David Lean Talking Pictures

As a boy, the young David Lean wasn't allowed to go to the cinema.

His Quaker parents considered motion pictures to be sinful.

Perhaps that early denial helped spur him on

through his incredible career.

He began at the bottom as tea boy at Gaumont Film Studios

and steadily progressed to camera assistant, to editor,

and then co-director of Noel Coward's 1942 film

In Which We Serve,

his directing big break.

Over the next decade, Lean put out a run of British classics -

Blithe Spirit, Brief Encounter,

Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist.

And in 1955, he was invited to take part in the programme Film Profile.

Do you remember Brief Encounter, In Which We Serve, Oliver Twist,

The Sound Barrier, and Hobson's Choice

because these are just some of the films made by David Lean.

Sitting where an actor normally sits and feeling happy?

No, I don't really like it at all.

I feel that at any moment I'm going to get up

and just go behind the camera there and leave you to it.

Well, I tell you, before you do escape us,

we would like, David, to make this quite personal.

Some of the things you have liked making,

some even that you may have not liked making.

Some of the problems you've had,

and get your view on this business of film-making.

To start with, is a director's life as ulcer-making as people say?

No, I must tell you I've never had an ulcer. I hope I never do.

I enjoy this job more than anything I can imagine.

I think I'm very lucky. In fact...

..if I had the money in the bank I would pay the film people

to engage me.

You mentioned the money then,

are you concerned with money as a director?

Well, you always have the pressure of money behind you

because making a film is a very expensive business,

and if you've got an expensive cast it can go up to...

I have worked on films that the running costs is £2,000 a day.

Now if, when you're making that film,

you hear those pounds clicking into a till all the time,

you can lose your head.

Now, you, as the director, are really the coordinator, aren't you,

of cameras and lights and artists and so on?

Yes, as a coordinator.

Making a film concerns many hundreds of people

and he is the man

that gets them all together to put that final results onto the screen.

I would like to take you back, David,

to your own start as a cutter, because I've always understood

that you place enormous emphasis on this question of cutting.

Yes, well, I personally enjoy cutting...

..almost as much as direction. I think I find it a fascinating job.

Most people, I think,

they think cutting is a question of cutting out things.

It's nothing to do with cutting out things at all.

It's the juxtaposition of pictures and um...

You can make or mar a film by cutting.

You can't make a bad film good. You can make it tolerable sometimes.

And you can certainly ruin a good film.

As a member of the public sitting and watching your film go through,

-would I recognise a piece of good cutting?

-I hope not.

Like all technique, one should be completely unconscious of it.

And, in fact, one should imagine that a film was...

started to be shot in the morning or whenever the film opens

and it was a continuous process right up to the end.

No, you shouldn't be conscious of it at all.

Now, I like to put you on the spot now

and ask you to choose from one of your own films,

the piece of cutting with which you were particularly pleased?

Well, I think I would choose...

..a bit out of Oliver Twist, which was the murder of Nancy

by Bill Sikes.

This hasn't got a word of dialogue in it and it is just cutting.

Just going from one picture to another.

So those numbers of pictures tell the story.

I've been true to you, upon my soul I have!

Small point, David,

but however did you get a dog to behave as competently as that?

Well, it was quite simple, really, when we found the answer.

This dog was the most lethargic dog I've ever met

and he was meant to be terribly fierce.

Somebody had the bright idea of going into the property department

and in the property department, they found a stuffed cat.

Now, we brought that onto the set, showed the dog the cat,

and it went raving mad.

So, all we had to do was to hold the dog,

open that door he was trying to scrabble through

and show the dog the cat,

shut the door, shove the cat's tail under the door,

waggle it, I said, "Action",

we withdrew the cat's tail

and the dog just went like a bomb after this cat.

It's a very bad story I hate to tell, really, but...

I still think he's a very competent performer

and I hope you've got him slapped under contract.

Now, you draw attention to the lack of dialogue.

What are your views on this question of use of dialogue?

Well, I must say I find dialogue

a bore for the most part.

I think if you look back on any film you've seen,

you don't remember lines of dialogue, you remember pictures.

And incidentally, I think people in the movie business

are going to concentrate more on pictures than on dialogue

because, fortunately, you boys have got to sit people down like me

and have them talk and talk and talk.

Well, I think we can beat you by showing pictures,

at least I hope so. You're not the enemy.

Let's talk for a moment about the problem of directing artists.

Now, you, yourself, were never an actor, were you?

No, I was never an actor.

I always suspect that directors are frustrated actors,

but this is my big moment, I think it will be my last.

But don't you feel diffident telling an actor how to do his job?

When I started directing actors, I expected any moment

they would turn around and say, "What on earth do you know about it?"

And I would've said, "Well, I don't."

..really give them a mood to interpret

and let them do it their own way?

Well, it's several things with actors.

First of all, I suppose that all of us are wonderful actors in our bath.

But as soon as you have

one of these horrible instruments pointing at you,

or as soon as you are on a stage, you start to...

..become paralysed.

And it's half the director's job

is taking the nerves out of actors

because nearly all actors are very, very nervous

when they start making a picture.

The sweat will pour off them.

You will see cigarettes in their hands,

or if they have that papers to hold, you will see them start to shake.

And it is a terrifying instrument.

Well now, the director has got to break that down

and make them feel completely at ease.

Then the next job he's got to do is, um...

..to ensure that they think right

because acting for the cinema is purely a question of thought.

If you see an amateur stage show, people pull faces.

Acting is not pulling faces, it's thinking.

On the screen, even on a great big long shot

where the screen's that size and the actor's that size

and he's walking away,

if he's not thinking right, there'll be something wrong with his walk.

I don't know how it happens, but it does.

An actor has got to know what he's thinking

every moment during a scene.

Now, I watched you direct once

and there was none of this flamboyant shouting at actors.

You talked very quietly, indeed. That, I take it, is deliberate.

Yes, it is deliberate.

What I'm really doing is I'm tickling a talent.

I'm trying to draw their imagination out.

They'll...

..rehearse a scene and I'll say, "Yes, that's fine.

"Now, try to give it a bit more edge."

Try to do this, try to do that, and then gradually...

Carol Reed uses a wonderful expression.

He says that getting actors ready to do a scene

is rather like lining up horses at a tape.

And when they're keyed up to a certain point, boom,

down goes the tape, up they go and off they go.

If the camera's not ready or the sound breaks down,

as it very often does, well, that's the end of the game

because you have to start all over again.

Yes, that's right. Yes.

I would imagine that a director

can, obviously, make or break himself by the casting.

Is casting done largely by hunches?

Yes, you do. I mean, you...

write a script or work on a script

and then you get a picture

of a certain person in your mind, of course.

And, um...

..then you begin to think what actor could fit into that picture...

..been some of the most successful long odd casting that you've done.

Oh, well, I think it's a story against myself, really,

because on Great Expectations,

Alec Guinness played the part of a pale young gentlemen.

I don't know if you remember, this is what he looked like.

Mr Pip.

Well, that's how Alec looked in Great Expectations.

Now, after I had finished that film, I decided to make Oliver Twist,

and in it was the part of Fagin.

Alec came to me and said, "I would like to play Fagin."

Now, this is what Fagin looks like in Cruikshank's drawings.

Now as a result of this, I said to Alec,

"You're out of your mind. You can't play that."

And he said,

"Well, look, just give me a screen test. Just give me a test.

"I'll put a little make-up on and do various things.

"And, um... I think I can do it."

I said, "Well, I think you're mad but, all right, do it."

'And this is what he did.'

Clever dogs.

Clever dogs.

Another long shot that came off brilliantly.

Well, it came off through no fault of mine.

That was just Alec and since then, as we all know,

he's played many, many different parts,

but at the time, of course, that was quite extraordinary.

Mm-hmm.

And now for the 64 question.

What in your opinion is it that makes and distinguishes

your great international style?

Well, I...

I think it's two things.

One...

Way out in front - personality.

And two...

I think I can compare a star with a star tennis player.

A star will say his line, he'll wind it up in a ball

and flick it at the other actor.

The other actor will speak, the star will catch it, wind it up

and flip it back.

And a sort of tennis match takes place.

With an ordinary actor, they can be very good,

but they just haven't got that quality of throwing it back.

They'll say their line and that's an end of it.

The star will catch it and bong! Back it goes quickly.

So really, to get the best out of a star you need another star

-playing the other side of the net?

-Of course. Every actor...

It is a sort of duel.

If you get two really good actors together,

they'll fence with each other.

And of course, the best comes out of them.

Lean brought out the best in his next two films -

Bridge On The River Kwai and Lawrence Of Arabia.

But he would often have a difficult relationships with actors

which many put down to his perfectionism and hard work ethic.

Omar Sharif considered Lean a brilliant man

and once described himself as one of the few actors Lean actually liked.

That's not how Sharif was feeling in this next programme

which followed the making of another of Lean's epics,

Doctor Zhivago, in 1965.

How's that for you?

Good. Now go to you sitting, Omar.

'He's a man who is very easy to hate.

'In other words, it is very easy to hate David

'and very difficult to like him.'

He is a very hard man,

a very selfish man who has no pity for anyone

and none for himself either, which is a very rare thing.

He has no self pity and no self-indulgence.

Therefore, it's very difficult for him to pity anybody else

or to feel sorry for anybody however tired they may be.

He considers everybody on the set,

everybody who's helping to make the film,

as objects rather than as people.

They are the things that are making his film.

And, well, you can see how easy it is,

if you think that he is considering you as an object,

how easy it is to be terribly unhappy and rather hate him for it.

I know that I have,

at the end of many days shooting, felt terrible hate for him.

And I know, for instance, most of the people who have worked with him

and who work with him

rather dislike him

because he drives them too hard and he uses them.

Now the 64,000 question, of course, was who played Zhivago.

Now, Zhivago is a very passive part

and I think it would be... It needs a poet.

And a doctor.

But the fatal pitfall, I think,

would have been to cast too much with the type.

If I'd had a very studious young man,

I think he'd tend to be a bore in the picture

and so, I thought, "I will go for immense good looks."

And I thought of Omar

because he played the sheikh in Lawrence who came out of the mirage.

He's a very sensitive actor.

And, uh, we happen to work very well together.

He catches on and I think it works

and I thought I could get...

..this Russian poet out of him.

And I backed that hunch. A lot of people thought I was mad.

'He never loses his temper.

'I've very rarely seen him lose his temper.

'He just more or less seems to be at the same pitch sometimes.

'Terribly worried, obviously, but more or less at the same pitch.

'But he's certainly intimate.

'Not a man, but I mean, a director, very intimate.'

I don't know him socially.

I only know him as a director.

Because he's very quiet, retiring.

Leads a very retiring life, as far as I can see.

I mean, I don't know him,

he might be up every night boozing away, but I don't think so.

'He takes you away and sort of quietly talks to you

'about exactly what he wants and then he'll say to everybody,

'"Now, shut up and go away and leave."'

Thousands of coppers at the back... Get them all out.

You know, all of the wanderers, all of them - out.

Now, very quiet! Silencio!

All right, Omar... Action.

I suppose I don't have much contact with actors off the set

because I have so much contact with them on the set.

I'm, as it were...

trying to get things out of them.

I'm squeezing them a little, I'm encouraging them, I'm...

..a general sort of wetness to actors.

And I suppose when the day's finished,

they are part of my job and I want to go off and relax without them.

In a couple of weeks you'll be with your little girl.

If I can get on a train.

I want to be with Katya more than anything in the world.

Yes, of course.

Now that we're going, I feel sad.

Sad.

Really sad.

-Well, we've been here some time.

-Yes.

This must have been a lovely house once.

-Don't you think?

-What are you going to do?

-In Gradov?

-Yes.

-I'll be all right.

-I wish I could think so.

You could run a laundry.

-What will you do?

-I suppose I'll go back to the hospital.

It's funny to think of you there.

I used to pass it on my way to school.

-You ever come to Moscow?

-From Gradov?

If only there was someone to look after you.

But of course if there were, I'd be destroyed by jealousy.

Zhivago, don't.

My dear, don't, please.

Now, look what you've made me do.

Yuri, we've been together six months...

On the road and here.

And we've not done anything you'll have to lie about to Tonya.

I don't want you to have to lie about me.

Do you understand that, Yuri?

You understand everything.

MGM welcomed Lean's decision to film the bulk of Doctor Zhivago in Spain,

a country that hasn't yet priced itself out of the epic market.

Lean was able to hire local extras at nine shillings a day.

A stunt horseman cost a tenth of what they would in Britain.

Lean needed snow, hundreds of tonnes of it,

so the entire output of a local marble quarry was bought

and crushed into white powder

which was scattered over this Spanish plain in high summer

to recreate Russia in midwinter.

A forest of trees was sprayed with white plastic snow.

He needed a cold winter mist,

so 100 German smoke machines were brought in to do the job.

It all looked expensive

and would have been anywhere else in the world, but this was Spain.

In all, this set cost just £2,000 to erect.

INDISTINCT YELLING

-Lean was hard at work.

-Omar can do it.

'Yesterday I was out on a country road with 400 soldiers and a cart.

'Now, I had to make a scene out of 400 soldiers and a cart.

'It's not all that easy. It takes time.

'But once I've decided on the plan, we're off and we shoot fast.

'And that's it.

'And of course, there's this awful pressure of money all the time

'which if I thought about it too much, it would drive me insane.

'I always imagine if I'm not careful, of some ghastly fruit machine

'with dollars clicking through it

'and spilling onto the floor every second.'

Action!

Try it again.

With two thirds of the film shot,

it became clear to MGM that Lean might present them

not only with a box-office success,

but with a film that could win an Academy Award.

And an Oscar could be worth 5 million at the box office.

Open the doors, turn on the fans.

Open the doors and turn the fans on, boys.

TANNOY IN SPANISH

The pace was stepped up to complete the picture

before the end of the year

and so qualify for the next awards.

By this time, Lean himself was working 16 or 18 hours a day,

seven days a week.

You generally lose, oh, I don't know, about two stone during the picture.

One's tummy goes.

One's in great physical shape

and after about a week of getting up at 11, one feels fine.

But it's a pretty killing job.

I haven't had a Sunday off, for instance,

for as long as I can remember.

I go into the cutting rooms...

when the unit have a Sunday off.

It's pretty tough but I get very excited by making a movie.

I suppose it's kind of nervous energy.

I'm tired now, as I said to you before,

but I suppose the nerve of that infernal machine wakes me up.

At the end of September, Lean's camera turned for the last time.

The studio lights went out, the props were taken away,

the actors went home to Hollywood, Cairo, Rome and London.

The technicians cleared up

and then they too went home Penge, Pinner, Braintree and Horsham.

Everybody was happy. The deadline for the Oscars had been met.

Shortly after everybody had left,

the first advertisement for the film appeared.

MGM had done what they said they would.

David Lean was given the star billing.

But there was still a lot of work for Lean.

He was to fly to Hollywood to edit the picture there,

but the most difficult phase was over.

'I remember I used to go when I was young on a lot of cruises.

'They lasted about two weeks, and at the end of them

'it was rather sad because we made all sorts of friendships

'and so forth and so on. There was a last farewell dinner, etc, etc.

'Rather sad.

'It's exactly the same with making a film.

'But my cruise lasts a year and I work day in, day out

'with these technicians who obviously I've become very fond of

'we work very, very close together.

'And at the end of it...

'..the bottom falls out of everything in a way.

'One's suddenly at a loose end. One thing is good, though.

'It's glorious to be anonymous for a moment.'

Perhaps this time it won't be so easy to be anonymous.

Not so easy to slip away out of the limelight

and become an ordinary, unrecognised tourist.

MGM are creating an image. A box office draw.

From now on, David Lean will have to live with that image all the time.

After three consecutive epics and three big international hits,

expectations were high for Lean's next film.

Although it won two Oscars,

the critics reaction to Ryan's Daughter

was so negative that it was 14 years before Lean released another film.

And that was his adaptation of the EM Forster novel,

A Passage To India.

And whilst on location,

Lean spoke about the project to the BBC reporter, Mark Tully.

Forster mistrusted movie-makers.

The film rights were only sold after his death.

Lean then spent 18 months writing his script

and had to be vetted by the guardians of Forster's masterpiece,

the fellows of King's College, Cambridge.

I did the script and they were very polite

and they asked me to come along, after having read it, for lunch.

I was just about to start on the fish and they started in on me

and I said, "I'd wish you had waited till the sweet."

They...

They were very, very nice indeed.

After about two hours, they were very kind and just gave it their blessing.

How much difference is there between Lean's Passage To India

and Forster's Passage To India?

He's a writer, I'm a film-maker. I like movies.

I've tried to make it a movie that I would like to see.

The end is different, certainly.

But I think I wouldn't be ashamed for Forster to read the script.

I think I stuck with his characters and, on the whole,

given the limitations of time, I mean, what's one doing?

One's doing something in two hours with a book that thick.

It's a sort of sketch of it and I'm extracting a movie from it.

Those who...

..want to read Forster, read the book.

Those that want to go to a movie and don't read, come see our film.

Poor old English, they've had a rough time in the films lately.

And, uh...

It's because, of course, colonialism has gone out of fashion,

so it's quite easy to take pot shots of a lot of idiots,

-stuffy idiots, you know?

-Yes.

And, uh...

..quite honestly, I think Forster did that too.

And I think he felt a bit guilty about it.

I mean, he certainly had a blast with it when the book came out.

And I'm trying to keep a balance. I don't know.

I'm trying to tell a good story. That's really what I'm trying to do.

Helping to tell the story is an army from England.

They even imported much of their own food,

including kippers for breakfast.

But meals aren't the production's only administrative problem.

Perhaps the worst is India's notorious red tape.

I took my first baptism of...

I was going through the customs, you know,

it takes about two and half hours to get through the customs

if you've got any apparatus as you no doubt know with that thing.

They look at every lens...

-"Are you going to sell this?"

-Yes.

-"How much film have you got?

"Are you going to sell it?" "No, I wouldn't have bought it to sell it."

And so forth and so on, and after two hours, one hates the country.

Then of course, it's wonderful.

You have certain problems still with the government.

For instance, you still have to have someone here checking

that you're shooting according to the script. Does that annoy you?

They've been very good to me.

Indians have been so kind, they've even allowed the production

to monopolise the branch line from Kannur to Ooty.

At 75, Lean's as demanding as ever,

taking and retaking scenes until he gets what he wants.

That's good, that hat.

That costs, but then producers can't argue with a man

whose last four films grossed £120 million, not to mention the Oscars.

But not everyone appreciates the Lean style.

It's often said that as a director you are, in a way,

more concerned with visual than with the performance of the actors.

Balls.

I like spectacle.

When I say spectacle, I don't think you can just put on

a load of spectacle and expect it to be successful with the public.

Of course you've got to have a foreground action.

It's often easy for critics to say,

"Oh, the action...the background swamped the foreground."

But I don't think I've done that.

And you found the public react...

the people who go see your films, react to the spectacular?

Well, I haven't done badly, no.

Passage To India was an international sensation.

Described as one of the cinema's greatest ever screen adaptations.

In 1984, the year of its release,

Lean was knighted by the Queen for his services to the cinema.

Four years later, the great man's 80th birthday

was marked by Barry Norman with a special edition of Film 88.

How important was it to have been an editor

when you finally became a director?

It's everything.

You know, I often wonder at directors who've never been editors.

-Because...

-Me too.

-Oh, really? Well, it's right.

I just don't understand how they go to work because I'm sitting there

and if I'm directing you, I'm saying, "Good, good, good," to myself.

"I can cut the two shot there.

"I have to retake that in the close up.

"Mm-hm. Mm-hm. That'll be good on him."

And so forth. "Right, cut! Now let's go again.

"One more take," and that sort of thing, you know?

I kind of piece it together as we're making it.

And editing is one of the...

..if not THE chief of the tools of my trade.

An immensely successful film and another Oscar for you.

How important do you think Oscars are?

Well, if you have no hope of getting one, they are despised.

But if you have, they're very important.

-That's very honest, I must say. It's easy to...

-It's very nice.

Yes, it's easy to despise them if you're not in the running, isn't it?

That's right.

Of course with your next film, Doctor Zhivago,

you very nearly did the hat trick. You were nominated yet again.

But on that one, you lost out the best picture

to Sound Of Music, I believe. Was that a little galling?

Oh, terribly, you know.

Yes, but, you know, I'll tell you what killed us...

Doctor Zhivago got the most terrible notices. Worldwide.

I remember the premiere in New York.

They gave a dinner at the top of one of the big hotels there and...

I said, "Why are they all reading newspapers?"

They said, "Well, the criticism are coming."

Everyone was sitting around the table reading the newspapers.

At the end of the dinner, they all came and sort of shook my hand

and said, "Well, David, I liked it." That sort of thing.

That did nothing to help the film.

It was disaster and MGM then had a marvellous chap

called Bob O'Brien who was the boss.

And he said, "David..."

He said, "I think this film's great. I'm going to back it."

And he said, "I'm going to spend another million."

And he spent a million on publicity,

and partly on keeping it on at the theatre

where you can throw rocks around without loss of life.

And it...

First week empty, second week empty, third week started...

to increase. And the fourth week it was packed.

And we took off, and that film earned me more money

than all of my other films put together to date.

Well, it's had an enduring popularity, that film, hasn't it?

What do you think it was that gave it that?

Well, it was your old thing I was listening to a couple of weeks ago.

Story. It's a wonderful story, isn't it?

-Yes, it is, yes.

-Ah, wonderful.

And you don't... You want to know what happens next.

And wonderful characters, you know?

And Julie.

Which was quite a face.

I was amazed that, what, for 14 years after Ryan's Daughter,

you never made another film. Why? Why not?

Was it because it got such a bad review, or bad reviews?

Well, I was very stupid as a matter of fact.

I thought why... They were universal...

I don't think there was one good notice for Ryan's Daughter.

Really, not one.

And I thought, "Why am I doing this?"

You know, rather stupidly, and I went off and I started travelling.

In the end, it was EM Forster's novel about the British Raj,

A Passage To India, that brought Lean back to work at the age of 76.

Although in the intervening years,

he had spent a great deal of time trying and failing

to set-up productions of both The Bounty and Gandhi.

Were you pleased with A Passage To India in the end?

Sort of.

A lot of people criticised your choice of Alec Guinness

to play an Indian.

Would you... With hindsight, would you do that again?

I don't think really it's the...

I think Alec could perfectly well have played an Indian.

I think he got scared of it.

And I remember him saying to me once,

"I think you're asking me to play... give an imitation of Peter Sellers."

Which, in fact, I wasn't.

-It would have been disastrous, wouldn't it?

-It would rather.

And, um...

So I don't think that was one of his best performances, no.

In simple terms, Miss Quested, life is a wheel with many spokes.

A continuous cycle of life, birth, death, and rebirth,

until we obtain nirvana.

I have contrived a dance based on this philosophy.

-Do you dance, professor?

-Oh, yes.

Adela.

Oh, Ronny, you're early. Let me introduce to you, Professor Godbole.

-And this...and that's...

-What's happened to Fielding?

Where's my mother?

And what on earth are you doing?

Well, they're seeing college and we're eating water chestnuts.

-Have one.

-No, thank you. We're leaving at once.

You have been criticised by people who say that your films

don't actually say a lot, by which I imagine

that they have no message for mankind.

Is this a criticism that irks you at all?

No, not at all.

What are you looking for when you make a film? What do you want to do?

I want to make something that if I went to the cinema,

and wasn't me, I would enjoy watching.

I just, as I told you, I just love movies,

and I would like to make good movies.

I think part of making a good movie,

or the greater part of it,

is a good story which I know is out of fashion.

And good characters.

I mean, in the old days when one went to the movies,

one used to feel one had been out and met some fascinating people.

I saw the other day The Untouchables on an aeroplane

and to be quite honest...

And...

I didn't really like it at all.

You know, for somebody who says, and indeed I believe you,

that you love making movies, you've made very few.

16 films and 46 years, I think. Why is that?

Oh, it scares me stiff. You know, I suppose...

Mm...

If I take on a movie,

I want, terribly, to do it frightfully well.

So therefore, one's got to have a very, very good script.

So I spend an inordinate amount of time choosing the subject

and then working on the script.

And... I suppose it's fear, really, to put your foot in the water.

After all this time and a couple of Oscars and several nominations,

I would've thought you could've done without the fear.

You could've got rid of that by now.

It doesn't work like that, does it? Do you ever get...

-Do you ever get nervous when...

-All the time.

..when you're doing this job?

You do, yes. Well, there you are, that's the answer.

It's a sort of... It's a difficult job.

I mean...

I feel fairly at home with you here

because I sort of feel in my element too.

I know you write movies but when you see that eye boring into you,

it is difficult.

And in this minute my lips are rather dry.

-Very difficult.

-Yes, it's hard to reconcile with another criticism.

I've been looking into your critics.

One of them said that you have a dictatorial urge to control

every aspect of the film when you're making it.

Would you disagree, you might possibly disagree with dictatorial,

but would you disagree with any of the rest of it?

Or would you disagree with none of it?

I do like to keep a close hold on everything.

I think that's what being a director is.

He's...

..encouraging a talent,

encouraging things that he saw in the negative, in his mind,

when he was doing the script,

and suppressing things that seem to go against it.

And so, in that sort of way, I'm a kind of gentle dictator.

As things turned out,

A Passage To India would be Lean's last picture,

which was not how he wanted things.

He spent his final years trying hard to put together

an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novel, Nostromo.

But it was not to be,

and in 1991 when he died, aged 83.

Eulogy spoke of his towering visual imagination

and incredible ambition.

At the turn of the millennium,

the BFI's list of the 100 best British movies ever made

had three of his in the top five.

Proof, if it were needed, that just like his films,

the man's talent was truly epic.