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Directors who take their time

Colin Farrell and Q'Orianka Kilcher in The New World
  • Posted at 11:02am
  • 19 September 2008
  • by AndrewCollins-RT
  • 1 comment

When did you last throw a sickie and take the day off?

Well, don't feel guilty. The visionary American director Terrence Malick took seven years off between The Thin Red Line in 1998 and his 17th-century historical epic The New World in 2005.

But that was nothing compared to his 20-year break between Days of Heaven in 1978 and The Thin Red Line. It only took Michelangelo four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

In fairness, after Days of Heaven, Malick moved to France to teach and work on future screenplays.

Anyway, his films are usually worth waiting for so we shouldn't expect auteurs like him to churn them out – look at what's happened to Woody Allen's quality control.

Quentin Tarantino directed nothing for six years between Jackie Brown and Kill Bill Vol 1 – choosing instead to executive produce two sequels to From Dusk till Dawn.

David Lean's CV has a similar big hole in it. Aside from a documentary about Captain Cook's anchor, he didn't direct for 14 years after Ryan's Daughter in 1970, reportedly "in a state of catatonic shock" after the bad reviews.

He returned to form with A Passage to India in 1984. In the 1940s, when he made Great Expectations, he was working on one a year.

And now the BBC1 schedulers seem to be trying to get in on the act – their documentary about Lean, In Search of the Perfect Horizon, has yet to air despite Lean's centenary being on 25 March.

Perhaps the dog ate their homework.

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  • Posted on 27 March 2009
  • at 8:03am
  • by Mr Smith

I gather the documentary to be screened on David Lean on Thursday 02/04/09 will be an edited version the full 90 minutes version to be screened on BBC4 later in the year. why the edited version?

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