How Cannes Documentary On David Lean May Make You Hate Critics

At the Cannes Film Festival you expect to get into big arguments about the quality of the movies on view. It goes with the territory. Everyone has an opinion and most are not afraid to give one. That is fine. Among critics (and I hate that term), of which I am one for Deadline, I often get comments disagreeing with what I may have written about a film I am reviewing , pro or con, and some of them, even personally sent to my email are pretty mean. I welcome discourse, dissent, other opinions . In fact I even sometimes have to control myself reading some of my colleagues reviews, fiercely wondering how they could have seen the same film I did.

Just this week I found myself in the critical minority of a new three and a half hour film academically delving into, among other topics, the effect of capitalism on French health care. Yawn. Some critics, mostly longtime proponents of slow cinema, thought it was the holy grail, four stars, couldn’t get enough. I found it to play like a college lecture, though in fairness I did find much to admire also . Conversely I loved the new film from Asghar Farhadi, Parallel Tales. Many other critics did not share my enthusiasm, some trashing it. Okay you are entitled to an opinion and we actually get paid to have one. I can live with it and move on. Viva le cinema!

But one new film that just premiered in Cannes Classics tonight, a terrific and beautifully constructed documentary, Maverick -The Epic Adventures Of David Lean, is worth seeing for many reasons. But there is a section in it towards the end, a first-hand description of this master filmmaker’s experience with critics, very famous ones, that not only stunned me, it made me incredibly sad and angry. I have told everyone about it, not understanding how this could have happened, since seeing the film before I hit the Croisette.

Lean is of course one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived, a director whose sterling credits include Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, Summertime, The Bridge On The River Kwai, Lawrence Of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and many more. The three films he made in an 8 year period between 1957 and 1965 won a total of 28 Oscar nominations including Best Picture and 7 total wins each for River Kwai and Lawrence Of Arabia, with another five wins for Zhivago. Lean personally won for Best Director twice among many other accolades including 11 nominations overall starting with one of the all time classic love stories, Brief Encounter in 1945.

However his incredibly impressive streak came to a bit of an end, or at least a pause when his epic love story, Ryan’s Daughter was released in 1970, and famously got beaten up by many in the critical fraternity at a time when smaller counter-cultural movies like Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy came into vogue. Still the film did receive four Oscar nominations and won 2 for supporting actor John Mills and its luscious cinematography. But judging from the critics you would have thought David Lean had become a serial killer.

In this fascinating documentary director Barnaby Thompson has unearthed an interview with Lean discussing a face to face he had with a group of renowned critics shortly after Ryan’s Daughter had opened. I thought nothing would shock me about my fellow critics (again I hate that term) but this one did. He was invited to the Agonquin Hotel in New York City for a meeting with the National Society Of Film Critics. What follows is, in his own words, what happened after he got there:

“I sensed trouble from the moment I sat down, and Richard Schickel (Time Magazine) started out by saying, ‘Mr. Lean, could you please explain to us how the man who directed Brief Encounter could produce this’, and I’ve forgotten what word he used, but it meant rubbish, ‘disgusting material’, etc. etc. etc. And it carried on from there, and they’re very good with their tongues, and I was there for about two hours, and then Pauline Kael who also had this pretty sharp tongue (spoke), and they just took me to bits. In the end, I remember saying, ‘I don’t think you ladies and gentlemen will be satisfied until I do a film in 16 millimeter and in black and white’, and Pauline Kael said ‘no, you can have color’. That was the end of it. Horrible. It really kind of had an awful effect on me for several years. In fact, I didn’t want to do a film again…After Ryan’s Daughter. I didn’t like going out to restaurants because I thought I’d be pointed out as the chap who made that disastrous, terrible, horrible film. I felt very ashamed.”

Among the many first rank directors interviewed on camera for this exceptional documentary, Joe Wright said, “David opened himself up emotionally with Ryan’s Daughter, and I think expected to be appreciated for that, which is why he was so wounded by the snarky dismissive reviews. He put himself out there, and he got called an old fogie.”

It would be 14 years before David Lean made another film. 14 years! That picture was 1984’s A Passage To India earning a Lean film yet another Best Picture Oscar nomination along with three more for him as Director, Screenwriter, and Editor. It would be his final film before he died at age 83 in 1991.

Someone gave an opinion that it was Lean’s father’s lack of encouragement and acknowledgement of his son’s success that came roaring back after that infamous and unfortunate brief encounter with those leading critics, and it reinforced in him such self doubt and sadness, it prevented him from making another movie for a decade and a half. His father died in 1973 never once having seen a David Lean film.

I urge you to see Maverick: -The Epic Adventures Of David Lean , and hopefully it finds distribution soon, to experience what his father missed and what those so-called renowned movie critics were sadly capable of doing to a legendary artist, one of the all time greats.