David Lean, Nature as Narrator

A hot streak is a helluva thing.

In work, sports, art, life - sometimes it seems you just can’t miss.

I don’t think anyone has ever had a hot streak like the British director David Lean. In a few years he gave the world The Bridge over the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Doctor Zhivago (1965). Can you imagine? Any one of these would be a career maker. But Dave? He churned them out one after the other - three cinematic masterpieces in a row!

I love each of these films - would probably rank each in a list of my favorite 25 movies of all time. Lawrence of Arabia would be in the Top 3. I am not alone - collectively they received 19 Academy Awards and all three are on the American Film Institute’s list The 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.

Much ink has been scribbled explaining their genius - highlighting their scope and scale, the cinematography and composition, the acting, the music, the drama and the grandeur. I won’t try to recap that here. Rather, I want to focus on a common thread across all three movies that adds another dimension. A storytelling device that most films - then or now - don’t incorporate. But in the hands of David Lean, this secret ingredient propels greatness into a tour de force.

What might this be?

It’s the unnamed cast member. The ever-present backdrop that both observes and influences the drama. The stage that can’t help but participate.

Mother Nature.

In each film, the natural world actively frames the story, but does so much more. The environment - whether jungle, desert, or tundra - interacts with the characters. It watches the tale unfold, reflects the emotional arc of the moment, and sometimes even steps in and changes the narrative.

Let’s explore how.

Beginning with The Bridge over the River Kwai, Mother Nature makes herself known immediately, adding cruel punishment to the already wounded British Army. The jungle is an obstacle, the heat a burden. The constant sounds of insects and animals act like a Greek Chorus, commenting on the plight of the main characters.

The environment seems to watch - along with us - the conflict between Colonel Nicolson and Colonel Saito intensify. The jungle, the sun, the rain all add stress to the situation, making the lives of the prisoners and the guards even more miserable. Colonel Saito himself acknowledges this, noting that the camp has no fences because to try to escape would be suicide.

Here we see David Lean utilize the natural world as backdrop, protagonist, and commentator. It’s very meta. But then he goes one step further, and establishes a theme common to all three films - man versus nature.

The very idea of building the bridge in the story is a challenge to the natural world. Can the men overcome the river and the canyon? Can they defeat the heat, the leeches, the mud? In fact, the British and the Japanese essentially join forces to take on Mother Nature and seem to win - at least momentarily. But nature strikes back, dropping the river’s water level and exposing the explosives on the bridge. The Japanese and British switch back into their former, adversarial roles, resulting in the destruction of the bridge.

Famously, Lawrence of Arabia was filmed in some of the most spectacular parts of the world, with amazing composition and cinematography that I marvel at each time I watch it. David Lean often frames the scenes as if to minimize the human scale - showing how small we are in the grand scheme.

At first, the drama unfolds within the landscape, Mother Nature mostly indifferent. The principle characters meet, fight, interact, and proceed on nature’s stage.

But soon enough the environment begins to participate, becoming quite active in the story. The crossing of the Nefud desert, Lawrence’s trip across Sinai. Suddenly nature is the obstacle - the heat, sand, lack of water - all throwing up roadblocks to Lawrence’s quest. It throws storms at him and his companions, and at one point literally consumes one of the characters.

It’s Man vs Nature again, but David Lean evolves the theme a bit. He starts to equate - in my mind - the natural world with innocence and emotional truth, and the modern world with all that ails mankind. The juxtaposition of the ship in the desert articulates this idea, marking Lawrence’s crossing back into the modern world and the beginning of the loss of his soul.

Then, Doctor Zhivago takes things a step further. In this film, nature seems most apt to reflect the emotional mood of the characters. Winter and Fall are the backdrop of times of stress and conflict, Spring and Summer frame a few happy moments here and there.

But the themes are still present - the small problems of man cast against the enormity of the natural world. Nature - seemingly annoyed by the little people - meddling in their affairs. The symbolic fight between man and nature, modernity vs. the human spirit.

As a character, Doctor Zhivago probably understands this more than any of David Lean’s protagonists. A poet, Zhivago is most productive when surrounded by the beauty of nature - snow crystals, flowers, open steppes. But he is demoralized by the horrors of city life and what it does to people - fostering corruption, hypocrisy, and betrayal.

I suspect Zhivago was the most personal of David Lean’s heroes. Here was the man who knew he was a speck in the universe, that our time here is limited, and one should grasp and appreciate the momentary snapshots of beauty that nature allows. Zhivago was in synch with the natural world, which is why he was probably doomed from the outset in a modernizing society.

The end of Doctor Zhivago is bittersweet. The last shot is that of the massive dam where Zhivago’s daughter now works. It’s a monstrosity of concrete, bluntly symbolic. It represents modernity, communism’s attempt at controlling the world, and perhaps the surrender of the human spirit.

Yet…the dam is framed by a rainbow, sunlight interacting with the mist. A glimpse of natural beauty sneaking into the scene, maybe signaling that all of man’s scrambling and struggle is temporary. This too shall pass… 

It’s David Lean punctuating the film with one last message, a final reminder.

Nature is - and always will be - the real director of our stories.

Farewell photo

A little slice of life, until next time…

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Disclaimer:

All content and opinions are solely those of the author (Jack), and not representative of my employer, former employers, anyone in Congress, my family, former college roommates, Baptists, the good citizens of Oregon, or my dog Mabel.