Reputation and Influence
David Lean received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1990, being one of only three non-Americans to receive the award.
Lean is the most represented director on the BFI Top 100 British films list, having a total of seven films on the list, and four films in the top eleven. Lean's films in general have always been extremely popular with the general public, with The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago among the highest-grossing films of all time. While Ryan's Daughter and A Passage to India were less successful on release, they have found wide and appreciative audiences since their release on DVD.
As Lean himself pointed out, his films are often admired by fellow directors as a showcase of the filmmaker's art. Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese in particular are huge fans of Lean's epic films, and claim him as one of their primary influences. Spielberg and Scorsese also helped in the 1989 restoration of Lawrence of Arabia which, when released, greatly revived Lean's reputation.
George Lucas has referenced Lean's films, Lawrence of Arabia in particular, throughout his Star Wars film series. John Milius, David Yates, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, Stanley Kubrick, and Sydney Pollack also claimed influence from Lean's films. Mel Brooks is also an admirer and parodied several of Lean's films in his sci-fi spoof Spaceballs. John Woo once named Lawrence of Arabia among his top three films. More recently, Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) has cited Lean's works, particularly Doctor Zhivago, as an important influence on his work, and Baz Luhrmann has named Lean as one of the inspirations for his 2008 epic Australia.
Read more about this topic: David Lean
Famous quotes containing the words reputation and, reputation and/or influence:
“Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self- collected, and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his behaviour.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you’re cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
“I wish to reiterate all the reasons which [my predecessor] has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace with other nations and the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights of the defense of our interests, and the exercise of our influence in international matters.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)