(1908–91). British motion-picture director David Lean gained international renown for his mastery of cinematic artistry and techniques. His long, beautifully filmed epics, in particular, brought him huge critical and popular acclaim. Throughout his long career he earned 11 Academy Award nominations, winning twice for directing, for the films The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Lean also wrote and edited a number of the films he directed.
Lean was born on March 25, 1908, in Croydon, Surrey, England. He began working in the film industry in 1928, starting with menial tasks and gradually becoming an editor, a position at which he excelled. By the end of the 1930s he was the most highly paid film editor working in British cinema and widely regarded as the best. Until the end of his career, Lean considered editing the most interesting step in the filmmaking process and always contracted with studios to cut his own films.
In 1942 Lean codirected the award-winning World War II film In Which We Serve with British playwright Noël Coward. During the next two years, he directed three films based closely on plays by Coward. One of these, Brief Encounter (1945), earned Lean his first two Academy Award nominations, for best director and best writing.
Two Charles Dickens classics served as source material for Lean’s next efforts. Great Expectations (1946), which garnered Academy Award nominations for best director, picture, and screenplay, is still considered by many to be the finest screen adaptation of a Dickens novel. Oliver Twist (1948) is also highly regarded and features a memorable performance by Alec Guinness.
Lean’s films of the late 1940s and early ’50s are regarded as good but unremarkable, highlighted by the standout performances of Charles Laughton in Hobson’s Choice (1954) and Katharine Hepburn in Summertime (1955). Lean was nominated for an Academy Award for the latter film. The successful drama The Bridge on the River Kwai told the story of British prisoners of war in the jungles of Burma (now Myanmar) during World War II. It won seven Academy Awards, including best picture and Lean’s first as best director.
The story of T.E. Lawrence, a controversial British officer who led an Arab revolt against the German invasion during World War I, became the basis for Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The film won seven Academy Awards, including best picture and director, and made international stars of actors Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif. The film is visually spectacular with grand expanses of textured, windblown sand and hundreds of charging camels.
Doctor Zhivago (1965), a love story set against a backdrop of the Russian Revolution, and the romantic Ryan’s Daughter (1970) followed, both exhibiting the grand scale, lush cinematography, and breathtaking landscapes that had become the hallmark of Lean’s work. Doctor Zhivago received mixed reviews but was a popular success and earned Lean an Oscar nomination for directing; Ryan’s Daughter was financially successful, but critics panned it. After the negative press Lean did not direct another film for 14 years. He made a triumphant return in 1984 with A Passage to India, based on the E.M. Forster novel (see A Passage to India). The film, which was Lean’s last, earned him Academy Award nominations for best director, best film editing, and best writing.
Lean was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain in 1984, and he was awarded the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990. He died on April 16, 1991, in London, England.