Cannes Doc: Lean Blamed Critics for 14-Year Directing Hiatus
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- Maverick: The Epic Adventures of David Lean, directed by Barnaby Thompson, premiered in the Cannes Classics section and unearthed a first-hand account of a post-"Ryan's Daughter" confrontation between Lean and the National Society of Film Critics at the Algonquin Hotel in New York.
- Richard Schickel of Time Magazine opened the attack by asking Lean to explain how the director of "Brief Encounter" could produce "disgusting material," with Pauline Kael following up in what Lean described as a two-hour ambush by critics with "very good tongues."
- Lean recalled the encounter as "horrible," saying he didn't want to make another film afterward and avoided restaurants for years because he feared being identified as the maker of a "disastrous, terrible, horrible film." When he quipped that critics wouldn't be satisfied until he shot in 16mm black and white, Kael replied: "no, you can have color."
- The documentary documents that Lean did not direct another film for 14 years, returning only with 1984's "A Passage to India" — another Best Picture Oscar nominee and his final film before he died at age 83 in 1991.
- Steven Soderbergh, among the directors interviewed on camera, said Lean "opened himself up emotionally with Ryan's Daughter" and "got called an old fogie" by critics, calling the backlash "snarky" and "dismissive."
- Despite the critical savaging, Ryan's Daughter still earned four Oscar nominations and won two — for supporting actor John Mills and its cinematography.
- The documentary also surfaces a claim that Lean's father, who never acknowledged his son's success, died in 1973 without ever having seen a David Lean film — a void of encouragement the filmmakers suggest left Lean uniquely vulnerable to the critics' attack.
Why it matters: The documentary reframes a 14-year gap in one of cinema's most decorated careers as the human cost of a single critical ambush, offering a first-person record from Lean himself about how figures like Pauline Kael and Richard Schickel could wound even an Oscar-winning director of "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago." The account remains a cautionary case study in the destructive potential of critic-on-artist pile-ons.
