Michael Caine names the one director within touching distance of David Lean: “He’s almost up there”
Cinema may have undergone several seismic reinventions during his 70-year career, but one constant was that Michael Caine was always working with the best, brightest, and most prominent auteurs of their respective generations.
From a fresh-faced cockney lad with a point to prove to an international superstar who embodied the spirit of British cinema in the 1960s and onto his resurgence as one of the most respected veterans in the industry, Caine has rubbed shoulders with a litany of legends past, present, and potentially even future.
His most famous 21st-century collaborator was undoubtedly Christopher Nolan, who adopted Caine as the lucky charm he couldn’t do without, one that forced him to recruit no less than eight top-tier thespians to try and fill the void when the recent retiree ruled himself out of Oppenheimer.
Caine has glowingly compared Nolan to the legendary David Lean, but he wasn’t the first to earn that recognition. In fact, the two-time Academy Award winner hadn’t even worked with his eight-time director so much as once when he bestowed the moniker onto somebody different and entirely unexpected.
The DNA of Lean has been present in Nolan’s work for years, whether it’s Ryan’s Daughter being named as a direct influence on the filmmaker’s Dunkirk or the sweeping sense of grandeur that’s become commonplace across the stunning visuals of Inception, Interstellar, and Oppenheimer to name but three.
Nolan has become accustomed to Lean’s name following him around, but Brian De Palma? Not so much. And yet, Caine was adamant that the ‘New Hollywood’ favourite fully deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as the towering figure responsible for several of cinema’s greatest-ever movies, including Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, and Brief Encounter.
“He was great,” Caine reflected to Alex Simon of their time spent together on Dressed to Kill, the controversial psychological erotic thriller that hit big at the box office and won stellar reviews despite landing the pair on the Golden Raspberry Awards shortlist for ‘Worst Actor’ and ‘Worst Director’ respectively.
“He was the most technically proficient director I’ve ever worked with,” Caine elaborated. “He really knows the technology inside out. He’s almost up there with David Lean.” Not many would consider De Palma and Lean as being kindred spirits, but none of the people who hold that entirely justifiable opinion have worked with anywhere near as many heavyweight directors and silver screen icons as Caine.
After all, this is a guy who’s shared a set with The Third Man‘s Carol Reed, neorealist figurehead Vittorio De Sica, Ken Russell, All About Eve‘s Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Don Siegel, John Huston, Richard Attenborough, Oliver Stone, Sidney Lumet, Alfonso Cuarón, and even Steven Seagal when he made his feature-length debut on the horrendous On Deadly Ground, so he knows his stuff.
Two entirely different filmmakers in every way, shape, and form, but for Caine, De Palma is right up there alongside Lean as an elite-level technical virtuoso.
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