Guillermo del Toro’s two favourite David Lean films
A master of dark fantasy and an architect of enchanting parallel universes, Guillermo del Toro has gifted us with numerous cinematic masterpieces, from Pan’s Labyrinth to Crimson Peak. However, every maestro has their muses, their sources of inspiration. For del Toro, the British directing titan that is David Lean has left a deep imprint, especially with his adaptations of Charles Dickens’ novels.
Lean, with his 40-year career, is often celebrated for his grand-scale projects like Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and The Bridge on the River Kwai. But, as del Toro points out, “Most people remember David Lean for these big-scale epics.” The Mexican director, however, cherishes Lean’s other titles in his catalogue. It’s not that these wide-screen monumental tales don’t resonate with him, but rather that Lean’s other more intimate works stand out.
When picking his top ten favourite films for Criterion, del Toro spoke of his immense appreciation for two specific films of Lean: Great Expectations in 1946 and Oliver Twist, which came two years after. Unable to choose one over the other, he puts them both in joint fourth place, stating, “Here, he is at his most precise and poetic.”
Both films focus on the adventures of an impoverished child, with Great Expectations chronicling the coming-of-age tale of Pip, who is suddenly thrust into high London society after gaining wealth, and Oliver Twist chartering the tragic story of an orphan in Victorian London’s notorious workhouses.
Del Toro delved deeper into the elements that drew him to these films, mentioning the “epics of the spirit” that both movies encapsulate. Both films, as del Toro highlights, are “plagued by grand, utterly magical moments and settings.” These moments, whether it’s the portrayal of “Oliver’s mother straining and in pain, by intercutting with a flexing branch of thorns” or the haunting atmosphere of “Miss Havisham’s decaying splendour,” showcase Lean’s unparalleled genius.
The blending of the poetic with the darkly gothic approach that del Toro himself often adopts is a hallmark of Lean’s great early works. In his words, Lean “understood the need for hyperbole in order to manage the larger-than-life Dickensian archetypes.” This heightened portrayal brings Dickens’ characters alive on the screen, painting them in vivid shades of small-scale despair and hopes that the later epics like Lawrence of Arabia shied away from.
Del Toro further identifies moments in both films that “skate the fine line between poetry and horror.” It’s a delicate balance, one that del Toro himself has consistently explored throughout his own filmography, be it the nightmare-tinged children’s fantasy of Kronos or the monster-movie/romance hybrid of The Shape of Water. Through del Toro’s lens of admiration, we see how classics from a bygone era can deeply influence and shape contemporary cinematic visions as distinct as his own.
