David Lean David Lean Sir David Lean (25 March 190816 April 1991) was an English film director, producer, screenwriter and editor, responsible for large-scale epics such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) and "A Passage to India" (1984). He also directed adaptations of Charles Dickens novels "Great Expectations" (1946) and "Oliver Twist" (1948), and the romantic drama "Brief Encounter" (1945). Originally a film editor in the early 1930s, Lean made his directorial debut with 1942's "In Which We Serve", which was the first of four collaborations with Noël Coward. Beginning with "Summertime" in
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