Lean was commissioned to stage a new version of Fletcher Christian’s mutiny at sea against William Bligh, which finally came to fruition when Roger Donaldson’s The bounty hunter, with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins taking on the respective roles. He was also supposed to adapt JG Ballard’s novel Empire of the Sun for the screen.

Steven Spielberg was set to produce the film, but when Lean dropped out of the project, he ended up directing. Spielberg was a huge fan of the influential filmmaker and wanted to continue the creative collaboration under different circumstances, which led to the transformative spirit behind The Great White Shark, Raiders of the Lost ArkAnd ET as part of the production team for the currently developing Nostromo.

Set in a fictional South American republic, Joseph Conrad’s acclaimed book deals with themes of revolution, political machinations, corruption and financial manipulation. An Italian sailor becomes embroiled in a plan to smuggle silver out of the country when local rebels stage a coup and seize power.

Many of Lean’s earlier works dealt with the exercise and abuse of power, with strong-willed heroes with great weaknesses, the mutual distrust between the native population and outside invaders, and the different ways in which people from different backgrounds, classes, and backgrounds react to the same situation.

Nostromo was additionally exciting because a master director staged one last epic despite his declining health, not to mention the crazy star cast he had in mind.

Lean envisioned the story being told with Georges Corraface in the title role, with support from Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, Peter O’Toole, Christopher Lambert, Isabella Rossellini and Dennis Quaid, to name a few. However, his old colleague Alec Guinness had already taken himself out of the running, while a young unknown named Tilda Swinton auditioned to play Nostromo prepared for production.

“It was to be his last film,” she recalled The playlist“And I remember going to a screen test and being totally starstruck and blown away. I’ll tell you the truth: I felt uncomfortable the whole time we were talking about this movie. I felt uncomfortable because there were these gatekeepers, this huge production company, huge makeup artists, the huge David Lean, everything was huge.”

Lean wanted to modernise and update the early 20th century setting, but writing the screenplay proved more difficult than he expected. He co-wrote the original draft with playwright Christopher Lampton, but they were replaced by Robert Bolt before Lean resumed the helm with the assistance of Maggie Unsworth.

As it turned out, Spielberg wasn’t much help either. Although he idolized and respected Lean, he was not averse to passing on notes and suggestions to his hero. Hampton recalled that the director met with his potential protégé to discuss Nostromo only to return “very upset with a stack of notes given to him by Spielberg.”

These creative differences eventually led to Spielberg dropping out, but Nostromo was well on its way to being shot. Greenlit and with a sizable budget of $46 million – about $120 million adjusted for inflation – the first day of shooting was just six weeks away when Lean died of throat cancer in April 1991 at the age of 83.

Without its director, the film simply sinks into nothingness. Nostromo would have been Lean’s last appearance in the world of cinema and the last epic of the maestro responsible for The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of ArabiaAnd Doctor Zhivagonot to mention a filmmaker with two Oscars for Best Director, two winners for Best Picture and three other nominees under his belt, the film had every chance of being a stunning farewell.

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