Sunday, September 14, 2008

David Lean Restored

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In his later and best-remembered works like Lawrence of Arabia, British director David Lean firmly established the clichés of Oscar bombast—exotic locations, grueling three-hour run-times, and subtly insinuated sexual deviance. But in his earlier films Lean was at the service of queen and countrymen, firmly solidifying many of the British cultural stereotypes that we Americans still enjoy today. The National Gallery of Art will show restored versions of eight of these films, and the director’s collaborations with Noel Coward alone are a survey of mid-century Englishness. The World War I naval drama In Which We Serve (1942) revels in stiff-upper-lip military romanticism. The comedy Blithe Spirit (1945) serves up the requisite droll English humor. Brief Encounter (1946)—the tale of a middle-class English housewife’s unconsummated affair with a married physician—is positively brimming with cloistered emotions, unfulfilled passion, and guilt. You’d need a plateful of Marmite on toast and a cupboard full of Balearic techno 12-inches to get more British than that. Lean’s subsequent Dickens adaptations—Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948)—begin to introduce the grandiose settings and epic tendencies that the director would use to great effect later on, but they too make the British Isles’ industrial grayness and bad food storyline linchpins. Some of those stereotypes are up for revision, but until some brave U.K. auteur is willing to tackle his country’s inexplicable devotion to Manic Street Preachers, Lean’s work will continue to endure. “David Lean Restored” runs through Sunday, Dec. 28, at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium, Constitution Ave. between 3rd and 7th Sts. NW. Free. (202) 727-4215. —Aaron Leitko

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