Editing David Lean

{{Short description|British film director (1908–1991)}}
{{other people||David Lean (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2023}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2012}}
{{Infobox person
 | honorific_prefix = [[Sir]]
 | name = David Lean
 | honorific_suffix = [[Order of the British Empire|CBE]]
 | image = Aankomst filmster Ann Todd en haar echtgenoot filmregisseur David Lean op Schiph, Bestanddeelnr 905-4605 (2).jpg
 | caption = Lean in 1952
 | birth_date = {{Birth date|1908|3|25|df=yes}}
 | birth_place = [[Croydon]], [[Surrey]], England
 | death_date = {{Death date and age|1991|04|16|1908|03|25|df=yes}}
 | death_place = [[Limehouse]], [[London]], England
 | resting_place = [[Putney Vale Cemetery]], [[London]], England
 | occupation = {{hlist|Film director|film producer|screenwriter|film editor}}
 | years_active = 1930–1991
 | spouse = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Isabel Lean|1930|1936|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|[[Kay Walsh]]|1940|1949|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|[[Ann Todd]]|1949|1957|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|Leila Matkar|1960|1978|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|Sandra Hotz |1981|1984|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|Sandra Cooke|1990}}
}}
 | children = 1
}}

'''Sir David Lean''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}} (25 March 1908{{spaced ndash}}16 April 1991) was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor, widely considered one of the most important figures of [[Cinema of the United Kingdom|British cinema]]. He directed the large-scale epics ''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]'' (1957), ''[[Lawrence of Arabia (film)|Lawrence of Arabia]]'' (1962), ''[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|Doctor Zhivago]]'' (1965), ''[[Ryan's Daughter]]'' (1970), and ''[[A Passage to India (film)|A Passage to India]]'' (1984).<ref>{{cite book|last=Bergan|first=Ronald|title=Film|url=https://archive.org/details/filmeyewitnessco00berg|url-access=limited|year=2006|publisher=Doring Kindersley|location=London|isbn=978-1-4053-1280-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/filmeyewitnessco00berg/page/n322 321]}}</ref> He also directed the film adaptations of [[Charles Dickens]] novels ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]'' (1946) and ''[[Oliver Twist (1948 film)|Oliver Twist]]'' (1948), as well as the romantic drama ''[[Brief Encounter]]'' (1945).

Originally a film editor in the early 1930s, Lean made his directorial debut with 1942's ''[[In Which We Serve]]'', which was the first of four collaborations with [[Noël Coward]]. Lean began to make internationally co-produced films financed by the big Hollywood studios, beginning with ''[[Summertime (1955 film)|Summertime]]'' in 1955. The critical failure of his film ''[[Ryan's Daughter]]'' in 1970 led him to take a fourteen-year break from filmmaking, during which he planned a number of film projects which never came to fruition. In 1984, he had a career revival with ''A Passage to India'', adapted from [[E. M. Forster]]'s [[A Passage to India|novel]]. This was a hit with critics, but it proved to be the last film that Lean directed.

Lean is described by film critic [[Michael Sragow]] as "a director's director, whose total mastery of filmcraft commands nothing less than awe among his peers".<ref name="David Lean's Right of 'Passage'">{{cite journal |last1=Sragow |first1=Michael |title=David Lean's Right of 'Passage' |journal=Film Comment |date=1985 |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=20–27 |jstor=43453017 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/43453017 |access-date=19 July 2023}}</ref> He has been lauded by directors such as [[Steven Spielberg]],<ref>[http://www.theraider.net/information/influences/lawrence_of_arabia.php Indiana Jones' Influences: Inspirations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170710140649/http://www.theraider.net/information/influences/lawrence_of_arabia.php |date=10 July 2017 }}. TheRaider.net. Retrieved on 29 May 2011.</ref> [[Stanley Kubrick]],<ref>[http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index3.html#slot26 The Kubrick Site FAQ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318014713/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index3.html#slot26 |date=18 March 2017 }}. Visual-memory.co.uk. Retrieved on 29 May 2011.</ref> [[Martin Scorsese]],<ref name="Collins"/> and [[Ridley Scott]].<ref>[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/ridley-scotts-brilliant-first-film Ridley Scott's Brilliant First Film] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160620203457/http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/ridley-scotts-brilliant-first-film |date=20 June 2016 }}. newyorker.com (28 May 2012). Retrieved on 7 September 2017.</ref> He was voted 9th greatest film director of all time in the [[British Film Institute]] ''[[Sight & Sound]]'' "Directors' Top Directors" poll in 2002.<ref>[http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/poll/directors-directors.html The directors' top ten directors] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180929091705/http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/polls/topten/poll/directors-directors.html |date=29 September 2018 }}. Bfi.org.uk (5 September 2006). Retrieved on 29 May 2011.</ref> He was nominated seven times for the [[Academy Award for Best Director]], which he won twice for ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' and ''Lawrence of Arabia'', and he has seven films in the British Film Institute's [[BFI Top 100 British films|Top 100 British Films]] (with three of them being in the top five)<ref>[http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/bfi100/1-10.html The BFI 100: 1–10] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514093408/http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/bfi100/1-10.html |date=14 May 2011 }}. Bfi.org.uk (6 September 2006). Retrieved on 29 May 2011.</ref><ref>[http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/bfi100/11-20.html The BFI 100: 11–20] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040603080611/http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/bfi100/11-20.html |date=3 June 2004 }} Bfi.org.uk (6 September 2006). Retrieved on 29 May 2011.</ref> and was awarded the [[AFI Life Achievement Award]] in 1990.

==Early life and education==
David Lean was born on 25 March 1908 at 38 Blenheim Crescent, South Croydon, Surrey (now part of [[Greater London]]), to Francis William le Blount Lean and the former Helena Tangye (niece of [[Richard Tangye|Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye]]).<ref name="ODNB">{{Cite ODNB|id=49869|title=Lean, Sir David (1908–1991)}}</ref> His parents were [[Quaker]]s and he was a pupil at the Quaker-founded [[Leighton Park School]] in [[Reading, Berkshire|Reading]]. His younger brother, [[Edward Tangye Lean]] (1911–1974), founded the original [[Inklings]] literary club when a student at [[Oxford University]]. Lean was a half-hearted schoolboy with a dreamy nature who was labelled a "dud" of a student;<ref name=Smith /> he left school in the Christmas Term of 1926, at the age of 18,{{sfn|Brownlow|1996|p=39}} and entered his father's chartered accountancy firm as an apprentice.

A more formative event for his career than his formal education was an uncle's gift, when Lean was aged ten, of a [[Brownie (camera)|Brownie box camera]]. "You usually didn't give a boy a camera until he was 16 or 17 in those days. It was a huge compliment and I succeeded at it." Lean printed and developed his films, and it was his "great hobby".<ref>the Guardian, 17 April 1991</ref> In 1923,{{sfn|Phillips|2006|p={{page needed|date=December 2021}}}} his father deserted the family. Lean later followed a similar path after his own first marriage and child.<ref name=Smith />

==Career==

===Period as film editor===
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, he visited [[Gaumont British|Gaumont Studios]] where his obvious enthusiasm earned him a month's trial without pay. He was taken on as a teaboy, promoted to [[clapperboard|clapperboy]], and soon rose to the position of [[Assistant director|third assistant director]]. By 1930 he was working as an editor on [[newsreels]], including those of [[Gaumont Film Company|Gaumont Pictures]] and [[Movietone News|Movietone]], while his move to feature films began with ''[[Freedom of the Seas (film)|Freedom of the Seas]]'' (1934) and ''[[Escape Me Never (1935 film)|Escape Me Never]]'' (1935).<ref>{{cite web |last1=Collins |first1=Andrew |title=The epic legacy of David Lean |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/may/04/features |website=The Guardian |date=4 May 2008 |publisher=Guardian News & Media Limited |access-date=6 January 2019 |archive-date=7 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170907213402/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/may/04/features |url-status=live }}</ref>

He edited [[Gabriel Pascal]]'s film productions of two [[George Bernard Shaw]] plays, ''[[Pygmalion (1938 film)|Pygmalion]]'' (1938) and ''[[Major Barbara (film)|Major Barbara]]'' (1941). He edited [[Powell and Pressburger|Powell & Pressburger]]'s ''[[49th Parallel (film)|49th Parallel]]'' (1941) and ''[[One of Our Aircraft Is Missing]]'' (1942). After this last film, Lean began his directing career, after editing more than two dozen features by 1942. As [[Anthony Sloman|Tony Sloman]] wrote in 1999, "As the varied likes of David Lean, [[Robert Wise]], [[Terence Fisher]] and [[Dorothy Arzner]] have proved, the cutting rooms are easily the finest grounding for film direction."<ref>Sloman, Tony (1999). [http://cinescale.20m.com/obit1.html "Obituary: Harold Kress"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707061352/http://cinescale.20m.com/obit1.html |date=7 July 2011 }}, ''The Independent'', 26 October 1999. Online version retrieved 8 April 2009.</ref> David Lean was given honorary membership of the [[GBFTE|Guild of British Film Editors]] in 1968.

===British films===
His first work as a director was in collaboration with [[Noël Coward]] on ''[[In Which We Serve]]'' (1942), and he later adapted several of Coward's plays into successful films. These films are ''[[This Happy Breed (film)|This Happy Breed]]'' (1944), ''[[Blithe Spirit (1945 film)|Blithe Spirit]]'' (1945) and ''[[Brief Encounter]]'' (1945) with [[Celia Johnson]] and [[Trevor Howard]] as quietly understated clandestine lovers, torn between their unpredictable passion and their respective orderly middle-class marriages in suburban England. The film shared Grand Prix honors at the 1946 Cannes film festival and garnered Lean his first Academy nominations for directing and screen adaptation, and Celia Johnson a nomination for Best Actress. It has since become a classic, one of the most highly regarded British films.

Two celebrated [[Charles Dickens]] adaptations followed – ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]'' (1946) and ''[[Oliver Twist (1948 film)|Oliver Twist]]'' (1948). [[David Shipman (writer)|David Shipman]] wrote in ''The Story of Cinema: Volume Two'' (1984): "Of the other Dickens films, only Cukor's ''David Copperfield'' approaches the excellence of this pair, partly because his casting, too, was near perfect".{{sfn|Shipman|1984|p=775}} These two films were the first directed by Lean to star [[Alec Guinness]], whom Lean considered his "good luck charm". The actor's portrayal of Fagin was controversial at the time. The first screening in Berlin during February 1949 offended the surviving Jewish community and led to a riot. It caused problems too in New York, and after private screenings, was condemned by the [[Anti-Defamation League]] and the American Board of Rabbis. "To our surprise it was accused of being anti-Semitic", Lean wrote. "We made Fagin an outsize and, we hoped, an amusing Jewish villain."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=bKtQTBGaB3wC&pg=PA136 ''Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean''], University Press of Kentucky, 2006, pp.135–36</ref> The terms of the [[Motion Picture Production Code|production code]] meant that the film's release in the United States was delayed until July 1951 after cuts amounting to eight minutes.{{sfn|Phillips|2006|p=139}}

The next film directed by Lean was ''[[The Passionate Friends (1949 film)|The Passionate Friends]]'' (1949), an atypical Lean film, but one which marked his first occasion to work with [[Claude Rains]], who played the husband of a woman ([[Ann Todd]]) torn between him and an old flame (Howard). ''The Passionate Friends'' was the first of three films to feature the actress Ann Todd, who became his third wife. ''[[Madeleine (1950 film)|Madeleine]]'' (1950), set in Victorian-era Glasgow is about an 1857 ''[[cause célèbre]]'' with Todd's lead character accused of murdering a former lover. "Once more", writes film critic [[David Thomson (film critic)|David Thomson]] "Lean settles on the pressing need for propriety, but not before the film has put its characters and the audience through a wringer of contradictory feelings."<ref>{{cite news|last=Thomson|first=David|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/10/fiction1|title=Unhealed wounds|date=10 May 2008|work=The Guardian|access-date=31 December 2015|archive-date=7 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171207064912/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/10/fiction1|url-status=live}}</ref> The last of the films with Todd, ''[[The Sound Barrier]]'' (1952), has a screenplay by the playwright [[Terence Rattigan]] and was the first of his three films for [[Alexander Korda|Sir Alexander Korda]]'s [[London Films]]. ''[[Hobson's Choice (1954 film)|Hobson's Choice]]'' (1954), with [[Charles Laughton]] in the lead, was based on the play by [[Harold Brighouse]].

===International films===
[[File:DavidLean1965.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Lean in Northern Finland in 1965 while shooting ''Doctor Zhivago'']]
''[[Summertime (1955 film)|Summertime]]'' (1955) marked a new departure for Lean. It was partly American financed, although again made for Korda's London Films. The film features [[Katharine Hepburn]] in the lead role as a middle-aged American woman who has a romance while on holiday in [[Venice]]. It was shot entirely on location there. Although best known for his epics, Lean's personal favourite of all his films was ''Summertime'', and Hepburn his favourite actress.<ref>{{cite book |last=Chandler |first=Charlotte |author-link=Charlotte Chandler |date=2010 |title=I Know Where I'm Going: Katharine Hepburn, a Personal Biography |location=Milwaukee, WI |publisher=Applause |isbn=978-1-907532-01-6 |page=161}}</ref>

====For Columbia and Sam Spiegel====

Lean's films now began to become infrequent but much larger in scale and more extensively released internationally. ''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]'' (1957) was based on a novel by [[Pierre Boulle]] recounting the story of British and American prisoners of war trying to survive in a Japanese prison camp during the [[Second World War]]. The film stars [[William Holden]] and [[Alec Guinness]] and became the highest-grossing film of 1957 in the United States. It won seven [[Academy Awards]], including [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Picture]], [[Academy Award for Best Director|Best Director]], and [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]] for [[Alec Guinness]], who had battled with Lean to give more depth to his role as an obsessively correct British commander who is determined to build the best possible bridge for his Japanese captors in Burma.

After extensive location work in the Middle East, [[North Africa]], [[Spain]], and elsewhere, Lean's ''[[Lawrence of Arabia (film)|Lawrence of Arabia]]'' was released in 1962. This was the first project of Lean's with a screenplay by playwright [[Robert Bolt]], rewriting an original script by [[Michael Wilson (writer)|Michael Wilson]] (one of the two blacklisted writers of ''Bridge on the River Kwai''). It recounts the life of [[T. E. Lawrence]], the British officer who is depicted in the film as uniting the squabbling Bedouin peoples of the Arab peninsula to fight in [[World War I]] and then push on for independence.

After some hesitation, Alec Guinness appeared here in his fourth David Lean film as the Arab leader Prince Faisal, despite his misgivings from their conflicts on ''Bridge on the River Kwai''. French composer [[Maurice Jarre]], on his first Lean film, created a soaring film score with a famous theme and won his first Oscar for Best Original Score. The film turned actor [[Peter O'Toole]], playing Lawrence, into an international star. Lean was nominated for ten Oscars, winning seven, including two for Best Director. Lean remains the only British director to win more than one Oscar for directing.

====For MGM====

Lean had his greatest box-office success with ''[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|Doctor Zhivago]]'' (1965), a romance set during the [[Russian Revolution]]. The film, based on the Soviet suppressed novel by Nobel Prize-winning Russian poet [[Boris Pasternak]], tells the story of a brilliant and warm-hearted physician and poet ([[Omar Sharif]]) who, while seemingly happily married into the Russian aristocracy, and a father, falls in love with a beautiful abandoned young mother named Lara ([[Julie Christie]]) and struggles to be with her in the chaos of the Bolshevik revolution and subsequent [[Russian Civil War]].
[[File:Lean-and-Sharif-in-Joensuu-1965.jpg|alt=Lean-and-Sharif-in-Joensuu-1965|thumb|Lean and [[Omar Sharif]] arriving to Joensuu, Finland, to shoot ''[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|Doctor Zhivago]]'', March 1965]]

Initially, reviews for ''Doctor Zhivago'' were lukewarm, but critics have since come to see it as one of Lean's best films, with film director [[Paul Greengrass]] calling it "one of the great masterpieces of cinema".<ref>[http://www.bafta.org/media-centre/transcripts/paul-greengrass-david-lean-lecture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170804133501/http://www.bafta.org/media-centre/transcripts/paul-greengrass-david-lean-lecture|date=4 August 2017}}. "Paul Greengrass: David Lean Lecture|BAFTA". Retrieved 28 May 2017.</ref> {{as of|2020}}, it is the 9th highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation. Producer [[Carlo Ponti]] used [[Maurice Jarre|Maurice Jarre']]s [[Doctor Zhivago (soundtrack)|lush romantic score]] to create a pop tune called "[[Lara's Theme]]", which became an international hit song with lyrics under the title "Somewhere My Love", one of cinema's most successful theme songs. The British director of photography, [[Freddie Young]], won an Academy Award for his colour cinematography. Around the same time, Lean also directed some scenes of ''[[The Greatest Story Ever Told]]'' (1965) while [[George Stevens]] was committed to location work in Nevada.

Lean's ''[[Ryan's Daughter]]'' (1970) was released after an extended period on location in Ireland. A doomed romance set against the backdrop of 1916 Ireland's struggles against the British, it is loosely based on [[Gustave Flaubert]]'s ''[[Madame Bovary]]''. Starring the aging Hollywood 'bad boy' [[Robert Mitchum]] in an uncharacteristic role as a long-suffering Irish husband and British actress [[Sarah Miles]] as his faithless young wife, the film received far fewer positive reviews than the director's previous work, being particularly savaged by the New York critics. Some critics felt the film's massive visual scale on gorgeous Irish beaches and extended running time did not suit its small-scale romantic narrative. Nonetheless, the film was a box office success, earning $31 million and making it the 8th highest-grossing film of that year. It won two Academy Awards the following year, another for cinematographer [[Freddie Young]] and for supporting actor [[John Mills]] in his role as a village halfwit.

The poor critical reception of the film prompted Lean to meet with the [[National Society of Film Critics]], gathered at the [[Algonquin Hotel]] in New York, including ''[[The New Yorker]]''{{'s}} [[Pauline Kael]], and ask them why they objected to the movie. "I sensed trouble from the moment I sat down", Lean says of the now famous luncheon. [[Time (magazine)|''Time'']] critic [[Richard Schickel]] asked Lean point blank how he, the director of ''Brief Encounter'', could have made "a piece of bullshit" like ''Ryan's Daughter''.<ref>Wolcott, James (April 1997). "Waiting for Godard". Vanity Fair (Conde Nast)</ref> These critics so lacerated the film for two hours to David Lean's face that the devastated Lean was put off from making films for a long time. "They just took the film to bits", said Lean in a later television interview. "It really had such an awful effect on me for several years&nbsp;... you begin to think that maybe they're right. Why on earth am I making films if I don't have to? It shakes one's confidence terribly."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvB-u7vVZus|title=David Lean on the critical reaction to Ryan's Daughter|website=[[YouTube]]|date=25 June 2014 |access-date=26 July 2016|archive-date=5 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170105003914/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvB-u7vVZus|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Last years and unfulfilled projects===

====''The Lawbreakers'' and ''The Long Arm''====
From 1977 until 1980, Lean and Robert Bolt worked on a film adaptation of ''Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian'', a dramatized account by [[Richard Hough]] of the [[Mutiny on the Bounty|Mutiny on the ''Bounty'']]. 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 (1779)|HMS ''Pandora'']], 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 looked at a seven-part TV series before getting backing from Italian mogul [[Dino De Laurentiis]]. The project then suffered a further setback when Bolt suffered a serious [[stroke]] and was unable to continue writing; the director felt that Bolt's involvement would be crucial to the film's success. [[Melvyn Bragg]] ended up writing a considerable portion of the script.

Lean was 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]] brought in his friend [[Roger Donaldson]] 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.<ref>[http://lean.bfi.org.uk/material.php?theme=2&title=bounty] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080505070825/http://lean.bfi.org.uk/material.php?theme=2&title=bounty|date=5 May 2008}}</ref> The film was eventually released as ''[[The Bounty (1984 film)|The Bounty]]''.

====''A Passage to India''====
Lean then embarked on a project he had pursued since 1960, a film adaptation of ''[[A Passage to India (film)|A Passage to India]]'' (1984), from [[E. M. Forster]]'s [[A Passage to India|1924 novel]] of colonial conflicts in British-occupied India. Entirely shot on location in the sub-continent, this became his last completed film. He rejected a draft by [[Santha Rama Rau]], responsible for the stage adaptation and Forster's preferred screenwriter, and wrote the script himself.<ref>{{cite web|last=McGee|first=Scott|url=https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/152548|title=A Passage to India|publisher=Turner Classic Movies|access-date=13 September 2016|archive-date=30 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160330035245/http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/152548%7C0/A-Passage-to-India.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In addition, Lean also edited the film with the result that his three roles in the production (writer, editor, director) were given equal status in the credits.<ref>[[Walter Kerr|Kerr, Walter]] (1985). [https://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30A17F8355D0C748DDDAA0894DD484D81 "Films are made in the Cutting Room"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 17 March 1985. Online version retrieved 15 November 2007.</ref>

Lean recruited long-time collaborators for the cast and crew, including Maurice Jarre (who won another Academy Award for the score), Alec Guinness in his sixth and final role for Lean, as an eccentric Hindu Brahmin, and [[John Box]], the production designer for ''Dr. Zhivago''. Reversing the critical response to ''Ryan's Daughter'', the film opened to universally enthusiastic reviews; the film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and Lean himself nominated for three Academy Awards in [[Academy Award for Best Director|directing]], [[Academy Award for Film Editing|editing]], and [[Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay|writing]]. His female star, in the complex role of a confused young British woman who falsely accuses an Indian man of attempted rape, gained Australian actress [[Judy Davis]] her first Academy nomination. [[Peggy Ashcroft]], as the sensitive Mrs. Moore, won the Oscar for best supporting actress, making her, at 77, the oldest actress to win that award. According to Roger Ebert, it is "one of the greatest screen adaptations I have ever seen".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-passage-to-india-1984|title=A Passage to India movie review (1984)|last=Ebert|first=Roger|website=www.rogerebert.com|language=en|access-date=25 February 2020|archive-date=9 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190509053520/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-passage-to-india-1984|url-status=live}}</ref>

====''Empire of the Sun''====
He was signed on to direct a [[Warner Bros.]]-backed adaptation of [[J. G. Ballard]]'s autobiographical novel ''[[Empire of the Sun (novel)|Empire of the Sun]]'' after director [[Harold Becker]] left the project. [[Steven Spielberg]] was brought on board as a producer for Lean, but later assumed the role of director when Lean dropped out of the project; Spielberg was drawn to the idea of making the film due to his long-time admiration for Lean and his films. ''[[Empire of the Sun (film)|Empire of the Sun]]'' was released in 1987.

====''Nostromo''====
During the last years of his life, Lean was in pre-production of a film version of [[Joseph Conrad]]'s ''[[Nostromo]]''. He assembled an all-star cast, including [[Marlon Brando]], [[Paul Scofield]], [[Anthony Quinn]], [[Peter O'Toole]], [[Christopher Lambert]], [[Isabella Rossellini]] and [[Dennis Quaid]], with [[Georges Corraface]] as the title character. Lean also wanted [[Alec Guinness]] to play Dr. Monygham, 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." As with ''Empire of the Sun'', Steven Spielberg came on board as producer with the backing of Warner Bros., but after several rewrites and disagreements on the script, he left the project and was replaced by [[Serge Silberman]], a respected producer at Greenwich Film Productions.

The ''Nostromo'' project involved several writers, including [[Christopher Hampton]] and [[Robert Bolt]], but their work was abandoned. In the end, Lean decided to write the film himself with the assistance of Maggie Unsworth (wife of cinematographer [[Geoffrey 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]] but later decided to film in London and [[Madrid]], 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 six weeks away from filming at the time of Lean's death from [[Head and neck cancer|throat cancer]]. It was rumoured that fellow film director [[John Boorman]] would take over direction, but the production collapsed. ''Nostromo'' was finally adapted for the small screen with an unrelated [[BBC television]] [[Nostromo (TV serial)|mini-series]] in 1997.

==Personal life==
Lean was a long-term resident of [[Limehouse]], [[East London]]. His home on [[Narrow Street]] is still owned by his family.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

His co-writer and producer, [[Norman Spencer (producer)|Norman Spencer]], has said Lean was a "huge womaniser", and that "to my knowledge, he had almost 1,000 women".<ref name="How we made Hobson's Choice">{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jun/30/how-we-made-hobsons-choice-prunella-scales | title=How we made Hobson's Choice | newspaper=The Guardian | access-date=1 July 2014 | archive-date=1 July 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140701053011/http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jun/30/how-we-made-hobsons-choice-prunella-scales | url-status=live }}</ref> He was married six times, had one son, and at least two grandchildren—from all of whom he was completely estranged<ref name="Collins">{{cite news|last=Collins|first=Andrew|title=The epic legacy of David Lean|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/may/04/features|work=Newspaper feature|publisher=The Observer|access-date=17 September 2011|location=London|date=4 May 2008|archive-date=7 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170907213402/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/may/04/features|url-status=live}}</ref>—and was divorced five times. He was survived by his last wife Sandra Cooke, art dealer and co-author (with Barry Chattington) of ''David Lean: An Intimate Portrait'' (2001),<ref name="Smith">{{cite news|last=Smith|first=Julia Llewelyn|title=Sandra Cooke: 'I always liked asking about his other women'|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/sandra-cooke-i-always-liked-asking-about-his-other-women-616768.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100921081028/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/sandra-cooke-i-always-liked-asking-about-his-other-women-616768.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=21 September 2010|newspaper=The Independent|access-date=17 September 2011|location=London}}</ref> and by Peter Lean, his son from his first marriage.

His six wives were:
* Isabel Lean (28 June 1930 – 1936) (his first cousin); one son, Peter.
* [[Kay Walsh]] (23 November 1940 – 1949)
* [[Ann Todd]] (21 May 1949 – 1957)
* Leila Matkar (4 July 1960 – 1978) (from [[Hyderabad]], India); Lean's longest-lasting marriage.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.hindu.com/mp/2008/05/21/stories/2008052150350100.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121110001300/http://www.hindu.com/mp/2008/05/21/stories/2008052150350100.htm | url-status=dead | archive-date=10 November 2012 | location=Chennai, India | work=[[The Hindu]] | title=The Hyderabad connection | date=21 May 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/brief-encounters-how-david-leans-sex-life-shaped-his-films-854957.html|title=Brief encounters: How David Lean's sex life shaped his films|newspaper=The Independent|location=London|date=29 June 2008|access-date=26 August 2017|archive-date=3 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171003143844/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/brief-encounters-how-david-leans-sex-life-shaped-his-films-854957.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
* Sandra Hotz (28 October 1981 – 1984)
* Sandra Cooke (15 December 1990 – 16 April 1991, Lean's death)

Lean died in Limehouse, London, on 16 April 1991, at the age of 83. He was interred at [[Putney Vale Cemetery]].

== Honours<!-- British subject. --> ==
Lean was appointed Commander of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (CBE) in 1953, and was knighted for his contributions and services to the arts in 1984.<ref>[http://www.davidleanfoundation.org/site/sirdavidlean/awards.htm David Lean Foundation] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120121001/http://www.davidleanfoundation.org/site/sirdavidlean/awards.htm |date=20 November 2008 }}. David Lean Foundation (18 July 2005). Retrieved on 29 May 2011.</ref> Lean received the [[AFI Life Achievement Award]] in 1990. In 2012, Lean was among the [[Culture of the United Kingdom|British cultural icons]] selected by artist Sir [[Peter Blake (artist)|Peter Blake]] to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—[[the Beatles]]' ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]]'' album cover—celebrating the British cultural figures of his lifetime that he most admires.<ref>{{cite news|title=New faces on Sgt Pepper album cover for artist Peter Blake's 80th birthday|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/apr/02/peter-blake-sgt-pepper-cover-revisited|agency=The Guardian|date=5 October 2016|access-date=8 November 2016|archive-date=5 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161105095109/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/apr/02/peter-blake-sgt-pepper-cover-revisited|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Sir Peter Blake's new Beatles' Sgt Pepper's album cover|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17583026|agency=BBC|date=8 November 2016|access-date=21 June 2018|archive-date=3 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170103234105/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17583026|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1999, the [[British Film Institute]] compiled its list of the [[BFI Top 100 British films|Top 100 British films]]. Seven of Lean's films appeared on the list:
* ''[[Brief Encounter]]'' (#2)
* ''[[Lawrence of Arabia (film)|Lawrence of Arabia]]'' (#3)
* ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]'' (#5)
* ''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]'' (#11)
* ''[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|Doctor Zhivago]]'' (#27)
* ''[[Oliver Twist (1948 film)|Oliver Twist]]'' (#46)
* ''[[In Which We Serve]]'' (#92)

In addition, on the [[American Film Institute]]'s 1998 list of [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies|100 Years...100 Movies]], ''Lawrence of Arabia'' placed 5th, ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' 13th, and ''Doctor Zhivago'' 39th. In the 2007 [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)|revised edition]], ''Lawrence of Arabia'' placed 7th and ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' placed 36th.

With five wins out of six nominations, Lean directed more films that won the [[Academy Award for Best Cinematography]] at [[Academy Awards|the Oscars]] than any other director for: ''Great Expectations'', ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'', ''Lawrence of Arabia'', ''Doctor Zhivago'' and ''[[Ryan's Daughter]]''—the last nomination being for ''[[A Passage to India (film)|A Passage to India]]''.{{Citation needed|date=March 2020}}

==Style==
As Lean himself pointed out,{{sfn|Brownlow|1996|p=483}} his films are often admired by fellow directors as a showcase of the filmmaker's art. According to Katharyn Crabbe, "[t]he rewards of watching a David Lean film are most often described in terms of his skillful use of cinematic conventions, his editing, his alertness to the ability of film to create effects."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Crabbe |first1=Katharyn |title=Lean's "Oliver Twist": Novel to Film |journal=Film Criticism |date=Autumn 1977 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=46–51 |jstor=44019043 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44019043 |access-date=5 June 2022 |archive-date=5 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220605192728/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44019043 |url-status=live }}</ref>  In his introduction to ''David Lean: Interviews'', Steven Organ claims that Lean "often straddl[ed] that fine line between commercialism and artistry. To view one of Lean's films is to see the complete spectrum of tools available to the filmmaker – and used to their fullest potential."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lean |first1=David |last2=Organ |first2=Steven |title=David Lean: Interviews |date=2009 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |location=United States |isbn=9781604732351 |page=viii}}</ref>

According to [[David Ehrenstein]], "What all [his] brilliant, seemingly disparate works have in common is the clarity and precision of Lean's filmmaking technique, as well as his steely resolve in using it to attain poetic grandeur."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ehrenstein |first1=David |title=British Invasion: David Ehrenstein on the films of David Lean |url=https://www.artforum.com/film/david-ehrenstein-on-the-films-of-david-lean-21084 |access-date=18 July 2023 |work=Artforum International |date=12 September 2008}}</ref> [[Michael Sragow]] calls Lean "a superb romantic moviemaker and one of the slow but steady innovators of the cinema … Though Lean is usually praised for his 'film sense', as though it were divorced from his other faculties, he's done as much as men of the theater like [[Luchino Visconti|Visconti]] to merge the illusions and grand passions of the stage with the verisimilitude and immediacy of the screen. His ability to combine factual filigree and larger-than-life characters in a sometimes hallucinatory atmosphere has inspired generations of filmmakers to try to fuse the most ruthless documentation with the most elaborate myth-making." He further highlights Lean's use of "highly charged staging and editing and a lucid, fluid realism to depict the contrast between ongoing life and life at its extremes."<ref name="David Lean's Right of 'Passage'"/>

On the occasion of Lean's centenary in 2008, writer and broadcaster [[Andrew Collins (broadcaster)|Andrew Collins]] praised him as "more than just cinema's great choreographer of scale":

{{cquote|Certainly, he set the bar high for heavily populated, location-shot period sagas from literary sources, but it would be shortsighted to see Lean's greatest achievements as the filmic equivalent of skyscraping architectural edifices: good because they're there. The people may look like ants when first glimpsed against the vast sand dunes of an exacting Lean composition, or the icy Russian mountains, or the concrete façade of a dam, but we are soon invited to alight on individuals, and through the use of simple, visual clues, wonder about them and care about them.<ref name="The epic legacy of David Lean">{{cite news |last1=Collins |first1=Andrew |title=The epic legacy of David Lean |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/may/04/features |access-date=19 July 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=4 May 2008}}</ref>}}

[[Alain Silver]] analyses Lean's technique as "one that elucidates story and characters through pictures." He states that Lean is able to subjectify a film's perspective through visuals regardless of whether the film has a "third-person" or "first-person" narrative:

{{cquote|Since most of Lean's narratives are organised in a way which is neither "first" nor "third" person, shots or sequences […] may suddenly shift the film into either mode without disrupting or overwhelming the basic structure. Subjectivity might be accomplished in several ways. The narrative itself may be literally bracketed by being presented as a flashback from either the central character (''Brief Encounter'', ''The Passionate Friends''), a subordinate one (''Doctor Zhivago''), or a combination (''In Which We Serve'' and, implicitly, ''Lawrence of Arabia''). In any narrative context, shots may be intercut to suggest the thoughts or sensations of a character, as in ''Oliver Twist'' and ''Brief Encounter'', or characters, as in the sparking streetcar terminal when Zhivago and his still-unknown future love, Lara, brush against each other early in that film. Shots may become literally what the character sees; or shots of the character may be manipulated to focus on an interior state. Simple instances would be the hanging in ''Great Expectations'' (1946) or the Cossack charge in ''Doctor Zhivago'', where there is no point-of-view shot of the terrible event but merely a slow move in to reveal the horror on the actors' faces.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Silver |first1=Alain |title=Lean, David |url=https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/lean/ |website=Senses of Cinema |date=23 June 2011 |access-date=27 July 2023}}</ref>}}

Lean was notorious for his perfectionist approach to filmmaking; director [[Claude Chabrol]] stated that he and Lean were the only directors working at the time who were prepared to wait "forever" for the perfect sunset, but whereas Chabrol measured "forever" in terms of days, Lean did so in terms of months.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/lean/|title=David Lean – Great Director profile|website=Senses of Cinema|date=21 May 2002 |access-date=7 October 2017|archive-date=7 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171007120950/http://sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/lean/|url-status=live}}</ref> Similarly, [[Hugh Hudson]], writing shortly after Lean's death in 1991, called him "[a] man driven to achieve the perfect realisation of his ideas and ruthless in that pursuit." He goes on to describe the filmmaker's method of working with actors:

{{cquote|Lean always had a clear idea of how his characters should be portrayed and would not accept much deviation. He had a reputation for being tough with his actors and for refusing to let them indulge in "their natural propensity for histrionics". Yet once the rules were laid down, Lean allowed his actors considerable space for interpretation and he showed a genuine understanding of their exposed position in front of the camera … Lean would set his actors in the landscape by giving them the feeling of being in that time and at that place. This is where the talent of a great director comes in—setting a scene (mise-en-scène), creating a climate, painting a picture within the story and at the same time never losing the telling of that story.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hudson |first1=Hugh |title=Dreaming in the light: Hugh Hudson on David Lean |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/dreaming-light-hugh-hudson-david-lean |access-date=24 July 2023 |work=Sight & Sound |date=25 March 2022}}</ref>}}

===Themes===
Steven Ross has written that Lean's films "reveal a consistently tragic vision of the romantic sensibility attempting to reach beyond the constraints and restrictions of everyday life", and that they tend to feature "intimate stories of a closely-knit group of characters [whose] fates are indirectly but powerfully shaped by history-shaking events going on around them." He further observes that, in his work, "setting [is used] as a presence with as much dramatic and thematic form as any character in the film."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ross |first1=Steven |title=In Defense of David Lean |journal=Take One |date=July–August 1972 |volume=3 |issue=12 |pages=10–18 |url=http://davidlean.com/page1/Articles/articles.html |access-date=12 April 2019 |archive-date=12 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412231059/http://davidlean.com/page1/Articles/articles.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Similarly, Lean biographer [[Gene D. Phillips]] writes that the director "saw in his style an attraction to characters who refuse to accept defeat, even when their most cherished hopes go unfulfilled. His protagonists seek to transform their lives, but often fail to do so. Pip in ''Great Expectations'', Colonel Nicholson in ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'', and T. E. Lawrence in ''Lawrence of Arabia'', among others, struggle against the limitations of their own personalities to achieve a level of existence that they deem higher or nobler."{{sfn|Phillips|2006|p=5}}

According to Silver, "Lean's signature characters are ordinary dreamers and epic visionaries, people who want to transform the world according to their expectations... The tragic flaw in Lean's characters is a self-centeredness which can lead to misimpression, which can prevent them from seeing what is so clear to everyone else."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Silver |first1=Alain |title=Lean, David |url=https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/lean/ |website=Senses of Cinema |date=19 July 2002 |access-date=17 May 2023 |archive-date=22 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230422055620/https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/lean/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In Sragow's view, Lean has "depicted the need for constricted modern men and women either to act out their dreams ''or'' preserve the life they have by making a scene or putting on a show―indulging in the histrionic to renew their sense of self and purpose."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sragow |first1=Michael |title=David Lean's Right of 'Passage' |journal=Film Comment |date=1985 |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=20–27 |jstor=43453017 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/43453017 |access-date=19 July 2023}}</ref>

Michael Newton of ''[[The Guardian]]'', analysing ''Brief Encounter'' and ''Doctor Zhivago'', says:

{{cquote|Today, 50 years on, we can see how the scale of Zhivago forms the measure of its appeal, and its gorgeousness seems intrinsic to one of cinema's virtues. With [[Charlie Chaplin]], Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Powell, Lean is one of the greatest film directors this country has produced. Like all of them, he is a romantic, and romanticism was his subject matter: the flourishing and the breaking of inordinate desires, the dangerous lure of beauty, of adventure and the untrammelled life. Both films demonstrate the impossibility of an illicit love finding a place in the world. In ''Brief Encounter'', social convention and decency prevent it; romance flourishes only to be worn out by the talk of casual acquaintances. In ''Doctor Zhivago'', it is history and the political realm that prove to be love's enemy.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Newton |first1=Michael |title=Loved but not lost: David Lean's Brief Encounter and Doctor Zhivago |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/13/in-praise-of-brief-encounter-doctor-zhivago |access-date=12 April 2019 |work=The Guardian |archive-date=12 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412231127/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/13/in-praise-of-brief-encounter-doctor-zhivago |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Hudson considers the director an important chronicler of the British character in the 20th century:

{{cquote|Born in the Edwardian era, Lean experienced first-hand the decline of the British Empire. He lived through two world wars and matured as an artist during the 50s, when Britain was being forced to re-examine her new role. His natural taste was for a mixture of the nineteenth-century novel and landscape painting of the same period – something he never tried, nor wanted, to change. But having grown up during the demise of British influence in the world, he also had an acutely critical view of British society.

So Lean's work contains an interesting paradox: the strong visual and literary legacy of British culture, which he loved and understood so well, combined with biting insights into the ludicrous aspects of a nation being forced to accept a less important role in the world. A perfect example of this ability to illustrate Britain's dilemma is the portrayal of the colonel in ''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' (1957). Here is a man using the military discipline that was the result of hundreds of years of British tradition to survive the hardships, torture and degradation of being a Japanese prisoner of war, yet whose addiction to that same discipline and tradition has turned him mad. The man is both a hero and a fool – a remarkable device to illustrate the state of Britain as she clung to meaningless tradition in a futile attempt to save her identity in the face of declining power.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hudson |first1=Hugh |title=Dreaming in the light: Hugh Hudson on David Lean |url=https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/dreaming-light-hugh-hudson-david-lean |access-date=5 June 2022 |work=Sight & Sound |date=25 March 2022 |archive-date=5 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220605182714/https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/dreaming-light-hugh-hudson-david-lean |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

Several critics have found a close relationship between style and theme in Lean's work. John Orr, author of ''Romantics and Modernists in British Cinema'', examines Lean in terms of "the stylised oscillation of romance and restraint that shapes so much of his work", as well as of "the intersection of culture and nature, where a story's momentous events are not only framed against landscape settings but also integrated into the very texture of the image that his camera produces." He argues that "Lean could have given us kitsch, syrupy imitations of landscape photography, but his staging and cutting blend so fluently that his evocation of the romantic sublime is linked, inextricably, to his ''découpage'' and sense of place."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Orr |first1=John |title=Romantics and Modernists in British Cinema |date=2010 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |location=United Kingdom |pages=64, 69}}</ref> In ''The Rough Guide to Film'', Tom Charity argues: "It's in the cutting that you feel both the romantic ardour and the repression that create the central tension in [Lean's] work."<ref>{{cite web |title=TSPDT – David Lean |url=http://www.theyshootpictures.com/leandavid.htm |website=They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? |access-date=21 October 2018 |archive-date=21 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181021232247/http://www.theyshootpictures.com/leandavid.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Legacy==
[[Steven Spielberg]] and [[Martin Scorsese]] in particular are fans of Lean's epic films and claim him as one of their primary influences. Spielberg and Scorsese also helped in the 1989 restoration of ''Lawrence of Arabia'', which had been substantially altered both by the studio in theatrical release and in particular in its televised versions; the theatrical re-release greatly revived Lean's reputation.

Several of the many other later directors who have acknowledged significant influence by Lean include [[Stanley Kubrick]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/polls-surveys/stanley-kubrick-cinephile|title=Stanley Kubrick, cinephile|website=British Film Institute|language=en|access-date=25 February 2020|archive-date=11 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811211311/http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/polls-surveys/stanley-kubrick-cinephile|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Francis Ford Coppola]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sragow |first1=Michael |title=David Lean's Right of 'Passage' |journal=Film Comment |date=1985 |volume=21 |issue=1 |page=21 |jstor=43453017 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/43453017 |access-date=19 July 2023}}</ref> [[George Lucas]],<ref name="The epic legacy of David Lean">{{cite news |last1=Collins |first1=Andrew |title=The epic legacy of David Lean |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/may/04/features |access-date=19 July 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=4 May 2008}}</ref> [[Spike Lee]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vulture.com/2015/02/spike-lee-12-cultural-influences.html|title=Spike Lee on Malcolm X, Rashomon, and 8 Other Things That Have Influenced His Work|website=Vulture|date=12 February 2015 |language=en-us|access-date=25 February 2020|archive-date=11 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211215454/https://www.vulture.com/2015/02/spike-lee-12-cultural-influences.html|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Sergio Leone]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://exclaim.ca/film/article/good_bad_ugly-sergio_leone|title=The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Sergio Leone|website=exclaim.ca|language=en-ca|access-date=25 February 2020|archive-date=20 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160920175712/http://exclaim.ca/film/article/good_bad_ugly-sergio_leone|url-status=live}}</ref> [[John Boorman|Sir John Boorman]],<ref>{{cite news |last1=Fitzpatrick |first1=Richard |title=Culture that made me: John Boorman on his influences through the decades |url=https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/arid-30997575.html |access-date=31 May 2022 |work=Irish Examiner |date=4 May 2020 |archive-date=31 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220531114503/https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/arid-30997575.html |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Paul Thomas Anderson]],<ref>{{cite news |last1=Olsen |first1=Mark |title=Paul Thomas Anderson and collaborators unravel the mysteries of 'Phantom Thread' |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-phantom-thread-paul-thomas-anderson-20171221-story.html |access-date=31 May 2022 |newspaper=LA Times |date=21 December 2017 |archive-date=31 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220531114503/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-phantom-thread-paul-thomas-anderson-20171221-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Lawrence Kasdan]]<ref>{{Cite book|title=Private Screenings: Insiders Share a Century of Great Movie Moments|author-link=Lawrence Kasdan|last=Kasdan|first=Lawrence|publisher=The American Film Institute|year=1995|isbn=1-57036-151-7|pages=91–93}}</ref> and [[Guillermo del Toro]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=del Toro |first1=Guillermo |title=Guillermo del Toro: the books, TV, films and music that brought me to Crimson Peak |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/10/guillermo-del-toro-the-books-tv-film-and-music-that-brought-me-to-crimson-peak |access-date=1 June 2022 |work=The Guardian |date=10 October 2015 |archive-date=1 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220601164532/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/10/guillermo-del-toro-the-books-tv-film-and-music-that-brought-me-to-crimson-peak |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[John Woo]] once named ''Lawrence of Arabia'' among his top three films.<ref>Perce Nev, [https://www.bbc.co.uk/films/callingtheshots/john_woo.shtml BBC] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200129231922/http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/callingtheshots/john_woo.shtml |date=29 January 2020 }}. Retrieved 17 May 2007</ref> More recently, [[Joe Wright]] (''[[Pride & Prejudice (2005 film)|Pride & Prejudice]]'', ''[[Atonement (2007 film)|Atonement]]'') has cited Lean's works, particularly ''Doctor Zhivago'', as an important influence on his work,<ref>[http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article4066844.ece ''Times Online'' report] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616123033/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article4066844.ece |date=16 June 2011 }}</ref> as has director [[Christopher Nolan]] (''[[The Dark Knight Rises]]'').<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/2012/07/31/christopher-nolan-reveals-five-films-that-influenced-the-dark-knight-rises/|title=Christopher Nolan Reveals Five Films That Influenced 'The Dark Knight Rises'|last=Baldock|first=Luke Ryan|date=31 July 2012|website=THN – The Hollywood News|language=en-GB|access-date=25 February 2020|archive-date=21 September 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160921040244/http://www.thehollywoodnews.com/2012/07/31/christopher-nolan-reveals-five-films-that-influenced-the-dark-knight-rises/|url-status=live}}</ref>

The critical verdict was not unanimous, however. For example, David Thomson, writing about Lean in his ''New Biographical Dictionary of Film'', comments:{{cquote|From 1952 to 1991, he made eight films—and in only one of them, I suggest —''Lawrence''—is the spectacle sufficient to mask the hollow rhetoric of the scripts. But Lean before 1952 made eight films in ten years that are lively, stirring, and an inspiration—they make you want to go out and make movies, they are so in love with the screen's power and the combustion in editing."<ref>{{cite book|last=Thomson|first=David|title=The New Biographical Dictionary of Film|url=https://archive.org/details/newbiographicald00thom|url-access=registration|publisher=Little, Brown & Alfred A. Knopf|location=London & New York|year=2002|pages=[https://archive.org/details/newbiographicald00thom/page/503 503–4]|isbn=9780375411281}}</ref>}} ''[[The New York Times]]'' film critic [[Bosley Crowther]] dismissed ''Lawrence of Arabia'' as "a huge, thundering camel-opera that tends to run down rather badly as it rolls on into its third hour and gets involved with sullen disillusion and political deceit".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/reviews/movies|title=Movie Reviews|date=20 February 2020|work=The New York Times|access-date=25 February 2020|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=8 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131008020331/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/8561/Cast-a-Giant-Shadow/overview|url-status=live}}</ref> Writing in ''[[The Village Voice]]'', [[Andrew Sarris]] remarked that ''Lawrence'' was "simply another expensive mirage, dull, overlong, and coldly impersonal&nbsp;... on the whole I find it hatefully calculating and condescending".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://greencardamom.github.io/BooksAndWriters/telawren.htm|title=T.E. Lawrence|website=greencardamom.github.io|access-date=25 February 2020|archive-date=4 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160704004926/https://greencardamom.github.io/BooksAndWriters/telawren.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Filmography==
{{Main|David Lean filmography}}
{| class="wikitable"
|-
|+ Directed features
! Year
! Title
! Studio
|-
| 1942
| ''[[In Which We Serve]]''
| [[British Lion Films]]
|-
| 1944
| ''[[This Happy Breed (film)|This Happy Breed]]''
| [[Eagle-Lion Films]]
|-
| rowspan=2|1945
| ''[[Blithe Spirit (1945 film)|Blithe Spirit]]''
| [[General Film Distributors]]
|-
| ''[[Brief Encounter]]''
| Eagle-Lion Films
|-
| 1946
| ''[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|Great Expectations]]''
| rowspan=3|General Film Distributors
|-
| 1948
| ''[[Oliver Twist (1948 film)|Oliver Twist]]''
|-
| 1949
| ''[[The Passionate Friends (1949 film)|The Passionate Friends]]''
|-
| 1950
| ''[[Madeleine (1950 film)|Madeleine]]''
| The Rank Organization
|-
| 1952
| ''[[The Sound Barrier]]''
| British Lion Films
|-
| 1954
| ''[[Hobson's Choice (1954 film)|Hobson's Choice]]''
| British Lion Films / [[United Artists]]
|-
| 1955
| ''[[Summertime (1955 film)|Summertime]]''
| United Artists
|-
| 1957
| ''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]''
| rowspan=2|[[Columbia Pictures]]
|-
| 1962
| ''[[Lawrence of Arabia (film)|Lawrence of Arabia]]''
|-
| 1965
| ''[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|Doctor Zhivago]]''
| rowspan=2|[[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]
|-
| 1970
| ''[[Ryan's Daughter]]''
|-
| 1984
| ''[[A Passage to India (film)|A Passage to India]]''
| Columbia Pictures / [[EMI Films]]
|-
|}

==Award and nominations==
{{main|List of awards and nominations received by David Lean}}

'''Awards and nominations received by Lean's films'''
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!rowspan="2"|Year
!rowspan="2"|Title
!colspan="2"|[[Academy Awards]]
!colspan="2"|[[BAFTA Film Awards|BAFTA Awards]]
!colspan="2"|[[Golden Globe Awards]]
|-
!Nominations
!Wins
!Nominations
!Wins
!Nominations
!Wins
|-
|1942
|''[[In Which We Serve]]''
|align=center|3
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|1945
|[[Blithe Spirit (1945 film)|''Blithe Spirit'']]
|align=center|1
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|
|-
|''[[Brief Encounter]]''
|align=center|3
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|1946
|[[Great Expectations (1946 film)|''Great Expectations'']]
|align=center|5
|align=center|2
|
|
|
|
|-
|1948
|[[Oliver Twist (1948 film)|''Oliver Twist'']]
|
|
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|-
|1952
|''[[The Sound Barrier]]''
|align=center|2
|align=center|1
|align=center|5
|align=center|3
|
|
|-
|1954
|[[Hobson's Choice (1954 film)|''Hobson's Choice'']]
|
|
|align=center|5
|align=center|1
|
|
|-
|1955
|[[Summertime (1955 film)|''Summertime'']]
|align=center|2
|
|align=center|2
|
|
|
|-
|1957
|''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]''
|align=center|8
|align=center|7
|align=center|4
|align=center|4
|align=center|4
|align=center|3
|-
|1962
|[[Lawrence of Arabia (film)|''Lawrence of Arabia'']]
|align=center|10
|align=center|7
|align=center|5
|align=center|4
|align=center|8
|align=center|6
|-
|1965
|[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|''Doctor Zhivago'']]
|align=center|10
|align=center|5
|align=center|3
|
|align=center|6
|align=center|5
|-
|1970
|''[[Ryan's Daughter]]''
|align=center|4
|align=center|2
|align=center|10
|
|align=center|3
|align=center|1
|-
|1984
|[[A Passage to India (film)|''A Passage to India'']]
|align=center|11
|align=center|2
|align=center|9
|align=center|1
|align=center|5
|align=center|3
|-
!colspan="2"|'''Total'''
!59
!28
!44
!13
!26
!18
|-
|}

'''Directed Academy Award Performances'''
{| class="wikitable"
!Year
!Performer
!Film
!Result
|-
| colspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|'''[[Academy Award for Best Actor]]'''
|-
|[[30th Academy Awards|1958]]
|[[Alec Guinness]]
|''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]''
|{{won}}
|-
|[[35th Academy Awards|1963]]
|[[Peter O'Toole]]
|''[[Lawrence of Arabia (film)|Lawrence of Arabia]]''
|{{nom}}
|-
| colspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|'''[[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor]]'''
|-
|[[30th Academy Awards|1958]]
|[[Sessue Hayakawa]]
|''The Bridge on the River Kwai''
|{{nom}}
|-
|[[35th Academy Awards|1963]]
|[[Omar Sharif]]
|''Lawrence of Arabia''
|{{nom}}
|-
|[[38th Academy Awards|1966]]
|[[Tom Courtenay]]
|''[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|Doctor Zhivago]]''
|{{nom}}
|-
|[[43rd Academy Awards|1971]]
|[[John Mills]]
|''[[Ryan's Daughter]]''
|{{won}}
|-
| colspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|'''[[Academy Award for Best Actress]]'''
|-
|[[19th Academy Awards|1946]]
|[[Celia Johnson]]
|''[[Brief Encounter]]''
|{{nom}}
|-
|[[28th Academy Awards|1956]]
|[[Katharine Hepburn]]
|''[[Summertime (1955 film)|Summertime]]''
|{{nom}}
|-
|[[43rd Academy Awards|1971]]
|[[Sarah Miles]]
|''Ryan's Daughter''
|{{nom}}
|-
|[[57th Academy Awards|1985]]
|[[Judy Davis]]
|''[[A Passage to India (film)|A Passage to India]]''
|{{nom}}
|-
| colspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|'''[[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress]]'''
|-
|[[57th Academy Awards|1985]]
|[[Peggy Ashcroft]]
|''A Passage to India''
|{{won}}
|-
|}

==See also==
* [[List of Academy Award winners and nominees from Great Britain]]
==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Works cited==
* {{cite book |last1=Brownlow |first1=Kevin |title=David Lean: A Biography |date=15 August 1996 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-312-14578-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3BAtjDFYoPAC}}
* {{cite book |last1=Phillips |first1=Gene |title=Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean |date=24 November 2006 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-7155-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bKtQTBGaB3wC}}
* {{cite book |last1=Shipman |first1=David |title=The Story of Cinema: From Citizen Kane to the present day |date=1984 |publisher=Hodder and Stoughton |isbn=978-0-340-28259-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rMaPQgAACAAJ}}
* [[Alain Silver]] and [[James Ursini]], ''David Lean and his Films'', Silman-James, 1992.
* Silverman, Stephen M., ''David Lean'', [[Abrams Books|Harry N. Abrams]], 1989.
* Santas, Constantine, ''The Epics Films of David Lean'', [[Scarecrow Press]], 2011.
* Turner, Adrian ''The Making of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia'', Dragon's World, Limpsfield UK, 1994.
* Turner, Adrian ''Robert Bolt: Scenes from two lives'', Hutchinson, London, 1998.
* Williams, Melanie, ''David Lean'', Manchester University Press, 2014.
* Morris, L. Robert and Lawrence Raskin, ''Lawrence of Arabia: the 30th Anniversary Pictorial History'', Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1992.
* {{cite news |title=Sir David Lean – Obituary |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/7547288/Sir-David-Lean.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110703171857/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/7547288/Sir-David-Lean.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=3 July 2011 |date=17 April 1991 |work=The Daily Telegraph |access-date=22 June 2014}} Unsigned obituary of Lean.
* {{cite news
|url=https://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/03/31/080331crat_atlarge_lane?currentPage=all |title=Master and Commander: Remembering David Lean |first=Anthony |last=Lane |author-link=Anthony Lane |magazine=The New Yorker |date=31 March 2008 |access-date=22 June 2014}} Lane's appreciation of Lean on his centennial.
* {{cite journal |url=http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/great-directors/lean/ |journal=Senses of Cinema |title=David Lean |first=Alain |last=Silver |author-link=Alain Silver |date=February 2004 |issue=30 |access-date=22 June 2014}} Silver's essay on Lean's career compiled as part of the ''Senses of Cinema'' Great Directors series.
* {{cite book |last1=Santas |first1=Constantine |title=The Epic Films of David Lean |date=2012 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-8210-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q6H_hej3agQC}}
* {{cite news |title=Unhealed wounds |last=Thomson |first=David |author-link=David Thomson (film critic) |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/10/fiction1 |date=9 May 2008 |access-date=22 June 2014}} Thomson's appreciation of Lean on the occasion of his centennial.

==External links==
{{Commons category|David Lean}}
* {{IMDb name|180}}
* [http://www.bafta.org/archive/david-lean/ David Lean Archive] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110818012700/http://www.bafta.org/archive/david-lean/|date=18 August 2011}} on the [[BAFTA]] website.
* {{Screenonline name|446899}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050810075541/http://lean.bfi.org.uk/intro.php?isec=biography Biography at British Film Institute]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080911223221/http://www.nypress.com/21/36/film/ArmondWhite.cfm Mean Lean Filmmaking Machine], by Armond White, ''New York Press'' 3 September 2008.
* [http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=49966&geotype=London&gpn=17387&type=ArchivedIssuePage&all=&exact=&atleast=&similar= Honours from the Queen]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060504074856/http://www.davidleanfoundation.org/site/index.htm David Lean Foundation.] Charity which makes grants to restore Lean's films, and to film studies students.

{{S-start}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Richard Attenborough|Richard Attenborough, CBE]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[National Film and Television School|NFTS]] Honorary Fellowship}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Nick Park|Nick Park, CBE]]}}
{{S-end}}

{{David Lean}}
{{Navboxes
|title = [[List of awards and nominations received by David Lean|Awards for David Lean]]
|list =
{{Academy Award Best Director}}
{{AFI Life Achievement Award}}
{{BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award}}
{{British Film Institute Fellowship}}
{{DirectorsGuildofAmericaAwardFeatureFilm}}
{{DirectorsGuildofAmericaAwardLifetimeFilm}}
{{Golden Globe Award for Best Director}}
{{National Board of Review Award for Best Director}}
{{New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director}}
}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lean, David}}
[[Category:David Lean| ]]
[[Category:1908 births]]
[[Category:1991 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century British businesspeople]]
[[Category:20th-century Quakers]]
[[Category:AFI Life Achievement Award recipients]]
[[Category:BAFTA fellows]]
[[Category:Best Directing Academy Award winners]]
[[Category:Best Director Golden Globe winners]]
[[Category:British film directors]]
[[Category:British film editors]]
[[Category:British film producers]]
[[Category:British Quakers]]
[[Category:Burials at Putney Vale Cemetery]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:David di Donatello winners]]
[[Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer in England]]
[[Category:Directors Guild of America Award winners]]
[[Category:Directors of Best Picture Academy Award winners]]
[[Category:Directors of Palme d'Or winners]]
[[Category:Directors of Golden Bear winners]]
[[Category:English-language film directors]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:People educated at Leighton Park School]]
[[Category:People from Croydon]]
[[Category:Writers from the London Borough of Croydon]]
[[Category:Writers from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets]]