“He photographed what he saw in his mind’s eye”: David Lean, Venice, and Summertime

Photo: Katharine Hepburn and Gaetano Autiero in “Summertime”, 1955, directed by David Lean. United Artists

Has anyone captured Venice at first sight better in film, so vivid, so alive, so real, so anew, than David Lean in Summertime? Venice plays itself. You are not set in the middle of the story, or of the city. You journey into it, along with Katharine Hepburn’s character, Jane Hudson. It takes a while, for example, to arrive at Piazza San Marco. I like how David Lean lets Jane postpone going there, and linger on the terrace of her hotel, slowly starting to take Venice in, as if it’s suddenly too much to handle.

Other famous Venetian locations, you don’t even get to see. You wait, you anticipate, you slowly discover this beautiful place with the wide-eyed amazement of seeing it for the first time, through Jane’s curiosity and intoxicating excitement that never wavers and through the rich details that David Lean uses to tell the story: an extremely narrow street that seems to shrink even more under the shoutings in Italian of the families in the storied buildings that seem to close down on Jane as she walks by, the elongated shadows cast into back alleys, the funny little boy in his red and white striped t-shirt, short trousers and bare feet playing the guide, the friend, the local better than anyone else, the charming, elegant Pensione Fiorini instead of a waterfront palazzo, the stripes that subtly dress the city (from umbrellas, to women’s skirts, to canal poles, to chairs), the dimly lit labyrinthian streets at night, a decaying golden stone wall bathed in the afternoon sun, the bustling noise of the smartly clad crowds in the piazza in the evening, and the magnificent stillness of the same Piazza San Marco at dawn, the perfectly captured Italian characters: “In Italy, you sit down to eat and you eat a meal! In Paris, what do you sit down to eat? A sauce! In America, he sits down to eat, and what does he eat? Pills!” The true love affair is David Lean’s with Venice.

Photo: “Summertime”, 1955. United Artists

In her book, Me: Stories of My Life, Katharine Hepburn, who plays an American who is taking the trip of her life to Venice, where she will find love only to leave again, writes: “David was always very fussy about a script and removed everything that didn’t interest him – so this film is really David in Venice. Not necessarily knowing a great amount about the famous treasures, but a person reacting to the beauties and atmosphere of this remarkable city on a two-week holiday and a love affair, and then leaving on the train.”

Photo: Katharine Hepburn and Gaetano Autiero in “Summertime”, 1955. United Artists

“It was told with great simplicity in the streets, in the Piazza San Marco. We would shoot in the tiny streets – only a few feet wide. The sun would come and go in a matter of minutes. It was a very emotional part, and I tell you I had to be on my toes to give David enough of what he wanted practically on call. But it was thrilling. And the music he picked was perfect.

It was fascinating to work for David. He was very basic – he was simple – he was true. He told a story. It’s a slice of life you understand. In all its detail. He photographed what he saw in his mind’s eye. It was a most extraordinary gift. He seemed to me to simply absorb Venice. It was his. He had a real photographic gift. He thought in a descriptive way. His shots tell the story. He was capable of a sort of super concentration. It made a very deep and definite impression on me, and he was one of the most interesting directors I ever worked with. He had to get exactly the performance he wanted out of each actor so that it would fit in with what he had in his mind’s eye. Thus his pictures are all of a piece. He pairs a picture and it is his.”

Everyone has their own version of a place. And David Lean breathes life into every corner of Venice that he films. I have seen pictures of Renato’s shop in the film. I understand it still stands today, although it’s not an antique shop anymore, but there is nothing special about it, it’s uninviting and sad-looking. Any place comes alive when you live it, when you have your own story to attach to, or, as in David Lean’s case, when you have that extraordinary photographic and visual gift to make us viewers experience a city through his eyes, to make us see what he saw.

Photo: Katharine Hepburn and Gaetano Autiero in “Summertime”, 1955. United Artists

“I’m the independent type, always have been,” Jane says at some point at the beginning of the story, comfortably tucked behind an emotional barricade. It is, in fact, one of Katharine Hepburn’s most wonderful, vulnerable, self-revealing and transformative roles. And yet, it’s good to see a glimpse of the real Katharine on the movie’s set (second picture below): she is still in the shirt that’s part of one of her film costumes, but instead of the skirt she wears in the movie, she has her favourite piece of clothing on, the trousers, a quintessential part of the image of one of Hollywood’s truly original stars, the most reluctant and most natural there ever was. This is not one of the films where Hepburn seemed to be playing herself (and, if so, why not?), such as The Philadelphia Story (a sight to behold), Bringing Up Baby or Woman of the Year (where she wears a tuxedo and her own personality), and we are happy for it, because we love her for the great actor that she was, too.

Photo: Katharine Hepburn, Gaetano Autiero and director David Lean on the set of “Summertime”, Venice, 1954.