Favorite David Lean Movie?

[joeybee12]

Poll question: Favorite David Lean Movie?

And I do not want to hear from anyone: David Who?

Went with Lawrence of Arabia, although Hobson's Choice is a little-known gem.

[PurityOfEssence]

1. I gotta say Zhivago

There are just so many resonant scenes: Richardson and Klaus Kinski on the train, the first time we see Strelnikov, the shooting scene in the restaurant, every frame with Rod Steiger, the funeral at the beginning...

"I am now about to light the last half of the last cigar in Moscow..."

[joeybee12]

2. Great movie

Too many to choose from--most all his works are masterpieces.

[joeybee12]

3. Great movie

Too many to choose from--most all his works are masterpieces.

[elperromagico]

12. The visuals alone are worth watching any one of his films.

The gradual buildup from greys to color as the Revolution begins in Doctor Zhivago is extremely effective. Some of the visuals Lean and Freddie Young (his cinematographer) produced in the three films they did together belong in an art museum.

And to think that the majority of Zhivago was shot in Spain, with some of the snow scenes being shot in the sweltering summer weather.

[MaineDem]

31. "Doctor Zhivago", for sure!

Everything about it... the yellow flowers in Siberia, the magnitude of the dam, Strelnikov...everything was superb. I can't praise it enough. It had a distinct impact on my life when it first came out.

The beauty of "Ryan's Daughter" deserves a mention as well.

[wakfs]

4. River Kwai

One of the great moments in film history when Alec Guiness realizes he has just helped the enemy in wartime.

Awesome film.

[joeybee12]

7. I guess Alec and David had quite the disagreement over how Alec's

character should be portrayed. I think they worked it out nicely.

[elperromagico]

11. The central disagreement was this:

Guinness wanted to interpret the character with a sense of humor; Lean wanted the Colonel portrayed as utterly humorless.

Apparently when they first discussed the character, Lean said, "Well, if we were having dinner with him tonight, you might find him a frightful bore," to which Guinness replied, "Oh, you want me to play a bore?"

[joeybee12]

15. What I heard was that Alec wanted him to be almost saint-like.

That's what the extra features on Kind Hearts and Coronets said!

[elperromagico]

29. Well, I got that story

from Kevin Brownlow's biography of David Lean.

[joeybee12]

30. Well, they're both dead, so we'll never know for sure!

Whatever happened, they ended up getting it right, at least as far as Oscar was concerned.

[Emboldened Chimp]

5. Lawrence hands down

I saw it for the first time over a year ago; it was a digitally remastered 70mm print. I was blown away. Great, great film. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

[joeybee12]

8. Lawrence is also one of the most magnificently "filmed" movies

if you know what I mean--the colors, the settings, the angles--everything worked.

Just wished we'd seen Lawrence cuddling up with his little Arab boys, like he did in real life.

[VOX]

6. These are some terrific movies, but I'll have to go with LOA...

The kind of movie that will never be made again: intelligent, all the stops pulled, true broad-screen, etc.

And to think, Peter O'Toole *didn't* get an Oscar. (Who did that year? Gregory Peck, for "To Kill a Mockingbird," which was richly deserved.)

"Lawrence of Arabia is one of the best films of all time.

[mobuto]

19. It was?

To Kill a Mockingbird is an important film, and I'd like to think that Peck won the Oscar for political reasons. Because Peter O'Toole could outact the late Gregory Peck any day. Peck had one screen personality, and even then didn't always seem comfortable in it.

[joeybee12]

21. Not sure I agree, but he did have personality, and that made him a star

Seriously, most of the screen greats are remembered for their strong personalities--Crawford, Hepburn, Bette Davis, etc. The camera rewards personality more than it rewards acting ability.

[geniph]

23. In my opinion, Peck won with great justification

there's one moment where he's sitting out on the porch while his two children talk about their late mother. The camera pulls in slightly on Peck's face, and the pain on it makes me cry every time.

It was an incredibly restrained, mature performance, and to my mind, better than O'Toole's performance as T.E. Lawrence. And I dearly love O'Toole.

[joeybee12]

9. Kick for more votes!

Somebody's gotta choose one of the other ones, right?

[elperromagico]

13. I think most people know Lean from his epics.

n/t

[elperromagico]

10. I thought I was the only one who liked David Lean films.

Anybody here ever read Kevin Brownlow's biography of Lean? Great piece of work.

I went with Lawrence of Arabia, although Brief Encounter and Great Expectations are great early Lean films, Bridge Over The River Kwai is a great POW story, and Zhivago is good splashy romantic epic.

I can even tolerate Ryan's Daughter on occasion.

[joeybee12]

16. I could have gone with Summertime--very different from what one

thinks of him, and another great performance by Kate.

[greatauntoftriplets]

14. I voted "Bridge on the River Kwai"

because it is such a great anti-war movie. I own that, as well as "Dr. Zhivago" and "Ryan's Daughter". I have been to Dunquin, the town in Ireland where "Ryan's Daughter" was filmed. The setting is incomparable. Breathtaking.

[mndemocrat_29]

17. I voted Bridge on the River Kwai

Which is one of my favorite movies. I really love David Lean, he is one of the greatest directors of all time.

[mobuto]

18. Bridge on the River Kwai - easily

I hate Lawrence of Arabia - not because it isn't one of the greatest movies ever made, because it is - but because I find it horribly unpleasant. It is a profoundly pessimistic movie that indicts the human spirit, and while I recognize its artistic merit, I don't enjoy it.

As for Dr. Zhivago, I think its horribly miscast and, frankly, boring. I'm sorry, but Omar Sharif and Julie Christie? They somehow fail to suspend my disbelief. It is also in desperate need of an editor. Read Pasternak's book instead.

But from my perspective, Bridge on the River Kwai is damn-near flawless.

[joeybee12]

20. I think the neocons in DC should be FORCED to watch LOA

It really indicts the British colonialism mentality, and hammers home the point that they are evry, very different from us.

We went in thinking we were going to change things over night back then.

How easily the same mistakes are made, when those iin power are ignorant twits!

[mobuto]

22. Of course the irony is that T. E. Lawrence was transformed

into the "Lawrence of Arabia" we see in the movie and imagine in our collective memory by Lowell Thomas, a rather despicable American hack reporter.


It really indicts the British colonialism mentality, and hammers home the point that they are evry, very different from us.

But it also subscribes to the same orientalist prejudices which led to that mentality. It ascribes to the Arabians Great and Mysterious qualities, and falls back into the old pattern of turning them into Rousseau's Nobel Savages, while the Turks, the English, and most of all T. E. Lawrence, are shown as equal parts naive and evil. But the one quality lacking in all the characters, regardless of race, is humanity.

Peter O'Toole and Alec Guinness may be my two favorite film actors, ever, but they're given impossible roles and an even more impossible script.

[joeybee12]

24. Just took out Bridge on the River Kwai from the library

We'll see if this makes me re-think my vote.

[kodi]

25. AKABA AKABA!

.

[joeybee12]

26. Are you saying that you want to move there????????????

[kodi]

27. nope, just thirsty

.

[joeybee12]

28. That movie made me very, very thirsty!!!!!!!!!!!