David Lean

Rene Clement had a movie, The Battle of the Rails.

We did cover Brief Encounter, David Lean.

A magnificent filmmaker, a magnificent film.

And the best compliment that I could give that movie is it just made me want to watch more David Lean movies.

But You know, there's this trend.

It's been in filmmaking, you know, a kind of a sub-niche forever.

Today's movie review is for Oliver Twist.

David Lean's 1948 adaptation of Oliver Twist is a cinematic journey into the heart of Charles Dickens' classic tale, capturing the essence of a young boy's struggle for survival and belonging in a harsh world.

Set in the grimy streets of 19th century London, the film follows the orphaned Oliver Twist, played by John Howard Davies, as he navigates a life filled with adversity and unexpected kindness.

The film opens with a powerful prologue, setting the tone with its stark imagery of a pregnant woman seeking refuge during a storm.

Some characters, such as Nancy and Bill Sykes, are not fully fleshed out, leaving their motivations and relationships somewhat ambiguous.

This may pose a challenge for viewers unfamiliar with Dickens' novel, but the film's visual and emotional impact more than compensates for these shortcomings.

In summary, David Lean's Oliver Twist is a compelling adaptation that captures the spirit of Dickens' work with its rich storytelling and stunning visuals.

It is a film that invites viewers to reflect on themes of identity, fate and the enduring quest for love and acceptance.

Uh, I think, um, well,

yeah, some of the actors didn't like, didn't like David Lean's filmmaking style because it, it was unconventional.

He's like, no, we're not going to show it that we're going to show it this way.

So that checks out to an extent.

He bought some sort of a rubber cushion.

He wrote on that.

Uh, but David lean, uh, wasn't happy with the extra, uh, with the double that they were using for the like, uh, far away uh shots of of lawrence on a camel and he he even like pulled peter o'toole to the side and he showed him one of the shots and he said like look it's like it's got no magic i need i need you to do it wow So Peter O'Toole said for these shots that are really far away, he's in them, but he has a flask and a cigarette and a radio headset.

So he's literally just having a ball.

Lawrence of Arabia.

[laughs] I, I'd like to watch David Lean from start to finish to really understand if this is the product for me.

See you in three hours.

To me it's so interesting how high the bar is-

Gosh, you've got to hand it to her.

And then there was like a bit that I liked where he compared the village fate shot to a David Lean President's Vasco, but it was just sort of like on a mid.

It was just the scale and the scope.

Love

So I

thought that I would become David Lean overnight or Martin Scorsese.

How hard can that be, right? Yeah.

I went to film school and I got my bachelor's of arts and I figured, well, all I gotta do now is go to New York and make Lawrence of Arabia and we're done here.

And we wrote down a lot of names, like 100 names and 99 of whom I wrote to and they said, you've got to be kidding.

Why would we give you any money to... do this but one place which was a foundation from so David Lean it was called the David Lean Foundation David Lean David Lean L-E-A-N very famous old director won Oscars in the 60s for movies like a film director yeah got to Zhivago Lawrence of Arabia very old British director wow I don't think he had any children or any sort of or I don't think he even got married and so a lot of the money from his from his movies went into this trust that was being looked after by a group of lawyers in rural England.

It was like really far away.

So they had no information online about who they were, but they held his money in this trust.