 3

David Lean Received a BAFTA Fellowship in 1975 

Lean was knighted for his contributions and services to the arts in 1984.

Lean received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1990.

In 1999, the British Film Institute compiled its list of the Top 100 British films. Seven of Lean's sixteen films appeared on the list:

Brief Encounter (#2), Lawrence of Arabia (#3), Great Expectations (#5), The Bridge on the River Kwai (#11), Doctor Zhivago (#27), Oliver Twist (#46) & In Which We Serve (#92)

David Lean passed away from throat cancer. in Limehouse, London on 16 April 1991,

at the age of 83.  He was interred at Putney Vale Cemetery.

Simply one of the best all time English filmmakers of all time.  Thank you Mr Lean.  

Recommendations!

Out of his 16 films I recommend all film fans and budding cinephiles must watch,