David Lean
Encyclopedia
Sir David Lean CBE (25 March 190816 April 1991) was an English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

, and editor
Film editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...

 best remembered for big-screen epics
Epic film
An epic is a genre of film that emphasizes human drama on a grand scale. Epics are more ambitious in scope than other film genres, and their ambitious nature helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film...

 such as The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William...

(1957), Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...

(1962),
Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India
A Passage to India (film)
A Passage to India is a 1984 drama film written and directed by David Lean. The screenplay is based on the 1924 novel of the same title by E. M. Forster and the 1960 play by Santha Rama Rau that was inspired by the novel....

(1984); for bringing Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

's novels to the silver screen
Silver screen
A silver screen, also known as a silver lenticular screen, is a type of projection screen that was popular in the early years of the motion picture industry and passed into popular usage as a metonym for the cinema industry...

 with films such as Great Expectations
Great Expectations (1946 film)
Great Expectations is a 1946 British film which won two Academy Awards and was nominated for three others...

(1946) and Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist (1948 film)
Oliver Twist is the second of David Lean's two film adaptations of Charles Dickens novels. Following the success of his 1946 version of Great Expectations, Lean re-assembled much of the same team for his adaptation of Dicken's 1838 novel, including producers Ronald Neame and Anthony...

(1948); and for the renowned romantic drama
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...

 Brief Encounter
Brief Encounter
Brief Encounter is a 1945 British film directed by David Lean about the conventions of British suburban life, centring on a housewife for whom real love brings unexpectedly violent emotions. The film stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey...

(1945).

Acclaimed and praised by directors such as Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

 and Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...

, Lean was voted 9th greatest film director of all time in the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

 Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...

"Directors Top Directors" poll 2002. Lean has four films in the top eleven of the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

's Top 100 British Films
BFI Top 100 British films
In 1999 the British Film Institute surveyed 1000 people from the world of British film and television to produce the BFI 100 list of the greatest British films of the 20th century. Voters were asked to choose up to 100 films that were 'culturally British'...

.

Early life

David Lean was born in Croydon
Croydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...

, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

 (now part of Greater London
Greater London
Greater London is the top-level administrative division of England covering London. It was created in 1965 and spans the City of London, including Middle Temple and Inner Temple, and the 32 London boroughs. This territory is coterminate with the London Government Office Region and the London...

), to Francis William le Blount Lean and the former Helena Tangye (niece of Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye
Richard Tangye
Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye was a British manufacturer of engines and other heavy equipment.-Biography:...

). His parents were Quakers and he was a pupil at the Quaker-founded Leighton Park School
Leighton Park School
Leighton Park School is a co-educational Quaker independent school for both day and boarding pupils. It is situated in the large town of Reading in Berkshire, in South East England...

 in Reading
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

. His younger brother, Edward Tangye Lean
Edward Tangye Lean
Edward Tangye Lean was a British author and original founder of the Inklings literary club in Oxford.Lean's father was Francis William le Blount Lean and his mother was Helena Annie Lean, who were married in 1904, separated by 1927, and were both Quakers...

 (1911–1974), founded the original Inklings
Inklings
The Inklings was an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford, England, for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949. The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction, and encouraged the writing of fantasy...

 literary club when a student at Oxford University
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

. Lean was a half-hearted schoolboy with a dreamy nature who was labeled a "dud" of a student; he left in his mid-teens and entered his father's chartered accountancy firm as an apprentice. At age 16, his father deserted the family when he ran off with another woman, and young David would later follow a similar path after his own first marriage and child.

Editing

Bored by his work, Lean spent every evening in the cinema, and in 1927, after an aunt had advised him to find a job he enjoyed doing, he went to Gaumont Studios where his obvious enthusiasm earned him a month's trial without pay. He was taken on as a teaboy, promoted to clapperboy, and soon rose to the position of third assistant director. By 1930 he was working as an editor on newsreels, including those of Gaumont Pictures
Gaumont Film Company
Gaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....

 and Movietone
Movietone News
Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States, and from 1929 to 1979 in the United Kingdom.-History:It is known in the U.S. as Fox Movietone News, produced cinema, sound newsreels from 1928 to 1963 in the U.S., from 1929 to 1979 in the UK , and from 1929 to 1975 in...

. His career in feature films began with Freedom of the Seas in 1934 and Escape Me Never in 1935.

He edited Gabriel Pascal
Gabriel Pascal
Gabriel Pascal was a Hungarian film producer and director.Born 1894 in Arad, Austria-Hungary , Pascal was the first film producer to bring the plays of George Bernard Shaw successfully to the screen. His most famous production was Pygmalion, for which Pascal himself received an Academy Award...

's film productions of two George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 plays, Pygmalion
Pygmalion (1938 film)
Pygmalion is a 1938 British film based on the George Bernard Shaw play of the same title, and adapted by him for the screen. It stars Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller....

(1938) and Major Barbara (1941). He edited Powell & Pressburger's
Powell and Pressburger
The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, also known as The Archers, made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1981 they were recognized for their contributions to British cinema with the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, the most prestigious...

 49th Parallel
49th Parallel (film)
49th Parallel is the third film made by the British writer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was released in the United States as The Invaders. Despite the title, no scene in the movie is set at the 49th parallel, which forms much of the U.S.-Canadian border...

(1941) and One of Our Aircraft Is Missing
One of Our Aircraft is Missing
One of Our Aircraft is Missing is a 1942 British war film, the fourth collaboration between the British writer-director-producer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and the first film they made under the banner of The Archers...

(1942). After this last film, Lean began his directing career, after editing more than two dozen features by 1942. As Tony Sloman
Anthony Sloman
Anthony Barney Sloman is an English broadcaster, film critic, film director, film editor, film producer, lecturer, production manager, screenwriter, sound editor and actor....

 wrote in 1999, "As the varied likes of David Lean, Robert Wise
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...

, Terence Fisher
Terence Fisher
Terence Fisher was a film director who worked for Hammer Films. He was born in Maida Vale, a district of London, England.Fisher was one of the most prominent horror directors of the second half of the 20th century...

 and Dorothy Arzner
Dorothy Arzner
Dorothy Arzner was an American film director. Her directorial career in feature films spanned from the late 1920s into the early 1940s, a time period in which there were very few—if any—other women working in the field.- Biography :Born in San Francisco, California, Arzner grew up in Los...

 have proved, the cutting rooms are easily the finest grounding for film direction."

For Lean's final film, A Passage to India
A Passage to India (film)
A Passage to India is a 1984 drama film written and directed by David Lean. The screenplay is based on the 1924 novel of the same title by E. M. Forster and the 1960 play by Santha Rama Rau that was inspired by the novel....

(1984), he chose to both direct and edit, and the two roles were given precisely equal status in the film's credits. Lean was nominated for Academy Awards in directing, editing
Academy Award for Film Editing
The Academy Award for Film Editing is one of the annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Nominations for this award are closely correlated with the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since 1981, every film selected as Best Picture has also been nominated for the Film Editing...

, and writing
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...

 for the film.

Early Films as a Director

His first work as a director was in collaboration with Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

 on In Which We Serve
In Which We Serve
In Which We Serve is a 1942 British patriotic war film directed by David Lean and Noël Coward. It was made during the Second World War with the assistance of the Ministry of Information ....

(1942), and he later adapted several of Coward's plays into successful films. These included This Happy Breed
This Happy Breed (film)
This Happy Breed is a 1944 British drama film directed by David Lean. The screenplay by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan and Ronald Neame is based on the 1939 play of the same title by Noël Coward...

(1944), Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (film)
Blithe Spirit is a British fantasy comedy film directed by David Lean. The screenplay by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan, Ronald Neame, and Noël Coward is based on Coward's 1941 play of the same name...

(1945) and Brief Encounter
Brief Encounter
Brief Encounter is a 1945 British film directed by David Lean about the conventions of British suburban life, centring on a housewife for whom real love brings unexpectedly violent emotions. The film stars Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway and Joyce Carey...

(1945). Two celebrated Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 adaptations followed – Great Expectations
Great Expectations (1946 film)
Great Expectations is a 1946 British film which won two Academy Awards and was nominated for three others...

(1946) and Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist (1948 film)
Oliver Twist is the second of David Lean's two film adaptations of Charles Dickens novels. Following the success of his 1946 version of Great Expectations, Lean re-assembled much of the same team for his adaptation of Dicken's 1838 novel, including producers Ronald Neame and Anthony...

(1948). These two were the first of many Lean films that starred Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...

, whom Lean considered his "good luck charm". ' The next film directed by Lean was The Passionate Friends
The Passionate Friends
The Passionate Friends is a 1949 British romantic drama film directed by David Lean. The film is based on The Passionate Friends: A Novel, a 1913 story by H. G. Wells It describes a love triangle in which a woman cannot give up her affair with another man...

, an often under-rated and atypical Lean film, but one which marked his first occasion to work with Claude Rains, who gives one of his finest performances in the film. The Sound Barrier
The Sound Barrier (film)
The Sound Barrier is a British 1952 film directed by David Lean. It is a fictional story about attempts by aircraft designers and test pilots to break the sound barrier. In the US it was retitled Breaking the Sound Barrier. David Lean's third and final film with his wife Ann Todd was also his first...

(1952) had a screenplay by the playwright Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...

 and Hobson's Choice (1954) was based on the play by Harold Brighouse
Harold Brighouse
Harold Brighouse was an English playwright and author whose best known play is Hobson's Choice. He was a prominent member, together with Allan Monkhouse and Stanley Houghton, of a group known as the Manchester School of dramatists.-Early life:Harold Brighouse was born in Eccles, Salford, the...

. Summertime (1955) marked a new direction for Lean. It was shot entirely on location in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

. U.S.-financed, the film starred Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

 as a middle-aged American woman who has a romance while on holiday in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

.

Historical Epics

In the late fifties and early sixties, Lean directed a series of blockbuster films that made his reputation as a truly international director and a master of the historical epic.

The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William...

(1957) was the story of British and American prisoners of war fighting for survival in a Japanese prison camp during World War Two. The film starred William Holden
William Holden
William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...

 and Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...

 and became the largest box office hit in the United States in 1958. The film won several Academy Awards, including best actor, best picture and best director.

In 1962 Lean made his most famous film, Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...

, about a British officer who unites the tribes of the Arab penninsula to fight in World War One. The film made actor Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...

 a star and won several more academy awards for Lean, including best picture and best director. "Lawrence of Arabia" continues to appear on lists of the greatest films ever made, and frequently comes in first on lists of the greatest "epic" films. Filmmakers like George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...

 and Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

 have cited the picture as a major source of inspiration for their own work.

In 1965 Lean had his greatest box office success, Doctor Zhivago, a romance set during the Russian revolution. The film, based on a novel by Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...

, tells the story of a physician and poet played by Omar Sharif
Omar Sharif
Omar Sharif is an Egyptian actor who has starred in Hollywood films including Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Funny Girl. He has been nominated for an Academy Award and has won two Golden Globe Awards.-Early life:...

 who falls in love with an unavailable woman named Lara (Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....

) and struggles to be with her in the chaos of the Russian Revolution and subsequent Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

. Hugely popular at the time, "Doctor Zhivago" is currently the eighth largest grossing film in United States history, adjusted for inflation.

In addition, Lean directed some scenes of The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Greatest Story Ever Told is a 1965 American epic film produced and directed by George Stevens and distributed by United Artists. It is a retelling of the story of Jesus Christ, from the Nativity through the Resurrection. This film is notable for its large ensemble cast and for being the last...

(1965) while George Stevens
George Stevens
George Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Among his most notable films were Diary of Anne Frank , nominated for Best Director, Giant , winner of Oscar for Best Director, Shane , Oscar nominated, and A Place in the Sun , winner of Oscar for Best...

 was doing location work in Nevada. Most of his scenes involved Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...

 and Jose Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...

, both of whom had previously worked with Lean on Lawrence of Arabia.

Later Works

In 1970, David Lean directed Ryan's Daughter
Ryan's Daughter
Ryan's Daughter is a 1970 film directed by David Lean. The film, set in 1916, tells the story of a married Irish woman who has an affair with a British officer during World War I, despite opposition from her nationalist neighbours...

a doomed romance set in Ireland. The film received less positive reviews than Lean's previous work and was not a smash hit at the international box office. Some critics felt the fillms massive visual scale and extended running time did not suit its small-scale romantic narrative. Nonetheless, the film won two Academy Awards the following year.

From 1977 until 1980, Lean and Robert Bolt were working on a film adaptation of Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian, a dramatized account by Richard Hough
Richard Hough
Richard Alexander Hough was a British author and historian specializing in maritime history.-Personal life:Hough married the author Charlotte Woodyadd, who he had met when they were pupils at Frensham Heights School, and they had five children including the author Deborah Moggach.-Literary...

 of the Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty
The mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny that occurred aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, and has been commemorated by several books, films, and popular songs, many of which take considerable liberties with the facts. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against the...

. It was originally to be released as a two-part film, one named The Lawbreakers that dealt with the voyage out to Tahiti and the subsequent mutiny, and the second named The Long Arm that studied the journey of the mutineers after the mutiny, as well as the admiralty's response in sending out the frigate HMS Pandora
HMS Pandora (1779)
HMS Pandora was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy launched in May 1779. She is best known as the ship sent in 1790 to search for the Bounty and the mutineers who had taken her...

 and her famous box in which some of the mutineers were imprisoned. Lean could not find financial backing for both films after Warner Bros. withdrew from the project; he decided to combine it into one, and even looked at a seven-part TV series, before finally getting backing from Italian magnate Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis was an Italian film producer.-Early life:He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father...

. Unfortunately for Lean, the project suffered a further setback when Bolt suffered a massive stroke and was unable to continue writing; the director felt that Bolt's involvement would be crucial to the film's success. Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg FRSL FRTS FBA, FRS FRSA is an English broadcaster and author best known for his work with the BBC and for presenting the The South Bank Show...

 ended up writing a considerable portion of the script.

Lean was ultimately forced to abandon the project after overseeing casting and the construction of the $4 million Bounty replica; at the last possible moment, actor Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...

 brought in his friend Roger Donaldson
Roger Donaldson
Roger Donaldson is an Australian-born New Zealand film producer, director and writer who has made numerous successful movies. He was a co-founder of the New Zealand Film Commission.-Life and career:...

 to direct the film, as producer De Laurentiis did not want to lose the millions he had already put into the project over what he thought was as insignificant a person as the director dropping out. The film was eventually released as The Bounty
The Bounty
The Bounty is a 1984 British historical film directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, and produced by Bernard Williams with Dino De Laurentiis as executive producer. It is the fifth film version of the story of the mutiny on the Bounty. The screenplay was by Robert Bolt...

.

Lean was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (CBE) in 1973, and was knighted in 1984.

After failing to get Mutiny on the Bounty into production, David Lean embarked on his last production, A Passage to India
A Passage to India
A Passage to India is a novel by E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of English literature by the Modern Library and won the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Time...

(1984), which was released to positive reviews and received two Academy Awards. During the last years of his life, Lean was in pre-production of a film version of Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...

's Nostromo
Nostromo
Nostromo is a 1904 novel by Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana." It was originally published serially in two volumes of T.P.'s Weekly....

. Lean assembled an all-star cast for this film, including Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...

, Paul Scofield
Paul Scofield
David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE , better known as Paul Scofield, was an English actor of stage and screen...

, Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

, Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...

, Christopher Lambert
Christopher Lambert
Christophe Guy Denis "Christopher" Lambert is an American-born French actor who has appeared in French, European and American productions. He is best known for his role as Connor MacLeod, or simply "The Highlander", from the movie and subsequent movie franchise series of the same name...

, Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...

 and Dennis Quaid
Dennis Quaid
Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...

, with Georges Corraface
Georges Corraface
Georges Corraface is a Franco-Greek actor who has had an international career in film and television, following many years in French theatre, notably as a member of the famed Peter Brook Company. His film credits include To Tama, Escape from L.A., La Pasión Turca, Vive La Mariée, Impromptu,...

 as the title character. Lean also wanted Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai...

 to play Doctor Monyghan, but the aged 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." Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

 came on board as producer, with the backing of Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

, but after several rewrites and disagreements on the script, Spielberg left the project and was replaced by Serge Silberman
Serge Silberman
Serge Silberman was a French film producer.Silberman was born in Łódź, then a part of the Russian Empire in a Jewish family. During World War II Silberman survived Nazi concentration camps and eventually settled in Paris...

, a respected producer at Greenwich Film Productions. The project went through several writers, including Christopher Hampton
Christopher Hampton
Christopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for the film adaptation of...

 and Robert Bolt
Robert Bolt
Robert Oxton Bolt, CBE was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar winning screenwriter.-Career:He was born in Sale, Cheshire. At Manchester Grammar School his affinity for Sir Thomas More first developed. He attended the University of Manchester, and, after war service, the University of...

. In the end, Lean decided to write the film himself with the assistance of Maggie Unsworth, with whom he had worked on the scripts for Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and The Passionate Friends. Originally Lean considered filming in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, but later decided to film in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, partly to secure O'Toole, who had insisted he would take part only if the film was shot close to home. Nostromo had a total budget of $46 million and was just six weeks away from filming at the time of Lean's death from throat cancer
Head and neck cancer
Head and neck cancer refers to a group of biologically similar cancers that start in the upper aerodigestive tract, including the lip, oral cavity , nasal cavity , paranasal sinuses, pharynx, and larynx. 90% of head and neck cancers are squamous cell carcinomas , originating from the mucosal lining...

. It was rumoured that fellow film director John Boorman
John Boorman
John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...

 would be taking over direction, but the production collapsed and Nostromo soon became a BBC television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...

 mini-series.

BAFTA

Lean was one of the founding members of the British Film Academy (later the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, or BAFTA) and was appointed its first chairman in 1947.

Reputation and influence

David Lean received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1990, being one of only three non-Americans to receive the award.

Lean is the most represented director on the BFI Top 100 British films
BFI Top 100 British films
In 1999 the British Film Institute surveyed 1000 people from the world of British film and television to produce the BFI 100 list of the greatest British films of the 20th century. Voters were asked to choose up to 100 films that were 'culturally British'...

 list, having a total of seven films on the list, and four films in the top eleven. Lean's films in general have always been extremely popular with the general public, with The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago among the highest-grossing films of all time. While Ryan's Daughter and A Passage to India were less successful on release, they have found wide and appreciative audiences since their release on DVD.

As Lean himself pointed out, his films are often admired by fellow directors as a showcase of the filmmaker's art. Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

 and Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...

 in particular were huge fans of Lean's epic films, and claimed him as one of their primary influences. Both Spielberg and Scorsese also helped in the 1989 restoration of Lawrence of Arabia which, when released, greatly revived Lean's reputation.

George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...

 has referenced Lean's films, Lawrence of Arabia in particular, throughout his Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

film series. John Milius
John Milius
John Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures.-Early life:Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Elizabeth and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. Milius attempted to join the Marine Corps in the late 1960s, but was rejected...

, David Yates
David Yates
David Yates is an English filmmaker who rose to mainstream prominence directing the final four films in the Harry Potter film series. He helmed the series' fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth installments, all of which became an instant blockbuster success and made him the most commercially...

, Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone
Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...

, Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...

, Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...

, and Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...

 also claimed influence from Lean's films. Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...

 is also an admirer and parodied several of Lean's films in his sci-fi spoof Spaceballs
Spaceballs
Spaceballs is a 1987 American science fiction comedy parody film co-written by, directed by, Mel Brooks and starring Bill Pullman, John Candy, Mel Brooks & Rick Moranis. It also features, Daphne Zuniga, Dick Van Patten, and the voice of Joan Rivers. The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on...

. John Woo
John Woo
John Woo Yu-Sen SBS is a Hong Kong-based film director and producer. Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion, Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard...

 once named Lawrence of Arabia among his top three films. More recently, Joe Wright
Joe Wright
Joe Wright is an English film director best known for Pride and Prejudice, Atonement and Hanna.-Early life and career:...

 (Pride & Prejudice
Pride & Prejudice (2005 film)
Pride & Prejudice is a 2005 British romance film directed by Joe Wright. It is a film adaptation of the 1813 novel of the same name by Jane Austen and the second adaption produced by Working Title Films. It was released on September 16, 2005, in the UK and on November 11, 2005, in the...

, Atonement
Atonement (film)
Atonement is a 2007 British romantic suspense war film directed by Joe Wright. It is a film adaptation of the 2001 novel of the same name by Ian McEwan. The film stars James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, and Saoirse Ronan. It was produced by Working Title Films and filmed throughout the summer of 2006...

) has cited Lean's works, particularly Doctor Zhivago, as an important influence on his work, and Baz Luhrmann
Baz Luhrmann
Mark Anthony "Baz" Luhrmann is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for The Red Curtain Trilogy, which includes his films Strictly Ballroom, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!...

 has named Lean as one of the inspirations for his 2008 epic Australia
Australia (2008 film)
Australia is a 2008 epic historical romance film directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. It is the second-highest grossing Australian film of all time, behind Crocodile Dundee. The screenplay was written by Luhrmann and screenwriter Stuart Beattie, with Ronald Harwood...

.

Personal life

Lean was a long-term resident of Limehouse
Limehouse
Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....

, east London. His home on Narrow Street is still owned by his family. He was married six times, had one son, and at least two grandchildren--all of whom he was completely estranged from --and was divorced five times. He was survived by his last wife, art dealer Sandra Cooke, the co-author, with Barry Chattington of
David Lean: An Intimate Portrait.
  • Isabel Lean (28 June 1930–1936) (his first cousin) — one son, Peter
  • Kay Walsh
    Kay Walsh
    Kay Walsh was an English actress and dancer. She grew up in Pimlico, raised by her grandmother....

     (23 November 1940–1949)
  • Ann Todd
    Ann Todd
    Dorothy Anne Todd was an English actress and producer.She was born in Hartford, Cheshire and was educated at St. Winifrid's School, Eastbourne. She became a popular actress from appearing in such films as Perfect Strangers and The Seventh Veil...

     (21 May 1949–1957) (also his first cousin)
  • Leila Matkar (4 July 1960–1978) (From, Hyderabad, India
    India
    India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

    . Lean's longest-lasting marriage.
  • Sandra Hotz (28 October 1981–1984)
  • Sandra Cooke (15 December 1990 – 16 April 1991)

Awards

Lean was nominated for a total of nine Academy Awards: seven for Best Director, one for Best Adapted Screenplay
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...

, and one for Best Film Editing
Academy Award for Film Editing
The Academy Award for Film Editing is one of the annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Nominations for this award are closely correlated with the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since 1981, every film selected as Best Picture has also been nominated for the Film Editing...

, the latter two being for A Passage to India
A Passage to India (film)
A Passage to India is a 1984 drama film written and directed by David Lean. The screenplay is based on the 1924 novel of the same title by E. M. Forster and the 1960 play by Santha Rama Rau that was inspired by the novel....

. Out of these nominations, Lean won two Oscars, both in the category of Best Director, for The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William...

 (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...

 (1962). With seven nominations in the category of Best Director, Lean is the third most nominated director in Oscar history, tied with Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann
Fred Zinnemann was an Austrian-American film director. He won four Academy Awards and directed films like High Noon, From Here to Eternity and A Man for All Seasons.-Life and career:...

 and behind Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

 (8 nominations) and William Wyler
William Wyler
William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...

 (12 nominations).

Lean was also nominated for four Golden Globe awards for Best Director, winning three, for The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William...

, Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...

, and Doctor Zhivago.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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