David Lean was one of a handful of movie-makers of international renown and, arguably, the most famous and successful of all British film directors. Emerging from a childhood of nearly Dickensian darkness, Lean found success as the director of the such classic films as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago.Learn about the making of movies a s realized by a master, but also of the highly personal costs of genius. in color.

Interviews with the director of Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, A Passage to India, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and many other epic films

In this volume, David Lean's now undervalued epics--The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Ryan's Daughter, and A Passage to India--are restored to the elevated esteem they once held.

Here is the story of Sir David Lean, one of the greatest moviemakers of all time, director of such epics as Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and A Passage to India. Stephen M. Silverman spent the better part of a year meeting with Lean to secure firsthand information for this book. An intensely private man, Lean opened up to Silverman and shared with him the story of his life - from his Quaker upbringing, through his decade as Britain's star film editor, to his work as a director, earning him through his intelligent, literate films a reputation for perfection. Lean's movies, which collected an unprecedented twenty-seven Academy Awards, are noted for their stunning pictorial content as well as their strong narrative flow, and many of Lean's colleagues have shared their personal recollections with the author, who has added a new afterword to the book. The memories and anecdotes from such film notables as Alec Guinness, Katharine Hepburn, Julie Christie, Maurice Jarre, John Mills, Omar Sharif, Judy Davis, and Sarah Miles serve to further enliven this already vivid biographical and critical study. Katharine Hepburn starred in Summertime, Lean's first film to be shot entirely on location. Her Introduction discusses Sir David as both an incomparable director and a great friend. Rolling Stone: "Stephen M. Silverman has guided the famously reclusive Lean into lively, witty, and informative recollections of his life and work on such hits as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, Brief Encounter, and A Passage to India, as well as Lawrence [of Arabia]. Here's that rare book on movies that can really be called indispensable." Los Angeles Times: "Perhaps most surprising to his friends, [Lean] allowed himself to be interviewed at length by critic Stephen Silverman. David Lean is interesting not least for the candor with which Lean admitted that the reviews of Ryan's Daughter devastated him and almost paralyzed him creatively." The Boston Globe: "Bright, chatty, cant-free . . . Without lapsing into critspeak, Silverman adroitly lays out the evidence for what's shaping up as an emergent reassessment of Lean's output and provides flavorful eyewitness testimony, pro and con." Chicago Tribune: "It's fitting that the most exquisitely crafted book on film should deal with one of the motion pictures' supreme craftsmen, David Lean . . . . Lean himself contributes many insights and anecdotes, and there are fascinating behind-the-camera tales of both his meticulous technique and his messy battles with producers and stars." Financial Times: "This portrait of the film director as old lion is well-researched and highly readable. We goggle at the account of Lean's Quaker upbringing and his parents' horror of the cinema. (They wanted him to become an accountant.) We follow Lean's early creative romances with Noël Coward (four films) and Charles Dickens (two). And we listen to Lean and Katharine Hepburn . . . quarreling via Silverman over who was responsible for her ill-fated jump into the Venice canal in Summertime." Variety: "As lavish as Lean's best films, Stephen M. Silverman's David Lean is an important addition to the collective library of film books."

Two-time Academy Award winner Sir David Lean (1908–1991) was one of the most prominent directors of the twentieth century, responsible for the classics The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Doctor Zhivago (1965). British-born Lean asserted himself in Hollywood as a major filmmaker with his epic storytelling and panoramic visions of history, but he started out as a talented film editor and director in Great Britain. As a result, he brought an art-house mentality to blockbuster films. Combining elements of biography and film criticism, Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean uses screenplays and production histories to assess Lean’s body of work. Author Gene D. Phillips interviews actors who worked with Lean and directors who knew him, and their comments reveal new details about the director’s life and career. Phillips also explores Lean’s lesser-studied films, such as The Passionate Friends (1949), Hobson’s Choice (1954), and Summertime (1955). The result is an in-depth examination of the director in cultural, historical, and cinematic contexts. Lean’s approach to filmmaking was far different than that of many of his contemporaries. He chose his films carefully and, as a result, directed only sixteen films in a period of more than forty years. Those films, however, have become some of the landmarks of motion-picture history. Lean is best known for his epics, but Phillips also focuses on Lean’s successful adaptations of famous works of literature, including retellings of plays such as Brief Encounter (1945) and novels such as Great Expectations (1946), Oliver Twist (1948), and A Passage to India (1984). From expansive studies of war and strife to some of literature’s greatest high comedies and domestic dramas, Lean imbued all of his films with his unique creative vision. Few directors can match Lean’s ability to combine narrative sweep and psychological detail, and Phillips goes beyond Lean’s epics to reveal this unifying characteristic in the director’s body of work. Beyond the Epic is a vital assessment of a great director’s artistic process and his place in the film industry.

Lean Logic is David Fleming's masterpiece, the product of more than thirty years' work and a testament to the creative brilliance of one of Britain's most important intellectuals. A dictionary unlike any other, it leads readers through Fleming's stimulating exploration of fields as diverse as culture, history, science, art, logic, ethics, myth, economics, and anthropology, being made up of four hundred and four engaging essay-entries covering topics such as Boredom, Community, Debt, Growth, Harmless Lunatics, Land, Lean Thinking, Nanotechnology, Play, Religion, Spirit, Trust, and Utopia. The threads running through every entry are Fleming's deft and original analysis of how our present market-based economy is destroying the very foundations--ecological, economic, and cultural-- on which it depends, and his core focus: a compelling, grounded vision for a cohesive society that might weather the consequences. A society that provides a satisfying, culturally-rich context for lives well lived, in an economy not reliant on the impossible promise of eternal economic growth. A society worth living in. Worth fighting for. Worth contributing to. The beauty of the dictionary format is that it allows Fleming to draw connections without detracting from his in-depth exploration of each topic. Each entry carries intriguing links to other entries, inviting the enchanted reader to break free of the imposed order of a conventional book, starting where she will and following the links in the order of her choosing. In combination with Fleming's refreshing writing style and good-natured humor, it also creates a book perfectly suited to dipping in and out. The decades Fleming spent honing his life's work are evident in the lightness and mastery with which Lean Logic draws on an incredible wealth of cultural and historical learning--from Whitman to Whitefield, Dickens to Daly, Kropotkin to Kafka, Keats to Kuhn, Oakeshott to Ostrom, Jung to Jensen, Machiavelli to Mumford, Mauss to Mandelbrot, Leopold to Lakatos, Polanyi to Putnam, Nietzsche to Næss, Keynes to Kumar, Scruton to Shiva, Thoreau to Toynbee, Rabelais to Rogers, Shakespeare to Schumacher, Locke to Lovelock, Homer to Homer-Dixon--in demonstrating that many of the principles it commends have a track-record of success long pre-dating our current society. Fleming acknowledges, with honesty, the challenges ahead, but rather than inducing despair, Lean Logic is rare in its ability to inspire optimism in the creativity and intelligence of humans to nurse our ecology back to health; to rediscover the importance of place and play, of reciprocity and resilience, and of community and culture. ------ Recognizing that Lean Logic's sheer size and unusual structure could be daunting, Fleming's long-time collaborator Shaun Chamberlin has also selected and edited one of the potential pathways through the dictionary to create a second, stand-alone volume, Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy. The content, rare insights, and uniquely enjoyable writing style remain Fleming's, but presented at a more accessible paperback-length and in conventional read-it-front-to-back format.