David Lean 1955, Lean began to make internationally co-produced films financed by the big Hollywood studios; in 1970, however, the critical failure of his film "Ryan's Daughter" led him to take a fourteen-year break from filmmaking, during which he planned a number of film projects which never came to fruition. In 1984 he had a career revival with "A Passage to India", adapted from E. M. Forster's novel; it was an instant hit with critics but proved to be the last film Lean would direct. Lean's affinity for striking visuals and inventive editing techniques has led him to be lauded by directors
David Lean in New York, including "The New Yorker"'s Pauline Kael, and ask them why they objected to the movie. "I sensed trouble from the moment I sat down," Lean says of the now famous luncheon. "TIME" critic Richard Shickel asked Lean pointblank how he, the director of "Brief Encounter", could have made "a piece of bullshit" like "Ryan's Daughter". These critics so lacerated the film for two hours to David Lean's face that the devastated Lean was put off making films for a long time. "They just took the film to bits," said Lean in a later television interview. "It really