\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"David](\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDavid Lean<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlamy<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cLean did so much to introduce the grammar of modern filmmaking,\u201d observes Thompson. \u201cHis films are so representative of what we think about when we think about the big cinema experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe film tracks Lean\u2019s remarkable progress to the peak of the medium \u2013 an extremely unlikely ascent for multiple reasons. As Thompson reveals, Lean grew up Quaker and was forbidden from seeing movies, which were considered wicked. He was dyslexic, a condition not well understood at that time, leading his parents to gravely underestimate his talents and consider him a dunce. Thompson gained access to Lean\u2019s private papers and found a letter Lean\u2019s father wrote to him in his youth, telling his son, \u201cYou\u2019re not very good.\u201d It was signed, \u201cMuch love, dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWith reading a challenge, Lean gravitated towards visual images, first in photography and then as a motion picture editor, including on some of the films of Powell and Pressburger in the early 1940s. He became the UK\u2019s most sought-after film cutter, earning a comfortable living at that m\u00e9tier. It was Noel Coward, the playwright and wit, who urged Lean to take on directing, first in an adaptation of Coward\u2019s Blithe Spirit. Thompson, who directed a 2023 documentary on Coward, explores the pivotal relationship in Lean\u2019s evolution.<\/p>\n
\n\tWorking on Mad About the Boy: The Noel Coward Story, Thompson says, \u201cI hadn\u2019t realized how involved they were because they seemed like two such different people in a way.\u201d Thompson was drawn to the unexpected, even contradictory character of their individual trajectories.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDirector Barnaby Thompson<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Barnaby Thompson<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWith Noel Coward, I always assumed he came from a good family and probably went to Oxford or Cambridge. The moment you find out actually he came from a poor family and left school when he\u2019s 10 \u2013 wow,\u201d the director observes. \u201cAnd with Lean, it was finding out that he grew up a Quaker and so he wasn\u2019t allowed to go to the movies. And he was a guy who made some of the most romantic films in the world but never found lasting happiness himself. He was married six times. Suddenly, \u2018Ooh, that\u2019s interesting.\u2019 And then you start digging deeper. So much of these films is really about the person and about the human. Obviously, there\u2019s the work and all that, which is important. But the thing I think gives the films their kind of heart is if you care about the person and that they\u2019ve got an interesting story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tL-R Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in \u2018Doctor Zhivago\u2019; Peter O\u2019Toole in \u2018Lawrence of Arabia\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEverett Collection<\/p>\n
\n\tMaverick: The Epic Adventures of David Lean includes interviews with a remarkable cast of fellow filmmakers who analyze Lean\u2019s brilliance and seminal role in motion picture history, among them Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson, Celine Song (Past Lives), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), Steven Soderbergh, Denis Villeneuve, Joe Wright, Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n, and Nia DaCosta (Hedda).<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI made an effort to get a cross-section of filmmakers from lots of different ages and backgrounds,\u201d Thompson notes. \u201cI was very heartened in a way that filmmakers like Nia DaCosta, who saw Lawrence of Arabia on video, never seen it on the big screen, was still captured by it\u2026 Brady Corbet makes the point \u2014 I always think about 70 millimeter being spectacular for huge landscapes \u2014 but he\u2019s making the point that it also does something to the human face.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tSarah Miles and director David Lean on location in the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland, shooting \u2018Ryan\u2019s Daughter,\u2019 1970.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEverett Collection<\/p>\n
\n\tLean shot both Lawrence of Arabia and Ryan\u2019s Daughter on 70mm (producers nixed his plan to shoot what became his final film, A Passage to India, on that format). Ryan\u2019s Daughter, a period piece starring Robert Mitchum and Sarah Miles, proved a watershed for Lean, in the worst possible way. Critics, from the New Yorker\u2019s Pauline Kael to Time\u2019s Richard Schickel, loathed the romantic drama. The harsh critical reception devastated Lean, and he didn\u2019t direct anything for 14 years. Thompson believes the spurning of that film connected with something elemental in Lean.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe never got over that feeling of inferiority,\u201d he suggests. \u201cAnd so obviously, classically, when he was given that dressing down by the critics on Ryan\u2019s Daughter, I think it was almost like he came away feeling like, \u2018My father was right, I am worthless.\u2019 \u2026Now, dyslexia and things like that get recognized, but then it was just like, \u2018You\u2019re stupid.\u2019 And I think there\u2019s no doubt that that drove him in lots of different ways all through his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tTrevor Howard and Celia Johnson in \u2018Brief Encounter,\u2019 1945<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEverett Collection<\/p>\n
\n\tThis year marks the 80th anniversary of Brief Encounter \u2014 the Lean film starring Trevor Howard and Celia Howard \u2014 screening in Cannes, and the 60th anniversary of the Lean classic, Dr. Zhivago, coming to the Croisette. Thompson has his own longstanding experience with Cannes.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI was there with Cate [Blanchett],\u201d he says of the actress, who narrates Maverick: The Epic Adventures of David Lean. \u201cWe were there with An Ideal Husband and An Ideal Husband was the closing night film in 1999. Cannes means everything to me. It\u2019s the festival that I think stands for cinema in the biggest way. And so, to be launching the film about the guy who is cinema, in the home of cinema, it couldn\u2019t be more perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Lean could shoot a landscape like no one else \u2013 in India, in Ceylon, in Jordan \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":791160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[323043,6345,49625,171,323044,53,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-791159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-barnaby-thompson","9":"tag-cannes","10":"tag-cannes-film-festival","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-maverick-the-epic-adventures-of-david-lean","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116561873772679790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/791160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}