On the occasion of a Film Forum series of his work, Terrence Rafferty has an interesting, if brief and kind of depressing think about David Lean's method in the NY Times.
Maybe the series can wrest Lean away from the clutches of the cinematic cliche crowd that always puts Lawrence of Arabia in their award show montages. He's kind of like the Dalai Lama; a no doubt great god who attracts the most annoying sort of sycophantic groupies. [Or is that Tarantino?]
Bonus: block out Katherine Hepburn's schtick and just treat Summertime as a fantastic documentary of 1950's Venice. Also, the movie was blurbed by the film critic of the Daily Worker. !
Related: David Ehrenstein's relook at Lean in Artforum makes me feel a little guilty.
