Stories
As the director of “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) and “Doctor Zhivago” (1965), David Lean was a virtuosic practitioner of the screen epic. But in one of his boldest and strangest films—and, in its day, one of his least heralded—he marshaled his gifts for gigantism to tell a story of intimate scale. In “Ryan’s Daughter,” released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1970, Lean applies his affinity for natural landscapes, proficiency with widescreen photography and predilection for luxuriant scores—all characteristic of his epics—to a story that is anything but grand, a common complaint among critics at the time, who were, on the whole, unmoved.…
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