David Lean
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Yes, we might recognize that the hand touching the shoulder echoes David Lean’s Brief Encounter and that the transcendent final scene is inspired by the blocking and camera moves (although not the averted eyes) of the Ernie’s Restaurant sequence in Vertigo .
Haynes even steals from the best, borrowing from Brief Encounter, the homage a symbol (in a work that’s full of them) of aiming higher than high.
In scripting Todd Haynes’s Carol, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 lesbian romance novel The Price of Salt, screenwriter Phyllis Nagy borrows a structural device from Noel Coward’s script for David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945).
As a homage to David Lean’s 1945 classic Brief Encounter, the film is bookended by a scene in a restaurant where Carol and Therese are interrupted at an inopportune time.
Haynes was inspired by David Lean’s Brief Encounter, a 1945 romantic classic about an emotional affair that similarly begins and ends with the same scene, its meaning deepening the second time.
(Despite its period setting, “Carol” is not overloaded with film-school references, but there were moments when I could feel the undertow of “Roman Holiday” and David Lean’s “Brief Encounter” and Martin Scorsese’s underappreciated “The Age of Innocence.”)
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
Directed by Chad Stahelski
influenced by Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Visuals
He’s an avatar for Stahelski’s homages to classic cinema of the past, from a tribute to Lawrence of Arabia ‘s match cut in the beginning to the close-up of a Black female DJ’s mouth ushering in our final chase, in a nod to Walter Hill’s The Warriors .
It’s a measure of the strength of this series’ brain trust that an allusion to the famous match-cut from Lawrence of Arabia doesn’t feel cutesy: rather, it feels like an earnest tribute to Lean’s ambition and artistry, a literal burnt offering to their ancestors as a blessing.
The quiet moments are evocative — like when Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King blows out a match before the camera cuts to a cresting sunset (a cheeky homage to Lawrence of Arabia and one of the most famous cuts in film history) — and the unleashing of violence is clear and easy to follow.
In the first few minutes, we get a homage to a classic match cut from Lawrence of Arabia .
Opening with a horse chase across the sands of Morocco that evokes Lawrence of Arabia in more than just its epic scale, Chapter 4 then surges from New York to Osaka to Berlin to Paris, finding in these locales open playgrounds for both carnage and homage — to great film artists as distinguished as Zhang Yimou, Jet Li, Akira Kurosawa, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, John Woo, Shintaro Katsu, Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, Yuen Woo-ping, Walter Hill, and Jean-Pierre Melville, but also to iconic works of Renaissance art and classical architecture — all generously reflected through the John Wick series’ abstracted-urbanity aesthetic (thrillingly realized by production designer Kevin Kavanaugh and cinematographer Dan Lausten) but enabled by its ever-deepening mythology and correspondingly expansive capacity to synthesize inspirations.
And yet, the franchise possesses both the self-confidence and the ingenuity to earn its boldness – even at one point replicating the 1962 classic Lawrence of Arabia and its famous cut from a blown-out match to a shimmering expanse of desert.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)
Directed by Chad Stahelski
influenced by Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Visuals Characters
Alongside the references to Wick’s childhood, there are bizarre scenes set in Morocco and in the African desert, through which Wick walks in search of spiritual enlightenment, looking like a cross between Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas and Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia .
This character alludes to Rashid ad-Din Sinan – the “Old Man of the Mountain” who led the historical Order of Assassins in 12th-century Syria – although for most viewers he is likely to evoke Prince Faisel as depicted in Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
The room is just one flank of the franchise’s visual style with its neo-noir flair that now extends to Lawrence of Arabia homages.
You’ll notice nods to plenty of genres and cinematic legends, from Lawrence of Arabia to Rumble in The Bronx .
New York exteriors recall “Blade Runner,” cinematographer Dan Laustsen favoring rainy midnight blues and neon reds, pops of gold anticipating the Sahara of “Lawrence of Arabia” in Morocco.
The look of New York resembles a highly stylized noir, while the dessert portions are shot with a grand scope that evokes the grand epics of cinema history (it’s not quite on Lawrence of Arabia ‘s level, though nothing is, really).
The film continuously presents the audience with obvious parallels to Lawrence of Arabia, a film watched by the android David (Fassbender) in his attempts to gain insight into the folly of humanity’s collective potential/hubris.
The voyage is overseen by Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), a chilly corporate representative with no scientific interest or imagination, and David (Michael Fassbender), a flaxen-haired android created by Weyland whose seemingly benign demeanor is undercut by his HAL-like vocal cadences, which are amusingly modeled on Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (Fassbender, who was so intense and unhinged in Shame, is quite impeccable in playing the uncanniness of simulated human behavior).
Their ship, the Prometheus, is helmed during the long trip by Weyland’s crowning achievement in robotics, David (Michael Fassbender channeling Peter O’Toole from “Lawrence of Arabia”).
(In a witty conceit, we learn the robot has chosen the unearthly Peter O'Toole in "Lawrence of Arabia" as his human role model.)
The dark, devilish, creepily compelling “Prometheus” may not be Scott’s own “Lawrence of Arabia.”
David stars in the film's single most original sequence, using the Prometheus as his private playground while the mere mortals that he serves slumber, fixing his hair like Peter O'Toole's after watching Lawrence of Arabia and effortlessly sinking impossible hook shots in the gymnasium.
The Lost City of Z (2017)
Directed by James Gray
influenced by Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Visuals Themes Characters
Though visually resembling Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God, with hallucinatory night-time jungle scenes recalling Apocalypse Now, Gray’s exploration into a driven individual’s morality more resembles Lawrence of Arabia in tone, and he largely succeeds in managing the same coupling of lush, lyrically expressive imagery with rich emotional resonance.
(There is also a cut that clearly references Lawrence Of Arabia .)
James Gray's , based on the best selling book by David Grann, is an epic adventure that brings to mind cinematic classics like Lawrence of Arabia, Apocalypse Now, and similar stories centered on obsessive men wading through plots rife with thorny racial issues.
For the first act of the picture, Charlie Hunnam barely registers; he doesn't catch the eye the way the stars of "Lawrence of Arabia" or "Fitzcarraldo" immediately did.
It’s a mission fueled by a near-maniacal obsession, with undertones of “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Apocalypse Now” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Fitzcarraldo” (though I am not suggesting it measures up to any of those; it doesn’t).
Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now meets Lawrence of Arabia with a taste of The Emerald Forest .
An Asian spin on such classics of forbidden passion and lost romance as 1945's "Brief Encounter" would seem the last thing one would expect from director Wong Kar-wai, best known for such freewheeling, improvisational efforts as "Chungking Express" (1994) and "Happy Together" (1997).
At the Lincoln Plaza, the Angelika.RAPTUROUSLY elegant and deeply sexy in a deliciously restrained way, Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood for Love” is one of the most romantic movies I have ever seen, right up there with “Brief Encounter” and “Casablanca.”
"In the Mood for Love" is a real old-fashioned romance, suffused with unspoken desire -- in the mode of David Lean and Noel Coward's classic British railway station romance, "Brief Encounter," which was also about two married people who fell hard yet stayed apart.
Wong Kar-wai has created a classic of the genre with "In the Mood for Love" that can stand alongside David Lean's "Brief Encounter."
In his latest and arguably best film, In the Mood for Love, he addresses each of those preoccupations in a ravishingly beautiful tone poem that plays like a Chinese remake of Brief Encounter.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Directed by Matt Reeves
influenced by The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Plot Themes Visuals
As in episodes one through three of the “Star Wars” franchise, Reeves is operating in revisionist-prequel mode, filling in the calamitous backstory that leads to a depressing present reality — except that in this case, he’s less concerned with mythology, approaching this chapter as an elaborate homage to such manly classics as “The Great Escape,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Apocalypse Now,” starring monkeys.
The movie is also profoundly indebted to the cinema of David Lean, specifically The Bridge on the River Kwai, as the apes are gathered into work camps to build a massive wall at the insistence of their human captors.
The movie branches off onto an unexpected route, taking inspiration not only from the other Planet of the Apes films but from classic war pictures like The Great Escape and The Bridge on the River Kwai .
Most of the spoken dialogue, by contrast, falls to Harrelson’s Colonel, a worthy new adversary who at one point gets a deranged, nihilistic monologue that further underscores his resemblance to Col. Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now.” That’s just one of a few classics that Reeves has cited as overt influences, including the Clint Eastwood western “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” biblical epics like “The Ten Commandments,” and the World War II-era classics “The Great Escape” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”
Reeves and cinematographer Michael Seresin have combined to make a film in which every single moment—whether it is a quiet contemplation of Caesar and his surroundings or one of the massive action sequences—is striking to the eye and even contains sly visual homages to such classics as “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Apocalypse Now” for good measure.
It’s a movie packed with powerful set pieces—escapes, rescues, fights to the death—majestically shot by Michael Seresin and staged in a dazzling panoramic style that recalls the masterworks of director David Lean, especially The Bridge on the River Kwai, and more popcorn-oriented stuff like The Great Escape.
“Avatar” is in the same vein of “Lawrence of Arabia” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
This story’s been told before; many have noted the obvious parallels to Dances with Wolves , or not-as-obvious movies like Lawrence of Arabia and Metropolis ; A.O. Scott draws enlightening comparisons to District 9 and Daybreakers , among others.
Mientras que otros realizadores adoran decir que sus películas responden a una tradición monolítica y ultra conservadora símil el promedio de las franquicias de nuestros días o por el contrario, afirman que las mismas salieron de un repollo autocontenido y narcisista sin influencias externas, James Cameron jamás tuvo ningún problema en reconocer que Avatar (2009) funciona como un refrito de influencias, recursos, procesos históricos y latiguillos formales y temáticos de lo más diversos, basta con pensar que así como el film incluye alusiones a la Conquista de América, la Guerra de Vietnam, la Fiebre del Caucho en el Amazonas, las dos Guerras del Golfo y todo el operativo bélico/ represor/ genocida del desquiciado de George W. Bush en Medio Oriente después de los atentados terroristas del 11 de septiembre del 2001, también recupera el motivo del doble agente de las faenas de espionaje, aquel “salvador blanco/ occidental” de Danza con Lobos ( Dances with Wolves , 1990), de Kevin Costner, y L…
Phantom Thread (2017)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
influenced by Brief Encounter (1945), The Passionate Friends (1949)
Themes Visuals
He openly acknowledges that this film, in particular, stems from a rich lineage of gothic romances; such as Gaslight, Hitchcock’s Rebecca, and the David Lean films Brief Encounter, and The Passionate Friends.
Como un elegante conjunto, Anderson diseña El hilo fantasma con una amplia variedad de referencias que van de la profunda y elegante simplicidad de los dramas de David Lean, como Brief Encounter (1945) o The Passionate Friends (1949), bordadas con destreza hithcockiana (Rebecca, 1940) y con una fantasmagoría femenina que remite más a Mizoguchi (Ugetsu monogatari, 1953), sobre todo como la ambición masculina consume el alma femenina hasta desvanecerla en actos de la más sutil y delicada crueldad.
Far removed from the grandness of There Will Be Blood (or most of Day-Lewis’ other recent projects), the acting-directing duo’s latest is most reminiscent of early David Lean, a Brief Encounter -esque romance that doubles as an unconventional investigation of passion, need and co-dependency.
Rebecca and other influential melodramas, including Hitchcock’s Suspicion or David Lean’s The Passionate Friends, focus on the protagonist (her interiority particularly in the face of an obscure, oppressive husband); films like Vertigo, as well as other mystery or thriller texts such as du Maurier’s novel My Cousin Rachel focus on the interrogation of the woman, giving a space in which to critique the man’s paranoia and control.
He openly acknowledges that this film, in particular, stems from a rich lineage of gothic romances; such as Gaslight, Hitchcock’s Rebecca, and the David Lean films Brief Encounter, and The Passionate Friends.
Como un elegante conjunto, Anderson diseña El hilo fantasma con una amplia variedad de referencias que van de la profunda y elegante simplicidad de los dramas de David Lean, como Brief Encounter (1945) o The Passionate Friends (1949), bordadas con destreza hithcockiana (Rebecca, 1940) y con una fantasmagoría femenina que remite más a Mizoguchi (Ugetsu monogatari, 1953), sobre todo como la ambición masculina consume el alma femenina hasta desvanecerla en actos de la más sutil y delicada crueldad.
After David Lean, whose Lawrence of Arabia served as inspiration for Herbert’s desert-set sci-fi saga, passed, the project fell into the hands of Chilean mystic Alejandro Jodorowsky, who envisioned it as his Remembrance of Things Past—a 10-hour epic featuring Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, and Salvador Dali, with music by Pink Floyd.
Some comparisons can be made to the film Lawrence of Arabia from the desert landscape to the theme of finding your identity by being in contact with other cultures.
And the cinematic style is “Lawrence of Arabia” meets “Triumph of the Will” meets the most visionary cologne commercial that Ridley Scott never made.
Pulling from Frank Herbert’s landmark science fiction novel—or about half of it, anyway—Villeneuve reaches for an epic on the scale of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings while also not so subtly evoking imagery from the ultimate desert odyssey, Lawrence of Arabia .
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Directed by Wes Anderson
influenced by Great Expectations (1946)
Characters
The Tenenbaums are funny and strangely touching in the same way Miss Havisham is in Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations," as she holds onto her decaying wedding cake and refuses to wind her clocks.
The Last Samurai (2003)
Directed by Edward Zwick
influenced by Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Themes Plot
"Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dances With Wolves" won Oscars for their skilled indulgence of the theme, so it comes as no surprise that "The Last Samurai" should borrow liberally from both, adding finishing touches culled from the likes of Mel Gibson's "Braveheart" and the classic television miniseries "Shogun."
It has been compared to " Lawrence of Arabia " and "Dances With Wolves," films in which Westerners learn to respect Arabs and Indians, but this film goes a step further, clearly believing that Katsumoto's traditional society is superior to the modernism being unloaded by the Americans.
Small wonder that The Last Samurai reminds of Lawrence of Arabia , since the plot involves a disgraced military officer sent to contact an alien force (that has just raided a railroad) whom he comes to see as noble even as he views himself as their salvation--although Algren ultimately functions not like T.E.
The Last Castle (2001)
Directed by Rod Lurie
influenced by The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Plot Themes
Instead, he's chosen a comfortable blend of "Dead Poets Society" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai", which casts him as an irresistibly charismatic court-martialled general, facing off against a blinkered, cruel system.
On the other hand, it works nicely as prison drama, avoiding most of the more obvious and cliched scenes of the genre, and cleverly weaving in elements of -- and paying tribute to -- such classics as Sidney Lumet's "The Hill" and David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai."
Colonel Winter has building materials brought in so the prisoners can build a stone wall in the yard — the wall itself serves no purpose, but building it is something to do and it’s constructive (calling to mind The Bridge on the River Kwai).
The brazenly derivative screenplay credited to David Scarpa and Graham Yost recycles elements from Cool Hand Luke, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and even The Bridge on the River Kwai while spinning a briskly entertaining yarn about rebellion and redemption in a maximum-security military prison.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Directed by Peter Jackson
influenced by Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Visuals
Artistically delivering beyond anyone’s imagination on one of the biggest gambles in Hollywood history, this $330 million masterpiece takes its rightful place among such classics as “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone With the Wind” and “Lawrence of Arabia.”
His gift hasn't wavered - a series of bonfires to summon the riders of Rohan to the aid of Minas Tirith has a thrilling immensity as astounding as anything in "Lawrence of Arabia."
Before you toss me to the Orcs, fancy lads though they may be, understand that I agree that Jackson’s adaptations are indeed genius – no other epic since David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia has managed the kind of emotionally crunchy and just downright popcorn-pure exhilaration as The Lord of the Rings, flawlessly combining state-of-the-art effects with a streamlined (compared to the novels, anyway) storyline and some of the most engaging acting in a hobbit’s age – and for pure story payoff, they trump Star Wars, The Matrix, and all of the Andy Hardy films combined.
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
Directed by Jake Kasdan
influenced by Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Visuals Music
Visually speaking, the cinematography of the sand dunes echo that of Lawrence of Arabia .
Kasdan also makes clear that he's not taking any of this too seriously, and little asides -- like a riff on the "Lawrence of Arabia" theme during a desert sequence -- underscore that point.
Yet for the most part the set pieces (which include giant ostriches chasing dune buggies and airborne encounters with snarling monkeys) have an enjoyable grandeur, emphasised by Henry Jackman’s score, which cheekily invokes Maurice Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia theme during an early desert sequence.
The delightfully pert Emily Mortimer is the young Sophie, and Jean Simmons is her older incarnation—and Simmons is inspired vocal casting because her voice might quaver but her inflections are still those of the young Estella in Great Expectations.
It's great to hear Jean Simmons again, a gorgeous young woman back in the 1940s in David Lean's Great Expectations, Michael Powell's Black Narcissus and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet.
A pivotal scene on a dry lake bed offers vistas — and optical illusions — that recall Lawrence of Arabia.
Maybe he wanted to emulate the ultimate in intimate epics, that being David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia ?
The format, also used in such classics like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “2001: A Space Odyssey,” provides an incredible depth of field.
His scene with Knightley in a London cafe recalls "Brief Encounter" in the sound it evokes of hearts breaking over teacups.
Wright urged him and Knightley to look at mid-century British romances like "Rebecca" and "Brief Encounter," and these actors apparently took those movies, and the restrained but deeply emotional style of acting within them, into their hearts.
One scene in Atonement, when the unjustly separated young couple, bursting with grief, desire and eagerness, meet in a café, teeters on the brink of caricature as their polite, faltering self-control evokes the station restaurant of Brief Encounter.
Billy Wilder, who won 3 Academy Awards with The Apartment (Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay), said in an interview that the initial inspiration for the movie came after he saw David Lean’s Brief Encounter and jotted down “What about the friend who has to crawl back into that warm bed?” (Note that the majestic score accompanying Fran’s emotional breakdown is reminiscent of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2.) Yet in his prolific career that spans over more than five decades, The Apartment came much later for Wilder than David Lean’s classic (due to censorship, he notes) and closer to the tail end of Hollywood’s golden age.
Wilder, who directed and co-wrote the film with longtime collaborator I.A.L. Diamond, once said that his inspiration came from watching the romance classic “Brief Encounter.”
…rotting yet magnificent, more akin to David Lean’s Great Expectations or Robert Stevenson’s Jane Eyre than the B-movie aesthetics of Roger Corman or Hammer.