1. "Epic" director
David Lean is an "epic" director for two reasons:
First, he directed works such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), and "A Journey to India" (1984), all of which are epic films. classic work. In my opinion, David Lean is the greatest epic director in the history of cinema, and Lawrence of Arabia is the greatest epic in the history of cinema.
Secondly, in addition to epic films, David Lean also left behind many excellent works such as "Meet Too Late" (1945), "Oliver Twist" (1948), and his film achievements are enough to make him a hall-level film. Film master. David Lean was ranked ninth in the "World's Top Directors" by BFI in 2002.
2. The final "epic masterpiece"
David Lean is known for his epic films, and "Journey to India" is his last directorial work, which is his last "epic masterpiece".
David Lean started his "epic career" with "Bridge on the River Kwai", established his "epic style" with "Lawrence of Arabia", and "Journey to India" was his "epic finale".
Compared with the current CG blockbusters, the most obvious features of David Lean's epic blockbusters are "handmade" and "live shooting". In the era of David Lean, CG special effects have not yet appeared. The grand scenes in David Lean's films are all "live shooting", and the exquisite sets in the film are from artists, architects and other craftsmen. "Handmade".
David Lean is also an excellent and even critical director, so his epic film shooting cycle is very long, for example, the shooting cycle of "Lawrence of Arabia" is as long as 20 months.
"Journey to India" is the last "epic masterpiece", which also means that the era of epic films represented by David Lean has come to an end.
3. When literary classics meet movie classics
The four representative works of David Lean's epic films are all adapted from literary masterpieces without exception.
In fact, David Lean has always been a director who likes to adapt literary masterpieces. He adapted two Dickens novels in the 1940s: "Blood and Tears of the Lone Star" (1946) and "Oliver Twist" (1948). .
Moreover, David Lean is very good at adapting literary masterpieces, and his adaptation resume has few failures. Among them, the adaptations of "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and "Lawrence of Arabia" can be said to have surpassed the original works-now, these two works have become great works in the history of film, and their original works are just ordinary literary masterpieces.
E. M. Foster was one of the greatest British novelists of the 20th century. He wrote six novels in his lifetime, each of which is a classic. His place in the world of 20th century literature should be on a par with David Lean's place in film history.
The adaptation of "Journey to India" is a literary classic meeting a film classic, and a literary master meeting a film master.
E.M. Foster didn't "trust" movies very much during his lifetime, so none of his works were adapted into movies during his lifetime. After his death in 1970, five of his six novels were adapted into films: A Trip to India (1984), A Room with a View (1985), Maurice (1987), "Where Angels Don't Dare to Stand" (1991), "Howard Manor" (1992). The only novel not made into a film is The Longest Journey, E.M. Foster's debut novel and his most autobiographical novel.
Three of the five films ("A Room with a View", "Morris", "Howard Park") were directed by American director James Ivory, and all three have achieved high success . James Ivory is the face of E.M. Foster's films.
And David Lean is the initiator of the adaptation of E. M. Foster's novel. Interestingly, the novel Journey to India was E.M. Foster's last novel (1924), and the film Journey to India was the last film directed by David Lean, and they are The "final" encounter seems to have been predestined.
4. Rigorous and self-contained adaptation
In 1970, after filming "Ryan's Daughter", David Lean did not direct a feature film for about 14 years. In other words, before directing "India", David Lean was actually in retirement.
Retired David Lean has plenty of time to prepare for "India". He first traveled and did fieldwork in India, then settled in New Delhi, where he spent a year and a half polishing the script.
David Lean, who is over seventy years old, is obviously not as energetic as in the 1950s and 1960s, and "Journey to India" is a film completely filmed in a foreign country, which is a huge test for the director and the entire crew. . In order to keep the "evening festival" in creation, David Lean had to work slowly and meticulously, so he spent enough time to prepare and polish the script.
David Lean's adaptation of "A Trip to India" is as rigorous as ever, but he's never been a director bound to the original, and his adaptations aren't entirely faithful to E.M. Foster's originals, like the film's. The ending is quite different from the novel - David Lean has added his own understanding of the story and of human nature.
But David Lean's adaptation of the key plot or core spirit of the original is trying to keep the original. The cave in the film is a mysterious vortex and a division of human nature. There is no "truth" in the original book, and the film also does not give an answer, leaving the blank in the original book precisely.
5. Class Barriers
From novel to film, A Trip to India is an English gentleman's work of humanistic introspection.
Britain advertised itself as a "gentleman's country", but the British colonial rule of India was not really "gentleman", but full of squinting, contempt and discrimination.
After the Malabar cave incident, Mr. Dutton, the British chief executive, said to Mr. Fitting, the president of the university: "I have lived here for 25 years, and I know that if there is a close relationship between the British and the Indians, it is bound to be doomed. disaster."
Judging from the story of the film, "catastrophe" is "destined", but this is largely due to the prejudice and fear of the British - "the appearance of white people is always attractive to people of color" and British nobility is inviolable.
The kind Mrs. Moore and the curious Miss Gus represent the humanitarian forces that try to break down the class barriers, but due to their different circumstances and unexpected events, their kindness actually inspired direct confrontation between the two sides of the class barriers.
David Lean unceremoniously expresses the arrogance and hypocrisy of the British, but does not hide the humbleness and confusion of the Indians.
Aziz, who received only a little friendly closeness from Mrs. Moore and Miss Goss, over-confidently entertained them on a trip to the Malabar caves - a slap in the face and a fat man's behavior underscoring his role in colonial rule In a humble, twisted state.
Aziz is essentially a weak and lacking opinionated man. After he was released, he swelled rapidly. Not only did he fail to understand Miss Gus's difficulties, but he also rejected the real friendship from Feiding.
From the influx of new arrivals through markets, to the swarms of Malabar cave trips, to mass rallies against colonial courts, Indian-style chaos is everywhere—and it’s still everywhere in India today.
There are prejudices between classes, but there are also differences in civilization.
From E.M. Foster to David Lean, they all describe people in two classes from a relatively equal perspective, which is very British and very gentleman.
6. The black hole of human nature
What the hell happened in the cave?
Aziz couldn't explain it, Miss Gus couldn't explain it clearly, and the guide didn't know what to say. No one knows the truth, not even E.M. Foster and David Lean - so everyone has their own truth.
Mrs. Moore and Mr. Fitting insisted on inferring events by character, other British people insisted on judging events by prejudice, the Indian masses interpreted events with anger, and Indian professor Ghoboli stayed out of it, watching the fire from the other side - is he the wise man who sees everything?
The widow, Aziz, held Miss Guth's hand tightly. That moment was their "skin kiss", and it was also the moment when Miss Guth re-examined her relationship with Lonnie. This is the most ambiguous passage in the film. The eyes, the light and even the sweat on their cheeks all exude ambiguous light and smell.
In the next cave, is vertigo? Is it a hallucination? Or do you want to say leave?
And Miss Guth's injury and emotional out-of-control are even more mysterious.
The truth has been swallowed in the cave, and human nature is also lost in the black hole, elusive.
7. Mysterious India
E.M. Foster traveled in India from 1912 to 1913. The travels during this period provided him with the basic material for writing "A Trip to India". But the size of India and the depth of Indian culture are difficult for E.M. Foster to understand, so he left a lot of unsolved mysteries in the book.
Before the film started, David Lean also lived in India for a long time. Perhaps this period of life also made him realize that India is still a mysterious country. Therefore, there is no need for him to "override" the original work. The "mystical power" in the - this is respect, but also understanding.
Gobli is a peculiar presence in the story, and he is also a university professor who practises "mysterious" Indian philosophy.
When Aziz strongly recommended Malabar Cave to Mrs. Moore and Miss Goss, as someone who had traveled the cave, he was vague, but in fact gave a clear hint. On the day of the trip, he deliberately missed the train and even claimed that he knew the trip was ominous. After the cave incident, he showed indifference to both the incident and Aziz in front of Fitting, probably because "you don't care, it's happened, it's there". Mrs. Moore left by train, but he prayed at the station and gave Mrs. Moore a "death farewell". In these episodes, he's an indifferent "wise man" who stays out of the way. But when Aziz and Feiting "broken off" (the "broken off" also had his "credit"), he acted as a matchmaker in "The bell must be tied" to help them meet again, and eventually The rift between Aziz and Miss Gus was resolved.
For the "trip to India" of Mrs. Moore and Miss Goss, Gobli seemed to be a "prophet" who knew everything. all of these. At the end of the film, things have changed, and the "prophet" entered the world and took on the responsibility of "resolving".
Gobli seems to be different from other Indians, but in fact, he is the most traditional Indian in his bones, revering the destiny and letting nature take its course. Of course, this may just represent the creator's understanding of Indians.
Interestingly, all the Indians in the film are played by Indian actors, with one exception, Gobli, who is actually played by British actor Alec Guinness.
Alec Guinness is an old friend of David Lean, and they have worked together on five works before "India". He is known as "the man with a thousand faces in the movie world", and his role as Gobli can indeed show the spirit of many Indians, which is enough to "mix the real with the fake" for many audiences.
The choice of this role seems not only to Alec Guinness's personal friendship with David Lean, but also to represent "what an Indian looks like from a British perspective".
8. The Picky David Lean
Like David Lean's previous "epic masterpieces", "India" is still perfect in terms of color and visual effects.
In terms of color and vision, David Lean is indeed a nitpicky director.
The film begins with the scene that goes through the market. In order to present the best effect (chaotic and lively), David Lean asked the crew to "recreate" a real market, so that almost all the group actors are in "real scenes". " in the performance.
David Lean is not only demanding on the scene, but also almost never compromise on the details.
There is a scene in the film, the foreground and middle ground are perfect, but because of a small red cloth hanging on a rope in the corner of the background (it is out of focus in the film) - it destroys the "harmony of the scene and color". , was asked to retake it. The scene where Mrs. Moore walked in the train station was also requested by David Lean to be re-shot because Mrs. Moore's head scarf was roughly the same color as part of the wall of the train station and lacked a sense of contrast. Also, the locomotive in the film was originally black, but David Lean thought that red was more beautiful, so he painted it red - it turns out that this change is really eye-catching. In fact, ordinary audiences don't care about these details, but David Lean is such a critical director.
But David Lean has his moments of compromise.
In the scene where Aziz and Fitting reunite, David Lean actually wanted to capture the snow scene. However, it was still too far from the snowy day. When the production team insisted on finishing the film to save costs, David Lean had to give up the original idea, but he also shot without the snow scene. India's "cold".
Columbia Pictures initially gave "India" a production budget of $10 million, but when the film was finally completed, the total cost reached a staggering $18 million. The extra $8 million is, in part, paying for David Lean's nitpicking.
Of course, this classic would not have been achieved without David Lean's persistence.
9. Origin
"Lawrence of Arabia" biographer Thomas Edward Lawrence and E.M. Foster were close friends and had long corresponded with each other.
Although "Lawrence of Arabia" is a great film work, its portrayal of Thomas Edward Lawrence is not perfect. For the sake of storytelling, the film ignores the exploration of its spiritual world to a certain extent - in the spirit On a level, E.M. Foster probably knew Thomas Edward Lawrence better than David Lean.
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