Brief Encounter, In Which We Serve, Great Expectations are among the 8 classic titles to be screened at the Irish Film Institute starting from this April, all in 35mm, as part of their latest series. A screening Kicks off a 2-month, 16-film extended encounter with David Lean, one of the most influential filmmakers in Western cinema history.
Lean remains one of the biggest names in British cinema, and from intimate romances to novel adaptations to stirring war stories, his career saw him create a wide range of classics across four decades. Split across April and May, the IFI will be showing each and every one of his feature films. Tickets for Part One of this season taking place all next month are available now. You can check out the IFI’s trailer for The Films of David Lean season below.
This April, immerse yourself in the world of David Lean’s films as the Irish Film Institute (IFI) celebrates the renowned filmmaker across April and May. April’s selection, projecting entirely from 35mm, offers audiences the chance not just to experience some rare screenings, but to see the films as they were always intended to be seen, on the big screen, and on celluloid. Part One’s programme includes In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Blithe Spirit, Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, The Passionate Friends and Madeline. 70mm film will feature in Part Two of the season this May.
Few British filmmakers have created a body of work as respected and influential as that of Sir David Lean (1908 – 1991), with seven of his 16 films seeing him Oscar-nominated (twice winning) in the category of Best Director.
Starting as a tea-boy at Gaumont Studios, Lean worked his way up to editor on numerous features, including a number of Powell and Pressburger titles, before taking to the director’s chair. Moving from chamber pieces such as Brief Encounter (1945) to some of cinema’s greatest epics, including Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), Lean proved remarkably adept at creating indelible imagery and never lost sight of the intimate human relationships at each film’s core, whatever its scale.
David Lean on the set of Great Expectations
The second part of this David Lean season will run across May, and details of the 8 film line-up will be announced in the coming weeks, with a heavy emphasis on analogue screenings, including 70mm screenings of Lawrence of Arabia and Ryan’s Daughter. This will be a unique opportunity to see these films in this stunning format, as the Irish Film Institute is the only cinema in Ireland with 70mm capability.
Titles to enjoy this April at the IFI
In Which We Serve
Enjoy on the big screen the naval exploits of Mountbatten in the film that saw Lean move from editing to directing alongside Noël Coward – In Which We Serve (1942). Featuring John Mills and Celia Johnson, as well as Richard Attenborough making his (brief) screen debut (Saturday, April 5th, 3.30pm).
For This Happy Breed (1944), Lean took on his first solo directing role. Featuring Robert Newton alongside Cleia Johnson and John Mills, it charts London’s Gibbons family from adapting to the post-war peace of 1919 to facing the inevitability of a new conflict in 1939, with romance and tragedy (Sunday, April 6th, 4pm).
Blithe Spirit
One of Lean’s most enduring and popular films, the supernatural comedy Blithe Spirit(1945), sees novelist Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison) finding his second marriage interrupted by the ghost of his first wife (Kay Hammond) following Madame Arcati’s (Margaret Rutherford) séance. The film has become a highly regarded classic of screwball cinema, noted for its striking cinematography (Wednesday, April 9th, 6.20pm).
Arguably the first of Lean’s films to display a true mastery of the medium, Brief Encounter’s aching romance has granted it a permanent place in the canon of British cinema (1945). Featuring Celia Johnson once again, this time alongside Trevor Howard, this lauded drama begins with a chance meeting between two married strangers which develops into a regular appointment. As their emotional connection deepens, they must decide what path to take (Wednesday, April 16th, 6.30pm).
Lean followed his collaborations with Coward by bringing the work of Charles Dickens to the screen, in a pair of films still considered among the very best adaptations of the great writer.
Great Expectations
The double Oscar-winning Great Expectations (1945) features the magnificent casting of John Mills (Pip), Valerie Hobson (Estella), Martita Hunt (Miss Havisham), Finlay Currie (Magwitch), and Alec Guinness (Herbert Pocket) (Saturday, April 19th, 3.45pm).
Two years later (1948), Lean turned his focus to orphaned Oliver’s journey from workhouse to the streets of squalid, Victorian London, a city of frequent cruelty and injustice, as one of a gang of pickpockets in Oliver Twist brought to vivid life by John Howard Davies, Robert Newton, Kay Walsh and Anthony Newley, and featuring the striking, German Expressionist-influenced cinematography (Sunday, April 20th, 3.45pm).
With The Passionate Friends (1949), Lean returned to romantic drama in the vein of Brief Encounter. Ann Todd stars as Mary, married to Howard (Claude Rains), but pining for paramour Steven (Trevor Howard), who has returned to her life. A lavish production, making full use of its glamorous European locations and one in which Rains truly excels (Thursday, April 22nd, 6.20pm).
A film very much worthy of rediscovery, Madeline (1950) once again features Ann Todd in the role of Madeline Smith. Based on a true story, Smith was a Glasgow woman accused in 1857 of the murder of her French lover, Emile, played by Ivan Desny. While her father, unaware of this relationship, encourages her to marry a man of wealth and position, Madeline begins to question Emile’s motives (Wednesday, April 30th, 6.20pm).
Book now for cinema screenings via ifi.ie/david-lean/ or via the IFI Box Office, and season passes for The Films of David Lean are available in bundles as below:
| 3 Film Pass* | €30.00 |
| 5 Film Pass* | €50.00 |
| 8 Film Pass* | €80.00 |