David Lean (25 March 1908 – 16 April 1991), director, producer, screenwriter and editor, was considered one of the most important figures in British cinema, as well as universally, among his top films being The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), A Passage to India (1984), Great Expectations (1946), Oliver Twist (1948) and the romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945).
Originally a film editor in the early 1930s, Lean made his directorial debut with the 1942 film In Which We Serve, which was the first of four collaborations with Noël Coward. Beginning with Summertime in 1955, Lean made internationally co-produced films financed by major Hollywood studios.
In 1970, David Lean faced critical failure with the film Ryan’s Daughter, which prompted him to take a fourteen-year hiatus from directing. During this period, Lean worked on several film projects that he never completed.
However, in 1984 he made a remarkable comeback with A Passage to India, an adaptation of EM Forster’s novel, marking a significant turning point in his career. Despite its success, A Passage to India was Lean’s last directorial effort.
The production received 11 Oscar nominations (Lean himself was nominated for three Oscars – for directing, editing and screenplay) winning twice – once for best actress in a supporting role (Peggy Ashcroft who, at 77 years, she became the oldest actress to win an Oscar, and the second time for Best Music (Maurice Jarre). The film also earned the film’s female star, Judy Davis, her first Oscar nomination. American Film Critic Roger Ebert called A Passage to India one of the greatest film adaptations he had ever seen.
Known by specialists for his affinity for pictorialism and inventive visual editing techniques, David Lean has been praised by prestigious directors such as Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott. In 2002, Lean was voted the 9th greatest film director of all time in the British Film Institute Sight & Sound “Directors’ Top Directors” poll, he has been nominated seven times for the Academy Award for Best director, winning twice (for The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia), has seven films in the British Films Institute Top 100, with three of them ranking in the top five positions, received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1990, he was voted the 34th greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly, was honored with the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award (1990), was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in Coronation Honors List in 1953 and was knighted in 1984 in recognition of his contributions and services to the arts.
In a BBC documentary, director Steven Spielberg shared an anecdote about his interaction with the renowned David Lean. Being friends, Lean was approached by Spielberg asking him to try to convince the producers at Warner Brothers to finance Spielberg’s adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel Nostromo. Lean, known for his influence in the film industry, took on the task, talked to the right people and, after his intervention, Warner Brothers agreed to provide $20 million in financing for Spielberg’s film. While Lean expected that the success would excite Spielberg, the American director’s reaction was totally the opposite, and that’s because the expectations regarding the money he was going to receive from the film company were higher than the budget allocated by 20 million dollars. In this situation, Lean advised Spielberg to personally approach Warner Brothers and request a larger budget of $30 million, but his efforts failed. This moment, writes IMDb.com, citing Spielberg, created tension between the two directors, ultimately ending, absurdly, their friendship.
David Lean was born on March 25, 1908 in Croydon, Surrey, England, growing up in a strict family that, ironically, forbade him to go to the cinema as a child. In 1927 he took a job at Gaumont British Studios, cleaning toilets, serving tea to employees and doing small courier services. By 1935, writes IMDb.com, David Lean had become editor-in-chief of the Gaumont British News, and from 1939 he began editing feature films, notably for Anthony Asquith, Paul Czinner and Michael Powell. Among the films he worked on were Pygmalion (1938), Major Barbara (1941) and One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942).
“By the late 1930s, Lean’s reputation as a publisher was well established. In 1942, Noël Coward offered Lean the chance to co-direct the war film In Which We Serve (1942), and shortly afterwards, encouraged by Coward, Lean, cinematographer Ronald Neame and producer Anthony Havelock-Allan they launched a production company called Cineguild, in which Lean first directed adaptations of three Coward plays: the chronicle This Happy Breed (1944), the humorous ghost story Blithe Spirit (1945), and the sentimental drama Brief Encounter (1945). And even though the latter was a box-office failure in England, Brief Encounter was very well received at the first Cannes Film Festival (1946) where, in addition to unanimous praise, it also received the Grand Prix”.
David Lean was the highest paid film editor working in British cinema until the late 1930s. He was considered the best and therefore the most sought after film editor at that time. For him, editing was the most interesting step in the process of making a film, so he took care of this aspect himself when it came to his own productions.
David is sweet – simple and honest – strong and wild. And he is the best film director in the world.(…) It is a privilege to work with someone who really knows what he is doing, who is so enthusiastic about his work, beyond one’s imagination, whose goal is to produce the most best possible result, and nothing else matters, as long as it contributes to a perfect result. My admiration for David is endless. (Katharine Hepburn)
David Lean was married six times, all of which were short-lived due to, some say, his “wandering eyes.” Lean’s first wife was one of his cousins, Isabel Jean, whom he married in 1930, and who bore him his only son, Peter Lean.
David Lean, whose filmography includes no less than 28 Oscars, died on April 16, 1991, at the age of 83, in Limehouse, Great Britain.
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