The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (241 page)

Lean’s death was nearly a state occasion for many in British film. His reputation stayed very high, despite inactivity, despite even the sad disorder of
A Passage to India
, a film markedly less assured than the work of James Ivory (which is not to praise Ivory). I am more than ever of the opinion that Lean became lost in the sense of his own pictorial grandeur.
The Passionate Friends
and
Madeleine
, for instance, stand up so much better than those battleship pictures that came later. Not even the rerelease of
Lawrence
—beautiful, and with some lost material restored—could furnish any sense of ideas behind it.

Lean was a Quaker by upbringing, not allowed to visit the cinema as a boy. After a spell in accountancy, he joined the film industry and rose from tea boy, to clapper/loader, to cutting room assistant, to assistant director, to editor on Movietone News. In 1934 he became an editor and worked on
Escape Me Never
(35, Paul Czinner);
Pygmalion
(38, Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard);
Major Barbara
(41, Gabriel Pascal);
49th Parallel
(41, Michael Powell); and
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing
(42, Powell). His chance to direct arose in 1942 when he handled the action sequences of
In Which We Serve
.

What happened then with David Lean? By the time of his death, he was a knight and a famous master. It was taken as tragic that obscure circumstances had prevented Lean from doing his versions of the Bounty story and of Conrad’s
Nostromo
. He had made a sad hash of E. M. Forster’s
A Passage to India
, yet somehow people persuaded themselves that he could have handled Conrad’s more difficult book. It is worth stressing that Lean was a charming egotist, endlessly handsome, and in pursuit of women, and achingly hopeful when he spoke. He was a spellbinder, and so it was easier for enthusiasts to miss his frequent discomfort with dialogue scenes. Lean was most striking when he could hark back to the pure narrative of silent films.

Whatever happened began in the 1950s.
The Sound Barrier
was an interesting subject, but a dull, inconclusive film;
Hobson’s Choice
was woefully slow and unfunny, yet seemingly bewitched by its own period recreation. Then came
Bridge on the River Kwai
, a strange mixture of conventional British heroics and antiwar message lit up with the flash of Burmese jungles, schoolboy irony, and those little gods for best picture, best director, and actor. Lean was a romantic about himself, and those rewards may have persuaded him that he was too grand for small things. It was the Selznick syndrome.

The pictures that followed
—Lawrence, Zhivago
, and
Ryan’s Daughter
—seem to me examples of size and “the visual” eclipsing sense. No matter the version, it is so hard to discern what
Lawrence
is about—it seems afflicted with very English intimations that the desert is a place for miracles;
Zhivago
is a syrupy romance, without poetry or plausibility; and
Ryan’s Daughter
may be as bad a film as any “great” director ever made.

From 1952 to 1991, he made eight films—and in only one of them, I suggest
—Lawrence
—is the spectacle sufficient to mask the hollow rhetoric of the scripts. But the Lean before 1952 made eight films in ten years that are lively, stirring, and an inspiration—they make you want to go out and make movies, they are so in love with the screen’s power and the combustion in editing.
Brief Encounter
is slight and cozy, a bit of an exercise, but it works on screen—Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson are lovers to shame the posing of
Dr. Zhivago. Oliver Twist
is ravishing still: magnificent in its period recreation, its rank city, and its evil; it is greedily edited and beautifully designed (with a lot of Russian influence showing), and shot in sooty shadow and imperiled light, with great performances from Guinness, Robert Newton, Kay Walsh, and John Howard Davies (all supporting parts, as it were—Lean was never as relaxed with lead roles).
Great Expectations
is not as good, but it’s still worthwhile.
The Passionate Friends
is the film most deserving recovery—an intricate triangle story, with Howard, Claude Rains, and Ann Todd (who was Lean’s wife then—she followed Kay Walsh). Todd is also the Scottish poisoner in the excellent
Madeleine
.

Those early films have pace, flourish, and a modesty of scale (even if
Oliver Twist
feels big). And then, slowly, Lean became the prisoner of big pictures, a great eye striving to show off a large mind. I challenge anyone to see
Oliver Twist
and
Dr. Zhivago
and not admit the loss. It will take a very good biography to explain that process.

Jean-Pierre Léaud
, b. Paris, 1944
Léaud stared out of the frozen ending of
The 400 Blows
(59, François Truffaut), a crewcut, round-faced adolescent, as torn between inhibition and cheeky humor as Truffaut himself. The spontaneity of that film, and its moving nostalgia for a nearly brutalized childhood, hung in large part on the complicity between Truffaut and Léaud. But was Truffaut well advised to persist with the emotional, autobiographical link? Was Léaud capable of sustaining a film?

He grew up a lean, furtive young man; his hair flopped lankly over a sharp fox’s nose. No question that Léaud was alert and compelling, but he looked sly, living off events in films, not actually touched by them. His Antoine Doinel was too indifferent to the gentle daydream of
Stolen Kisses
(68, Truffaut), especially the wondrous pact that Delphine Seyrig makes with him. It seemed a case of Truffaut rationalizing his choice, rather than feeling it. He was too sure a judge of actors to accept Léaud’s meanness of spirit, but Léaud was an emblem he felt unable to discard. The potential for a tender account of sentimental education in
Stolen Kisses
foundered on Léaud’s frosty privacy.
Bed and Board
(70, Truffaut), with Doinel married, was Truffaut’s poorest film, in which his offhand lyricism veered into irrelevant knockabout. Léaud was a good deal more integral to
Anne and Muriel
(71, Truffaut), but hardly attuned to the literary resonance of the film and its emotional subtleties. We could barely accept him as a novelist, even if the ending, with his sudden recognition of himself as a wintry solitary, was suited to Léaud’s hurrying selfishness.

The adult Léaud is a darting, paranoid personality, fit for the jagged political-strip cartooning of late Godard. When Godard violently abandoned tenderness in
Pierrot le Fou
, he made Léaud his central character in
Masculin-Feminin
(66), where the actor’s tendency to abrupt denials of solitariness are countered by his self-nagging hunched stance. In keeping with his capacities, Léaud was the bellboy in Godard’s sketch from
Le Plus Vieux Métier du Monde
(67); “Donald Siegel” in
Made in USA
(66, Godard); in
La Chinoise
(67, Godard); the figure of Saint-Just, breaking down to become another tripper in
WeekEnd
(67, Godard); the great-grandson of Rousseau in
Le Gai Savoir
(68, Godard).

Elsewhere, he appeared in
Le Testament d’Orphée
(60, Jean Cocteau); in Truffaut’s episode, as Doinel again, from
L’Amour à Vingt Ans
(62); essaying his brusque charm in
Le Père Noel A les Yeux Bleus
(65, Jean Eustache); actually engaging in
Le Départ
(67, Jerzy Skolimowski); in an episode from
Dialog
(68, Skolimowski); in
Porcile
(69, Pier Paolo Pasolini);
Os Herdeiros
(69, Carlos Diegues);
Le Lion à Sept Têtes
(70, Glauber Rocha);
Une Aventure de Billy le Kid
(70, Luc Moullet); playing up as the filmmaker in
Last Tango in Paris
(72, Bernardo Bertolucci); as the central figure in
La Maman et la Putain
(73, Eustache), gradually dismantled by the more mature anguish of the women; as the blindly vain actor in
Day for Night
(73, Truffaut) who makes audiences gasp with distaste when he phones Jacqueline Bisset’s husband.

The one film that fully employs Léaud’s manic solitariness is
Out One: Spectre
(73, Jacques Rivette) in which he is the most obsessed victim of the idea of the “13.”

In 1979, he was back again as Doinel in
Love on the Run
, thirty-five still going on seventeen, but shamed as an actor by the vitality and candor he had had in
The 400 Blows
.

Since then, one hears that he has had personal difficulties. But he works on, doggedly, the face increasingly haunted:
On A Pas Fini d’en Parler
(79, Bernard Dubois);
Parano
(81, Dubois);
Aiutami A Sognare
(81, Pupi Avati);
La Cassure
(83, Ramon Munoz);
Rebelote
(83, Jacques Richard); in the Rue Fontaine episode of
Paris Vu Par … 20 Ans Après
(84, Philippe Garel);
L’Herbe Rouge
(84, Pierre Kast);
Csak egy Mozi
(84, Pal Sandor);
L’Ile au Tresor
(85, Raul Ruiz);
Detective
(85, Godard);
Grandeur et Decadence d’un Petit Commerce de Cinema
(86, Godard);
36 Filette
(88, Catherine Breillat);
La Femme de Paille
(88, Suzanne Schiffman);
Jane B. par Agnès V
. (88, Agnès Varda);
Les Ministères de l’Art
(88, André Téchiné);
I Hired a Contract Killer
(90, Aki Kaurismaki);
La Vie de Bohème
(90, Kaurismaki); and
J’Embrasse Pas
(91, Téchiné).

As he came up on sixty, he worked as hard, and as if he were an actor. Yet for many of us he seems like a startled being caught in the haunted house and never able to find the exit:
Paris S’Eveille
(91, Olivier Assayas);
Missä on Musette?
(92, Veikko Nieminen and Jarmo Vesteri);
La Naissance de l’Amour
(93, Garrel);
Personne Ne M’Aime
(94, Marion Vernoux);
Mon Homme
(96, Bertrand Blier);
Le Journal du Séducteur
(96, Daniele Dubroux);
Irma Vep
(96, Assayas);
Pour Rire!
(97, Lucas Belvaux); uncredited in
Elizabeth
(98, Shakhar Kapur);
Innocent
(98, Costa Natsis);
Une Affaire de Goût
(99, Bernard Rapp); the lead in
L’Affaire Marcorelle
(00, Serge Le Peron);
Ni Neibian Jidian/What Time Is It There?
(01, Tsai Ming-liang);
Le Pornographe
(01, Bertrand Bonello);
La Guerre à Paris
(02, Yolande Zauberman);
Folle Embellie
(03, Dominique Cabrera); as Georges Franju in
J’Ai Vu Tuer Ben Barka
(05, Le Péron and Saïd Smihi);
Visage
(09, Tsai).

Patrice Leconte
, b. Paris, 1947
1968:
Autoportrait
(s). 1969:
L’Espace Vital
(s). 1970:
Tout a la Plume ou au Pinceau
(s). 1971:
Le Laboratoire de l’Angoisse
(s). 1972:
La Famille Heureuse
(s). 1975:
Les Vécés Étaient Fermés de l’Interieur
. 1978:
Les Bronzés/French Fried Vacation
. 1979:
Les Bronzés Font du Ski
. 1980:
Viens Chez Moi, J’Habite Chez une Copine
. 1981:
Ma Femme S’Appelle Reviens
. 1982:
Circulez, Y’A Rien à Voir
. 1984:
Les Spécialistes
. 1986:
Tandem
. 1988:
Monsieur Hire
. 1990:
Le Mari de la Coiffeuse/The Hairdresser’s Husband
. 1992:
Tango
. 1993:
Le Parfum d’Yvonne
. 1995:
Les Grands Ducs
. 1996:
Ridicule
. 1998:
Une Chance sur Deux
. 1999:
La Fille sur le Pont/The Girl on the Bridge
. 2001:
La Veuve de Saint-Pierre/The Widow of St. Pierre; Félix et Lola; Rue des Plaisirs
. 2002:
L’Homme du Train/Man on the Train
. 2004:
Confidences
Trop Intimes
. 2004:
Dogora: Ouvrons les Veux
. 2006:
Les Bronzés 3: Amis pour la Vie; Mon Meilleur Ami
.

In France, Patrice Leconte now rates very highly as a winner of Césars and as a maker of provocative films. His
Ridicule
(the only one of his features on which he was not involved as a writer, too) was a modest international success, and a picture that drew attention to wit, language, and the whole art of teasing. But then, as his next venture, in
Une Chance sur Deux
, Leconte was acute enough to reunite Delon and Belmondo—but incapable of making a picture that got American release. You can propose that Leconte might do anything next—from rare period fable to fairy story to boulevard comedy. But to these eyes, that versatility begins to look like uncertainty.

He was a film-mad kid (a teenager during the New Wave), who went to IDHEC, and began making shorts as he worked as a cartoonist. He showed an early taste for comedy, but his outstanding work is
Monsieur Hire
. Taken from a Simenon novel, this is a film of great suspense in which the way of watching is crucial to the drama. It also has exceptional performances from Michel Blanc (normally a comic) and Sandrine Bonnaire. Next to
Hire, The Girl on the Bridge
seems a very fanciful construct, clever, promising, and done in beautiful black-and-white, but nowhere near as compelling as the earlier film about voyeurism. But
The Widow of St. Pierre
(with Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil) was back to his best level.