David Lean: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing and Illuminating
Review: A simply marvellous biography of a cinema titan. It's the product of many conversations between Lean and the author, a great film historian and no mean director himself, having made the gorgeous Silent Era documentary "Hollywood" (is that ever coming out on DVD?!). For this reason the tone is very chatty, with so much quotage from Lean himself that it's nearly an autobiography; and Brownlow's knowlege of real-world production lets him know just what questions to ask. It rather reminded me of "Hitchcock/Truffaut", another filmmaker-to-filmmaker conversation. Mind you Truffaut didn't bother quite so much with Hitchcock's love affairs, but one can always skim. It looks intimidatingly massive but this is more because of the lavish illustrations than excessive wordiness. Great read, inspiring and full of useful tidbits.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing and Illuminating
Review: A simply marvellous biography of a cinema titan. It's the product of many conversations between Lean and the author, a great film historian and no mean director himself, having made the gorgeous Silent Era documentary "Hollywood" (is that ever coming out on DVD?!). For this reason the tone is very chatty, with so much quotage from Lean himself that it's nearly an autobiography; and Brownlow's knowlege of real-world production lets him know just what questions to ask. It rather reminded me of "Hitchcock/Truffaut", another filmmaker-to-filmmaker conversation. Mind you Truffaut didn't bother quite so much with Hitchcock's love affairs, but one can always skim. It looks intimidatingly massive but this is more because of the lavish illustrations than excessive wordiness. Great read, inspiring and full of useful tidbits.

Rating:
Summary: Lean - A troubled director with epic films.
Review: I greatly enjoyed Kevin Brownlow's earlier book on silent era filmaking "Before the Parade Passes By" but was less enthusiastic with this biography of David Lean. The text was diffult to follow with regard to who says what, when. It all takes on a rather who shot John second-hand quality that seems to distance the reader from the subject rather than draw them in. This biography presents an unclear view while it may accurately reflect the basic nature of the subject.

While overlong, (I could do with less of the many sub-plots behind "Breaking the Sound Barrier" and un-fulfilled projects such as "The Bounty"), we get an interesting glimse behind the scenes at the filmaker and his great works. Lean comes off a thin-skinned combination photographer/artist/editor technocrat and generous melagomaniac. Maybe that's what is needed to make an epic.

In any case, the tidbits about the making of the many classic Lean films including: "Brief Encounter", "Great Expectations", "Summertime", "Bridge on the River Kwai", "Laurence of Arabia", "Doctor Zviago" and "Ryan's Daughter" are entertaining and engaging. Patrick W. Brown

Rating:
Summary: "Dear boy, is this grand book all about ME?"
Review: Kevin Brownlow has rightfully taken his place as the world's best writer on film history. His silent film trilogy (THE PARADE'S GONE BY..., THE WAR, THE WEST & THE WILDERNESS, and BEHIND THE MASK OF INNOCENCE) will stand as the definitive work on that subject for years to come. He has applied this same technique on one of the last directors to whom just the mention of the name recalls a singular image. David Lean gave us some of the most vivid pictures in cinema-whether it was a man on a camel growing from a mere dot on the horizon or a mid-western spinster falling in a Venitian canal or a lover's house in the middle of nowhere covered in ice and snow-you can never forget them. Brownlow has done a masterful job of telling the story of this complicated man who really was his films. He also was a man who cut himself off from friends, family and wives (5, if my count was right) if they didn't fit into his vision. This is a warts and all biography, but it never slides into sensationalism. The biographer makes no excuses for his subject, a man easy to admire and venerate, but very difficult to like and love. I came away from this book perhaps knowing more than I needed to know, but Brownlow's writing style never intrudes, and his way of making the filmmaking process absolutely riveting always impresses. There are tons of beautiful pictures (both B/W and color), and I would recommend listening to the music from the films while reading this. The only dilemma is this: what subject will be worthy of Mr. Brownlow next

Rating:
Summary: Great Picture of a Great Director
Review: Kevin Brownlow has written an interesting and detailed account of David Lean, director. I loved the behind the scenes stories. You will learn a lot about the intensity and weakness in this driven man. He loved films and the making of films. Film producers and film critics had a direct effect on this man. Read it if you are at all interested in David Lean.

April 24, 2003 - I still refer to this book. Often re-read sections of it. It is still 5 out of 5

Rating:
Summary: Covering All Phases of a Fascinating and Complicated Genius
Review: Kevin Brownlow touched all bases of David Lean's life, providing insight into the films and his unconventionally fascinating life, making this one of the finest film biographies I have ever read about a cinema giant about whom I had longed to learn more about. Brownlow divides Lean's career into two distinct phases, 1) the British period in which he worked at home and captured the true essence of his people and, 2) the international phase in which the master film craftsman lived in hotels and moved from one country to another in producing a series of internationally spectacular movies such as "Lawrence of Arabia", "Doctor Zhivago" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai."

Brownlow begins with Lean's roots as a restless youngster in the London suburb of Croydon. His lack of curiosity and penchant for traditional school learning coupled with the stolen hours he spent sitting inside darkened theaters in a state of fascination revealed where his adult years would be spent.

Once that Lean began following his dream he quickly became established as Britain's foremost film editor. In that context Brownlow expunges a canard that was carried all the way to obituaries after the great director's death in 1990 that Noel Coward gave the aspiring director a leg up in teaming up with him to co-direct the brilliantly done war film about the British Navy, "In Which We Serve," in which Coward also starred along with Celia Johnson and John Mills. It turned out that Coward's move proved to his personal benefit as Lean did most of the directing and Coward was concerned mainly about his own scenes, after which he would generally leave the set, entrusting the basic direction of the film to Lean. We also learn that Lean, unlike Sir Carol Reed and other prominent British directors, turned down a chance to begin his directing career on low budget "quota quickies," deciding instead to wait for a major opportunity, which came with "In Which We Serve." Later that same year one of Lean's greatest films, the epic love story "Brief Encounter" with Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, hit the screens and the young director's career was away in a flourish.

After achieving prominent worldwide status as a great international director, Lean's sensitivity resulted in overreacting to the criticism of tart New Yorkers at a Round Table session at the Algonquin Hotel. Lean was sharply criticized for "Ryan's Daughter," which American critics such as Richard Schickel and Pauline Kael believed was well below the high standard he established with "Brief Encounter" and continued with other films. According to Brownlow, Lean was sufficiently wounded to take a sabbatical before doing his last film, the highly acclaimed Indian epic "Passage to India" based on the E.M. Forster literary classic.

Brownlow does a superb job of depicting the period and the films from Lean's prolific career. Lean's was a mastery of style and entertainment, enriching story telling with beautiful visual imagery and word economy in the best sense, making the language all the more meaningful. This book does his career justice while enhancing our knowledge of a great man.

Rating:
Summary: Brownlow's magisterial biography is a landmark in the field.
Review: Kevin Brownlow's "David Lean: A Biography" is a landmark in the field of cinema studies. In this work, the premier cinema historian in the English language meets arguably the greatest English director, and the result is a masterpiece of the genre worthy of the maker of such film masterpieces as "Brief Encounter," "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Lawrence of Arabia." Brownlow's understanding of the technical aspects of film-making does great justice to Lean's career, who himself made his reputation in the industry as an editor, gaining renown as the premier "cutter" of his time. In my estimation, Lean was arguably the premier "technician-style" director, a master of cinematic form rivalled only by Stanley Kubrick. My pantheon of directors includes more "personal" directors, Bergman, Fellini and Tarkovsky, yet I respect the accomplishments of Lean; when I saw "Brief Encounter" on the big screen, the climax of the film literally stunned me. The awesome construction of "Brief Encounter" perhaps could only have been created by a director possessing technical genius bred in the cutting room, and it is a great credit to Brownlow that he makes us fully understand the genesis of Lean's particular genius for film. While in these 800-pages, Brownlow does not slight the more conventional aspects of movies, e.g, personalities, finance, criticism, etc., it is his commanding knowledge of film as a craft that gives us great insight into Lean. This book should be required reading for film students for the insight it gives into the craft of constructing a motion picture. Finally, "David Lean: A Biography" is also an insightful story about an unusual man with a marvellously contradictory character who would make a great protagonist in a work of fiction. Lean was, in turns, a sensualist with a Quaker background who had six wives, marrying many of them when most men, it was said, would be divorcing them; a director who commanded huge crews who essentially was a lonely and uncommunicative man; a man of extraordinary generosity who would deny a fellow professional a minor credit; an artist of international reputation who could be wounded mortally by a bad review by an insignificant critic, whose career was derailed by the storm of negative criticism over "Ryan's Daughter." Brownlow's portrait of the essentially unintellectual Lean, an insecure man tormented by a rivalry with his younger brilliant brother, himself a brilliant technician working in a medium with great artistic pretensions who was uncertain of his worth and reputation, should not be missed by any person who loves film. Lean's eclipse after the critical debacle of "Ryan's Daughter," his years in the woods in which he tried in vain to bring new projects to fruition that later were realized by other, lesser directors, his ultimate return to glory and respectability with "A Passage to India," and his final years as the respected yet still tormented man searching for the backing for his last project, "Nostromo," kick this book out of its genre into the ranks of the best biographies in which the life of which we read informs us not just about the human condition, but about ourselves. Don't miss this book

Rating:
Summary: A giant of a book
Review: The production qualities of the book are on a par with the life and work of the film genius himself. The hefty volume weighs in at a half pound in more than 800 pages with more than 150 black and white photos and sixteen pages of color illustrations. It is a monumental bit of book-making worthy of the spendid text of Kevin Brownlow, probably the finest writer on film in the English language. Although filled with interesting personal information on the director, the book is a virtual textbook on the making of epic film, book-into-film, and motion picture production and finance. Caution: the book could in the long run cost you a good bit more than the $40 (less Amazon discount if applicable) because one is sorely tempted to view every film mentioned in the text. This is the ultimate gift book for the film buff and scholar. You won't believe the beauty of this book until you hold it in your hands.--Robert B. Wyatt, president of A Wyatt Book,Inc

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic ... but forgotten treasure
Review: What a pity it is when "biographies" of no-talent flashes-in-the-pan like Madonna, Ashley Simpson, Brittney Spears, ad naseum, are ubiquitous, but Kevin Brownlow's fascinating and throughly-researched biography of a true genius is out of print. What does this say about our culture's priorities? Not much. Oh well . . . fortunately a few copies of this marvelous book survive. If you're interested in great movies ("Lawrence of Arabia," "Doctor Zhivago," "Summertime," "Great Expectation," etc.), great stars (O'Toole, Sharif, Katherine Hepburn, William Holden, Robert Mitchum, and a host of other great stars -- AND great actors), or, perhaps, one of the greatest film directors of the twentieth (and probably any other) century, do whatever you have to do, but grab up a copy of "David Lean: A Biography" as quickly as you can before the remaining copies disappear altogether.