The recent critical and commercial success of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy films, which have captured the public imagination for the last three years, has also led to a resurgence of interest in epic filmmaking. Such contemporary fare as "Troy," "Alexander" and even "The Aviator" -- which clocks in just shy of three hours -- have tried, with mixed success, to recapture the glory days of the motion picture epic.
But historical epics really had their heyday in the 1950s and '60s, when notable films like "The Ten Commandments" (1956), "Ben-Hur" (1959), and "Spartacus" (1960) were released. But it is widely agreed that British filmmaker David Lean, who perfected the art more than 40 years ago, has directed some of the finest films in the genre. His seminal masterpiece, "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), is playing at the HOP this weekend in 35-millimeter glory.
Lean was born in 1908 in Croydon, Surrey. Starting out in the film industry in the early 1920s as a clapper boy, he later working as an editor, beginning with "The Night Porter" (1930). Lean amassed a fairly impressive resume, editing films like "Pygmalion" (1938) and "The 49th Parallel" (1941).
Although Lean has a reputation as an epic filmmaker, his earlier works are smaller, more intimate features that focus on character interactions rather than spectacle. He collaborated with longtime friend Noel Coward to direct his first feature film, "In Which We Serve" (1942), a British war propaganda piece. He then went on to adapt two more Noel Coward plays, "The Happy Breed" (1944) and "Blithe Spirit" (1945).
Lean first achieved critical success in 1945 with "Brief Encounter." The film recounts an affair between Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson), a middle-class British housewife, and Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), a married doctor. Structured as a flashback, the film features a narrative voice-over by Johnson, whose inner conflicts at the prospect of infidelity contrasted with her joy at finding new passion. The film is a romance with a noir-ish quality, with scenes of light-hearted chatter juxtaposed with the moral ambiguities of their protagonists. Lean makes ample use of expressive lighting and pays careful attention to setting and mood. Every scene is restrained, evoking the mental state of two lovers unable to express themselves openly. The film earned three Academy Award nominations -- including one for Best Director -- and won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
Lean's next two films, "Great Expectations" (1946) and "Oliver Twist" (1948), were Victorian dramas. Both are considered near-definitive screen adaptations of Dickens' celebrated works. "Oliver Twist" is especially notable for its detailed set design and bleak atmosphere of despair. The oddly-shaped buildings and the strong dark colorations add to the hopelessness, as befits the source material.
The Dickens adaptations were followed up by some lesser features starring his third wife, Ann Todd: "The Passionate Friends" (1949), "Madeleine" (1950), and "The Sound Barrier" (1952). Some critics have noted that the extensive flight sequences and sky shots in "The Sound Barrier," a film about a pilot who manages to break the sound barrier, indicated that Lean was eager to try his hand at a big-budget epic.
And the release of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" in 1957 signaled his directorial shift. His first foray into 'epic' filmmaking, the film was an instant critical and commercial success. The movie focuses on British prisoners of war held in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. They are forced to build a bridge across the titular Kwai, but their commanding officer Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guiness) has some differences with Japanese Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), who runs the camp.
While audiences were roused by the spectacular cinematography and the massive sets (a bridge was actually built and blown up for the film), the personal relationship between Nicholson and Saito carries the film. As men of honor bound to duty, their relationship is evocative of the one between Boeldieu and Rauffenstein from Renoir's "La Grand Illusion" (1937). "Kwai" won seven Academy Awards and earned Lean his first directing Oscar.
Such a film would have been a tough act to follow for any director, but Lean returned triumphantly five years later with "Lawrence of Arabia." A sprawling desert adventure and biopic of T.E. Lawrence, an officer in the British army serving in the Middle East during World War I, it remains his most enduring work. At 216 minutes with extensive location shooting and extravagant set pieces, "Lawrence of Arabia" set a new standard for epic filmmaking. With excellent performances from the whole cast -- especially title character Peter O'Toole -- the film's human drama is every bit as engaging as in Lean's earliest works. The film's influence has been noted in the works of many directors, including popular filmmakers such as James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. "Arabia" was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 1963 and won seven, including a second Best Director Oscar for Lean.
Lean's next picture, "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), often labeled "the great screen romance," was set in the Russian Revolution. The film features spectacular photography, a haunting soundtrack and an impressive performance by Omar Sharif in the title role. The attention to period is astounding, although at nearly 200 minutes, the film was dubbed self-indulgent by some critics. Nevertheless, it turned into a worldwide box office smash, quickly becoming the highest-grossing feature film up to that point.
"Ryan's Daughter" (1970), Lean's follow-up to "Zhivago," was a melodrama set in Ireland as well as a critical and commercial failure. Lean didn't make another film for 14 years, until his final "A Passage to India"(1984), an adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel of the same name. The film is an odd amalgam of the intimate character-driven dramas of Lean's earlier works and the lavish epics he took up later in his career. Embraced by most critics, it also earned ten Oscar nominations.
Often labeled a meticulous craftsman, Lean was a visionary director whose historical epics are amongst the best in the genre. Always interested in moral conundrums, Lean never embraced the concept of an ideal hero. Nobody gets away clean in his films. Guiness's Col. Nicholson has a myopic view of the world -- his stubbornness clouds his decisions, which often defy reason. T.E. Lawrence is constantly ambivalent about his place in the world and responsibilities; he also shows a dark side during the siege of Damascus.
Lean was knighted in 1984 and died of pneumonia in April 1991. Although not a very prolific director -- he made only 16 films in 44 years -- he is often regarded as one of the best. Be sure to check out "Lawrence of Arabia," which will be screened in the Spaulding Auditorium this Sunday as part of the DFS series.
