One more stop on the quest to watch and write up the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition).
This one is a big, huge, dude-centric epic, and one that I've had the pleasure of seeing on the big screen, which I did when the film was restored and re-released in 1989. I went downtown to watch it. With my father. It is one of my father's favorite films, if not his favorite, (Dad tends not toward hyperbole - a trait that skipped me) and the film has always held a special place in my heart.
Film 68
68. "Lawrence Of Arabia" (AFI Rank #7)
This is going to be hard. I'm going to gush, and I'm going to limit the hell out of this, or we won't finish this.
I tried to wait to watch this one with Julie, but trying to keep to this schedule is hard, and the films are largely on my DVR, which means that Julie needs to come to my house to watch them, and her parenting time is hardly conducive to that...I digress. I wanted to share this with her. I am publicly apologizing for not waiting, not because she needs me to, but because I want to do so. I should have waited. We will watch it together, soon, I have no doubt, but I watched this on my own. I also watched this while I was sick with bronchitis, as I did with a couple of other films I've reviewed recently.
This film, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, tells the highly, HIGHLY fictionalized account of T.E. Lawrence, and his involvement in the Arab Revolution that helped defeat the Turks (and Germans) in World War I. It is an epic of EPIC proportions, replete with long shots of a cruel, untamed desert, stirring battle sequences, enough proper politics to make a man understand the forces that really control our destinies. It also has an amazing ability to grab us and never let us go, no matter how sick we may feel about what we watch on the screen. It's theatre. It's visual art. The film doesn't flinch from the character it creates in Lawrence, even if he's not real, and the one that we watch is so decidedly perfect, so vile, so enthralling, we are drawn to him like a magnet. It doesn't hurt that Peter O'Toole, stunningly beautiful and awkward all at the same time, is the guy portraying him. This, my friends, is easily one of the five films I'd make you watch if I was teaching a course on film's greatness, and how it can be utilized.
David Lean directs this film, and it is...well...it's a filmmaker's film. It has taut, engaging performances in its small moments, and it has an overwhelming sense of scale. And I do mean overwhelming. No sense skirting around it. It is impossible to watch this film and not feel very, very small. We think ourselves to be these grand creatures, tamers of the world, but we are tiny, weak beings when faced with the true nature of our planet. This film brings that home constantly, and so artfully, and so magnificently...have you seen this film? Have you seen the vistas? The shots that are so exquisite? The shots that are so awesomely perfect you wonder how anyone managed it? I submit that the cinematography on display in this film is the greatest recorded in film history. The driving force behind that, and the man who refused, adamantly, to turn over his film to second unit directors, is David Lean. Every frame is dripping in artistry. Every. Single. Frame. Yes, there are scenes that are smaller in nature. There are a lot of them. Every one of them is a sumptuous feast for the eyes, though. It is art. No. It's high art. It's Van Gogh level art. This medium was never used so well as it was with this film, and the imagery it creates. Is that gushing? I think that's gushing.
Not to be overlooked, of course, is the score. Brilliantly composed by Maurice Jarre, it is impossible for me not to sing, "Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabiaaaaaaaaaa" over the main theme. Again, we get a sense of scale with the music in this film, and it is no small part of what makes this film so compelling. Even the white noise associated with shots of the blazing sun make us feel. Thrilling when it needs to, quiet when it needs to, the soundtrack/score is such a living portion of this film, that it's impossible to imagine any of it without it there.
It is funny, I suppose, that I love this film so much, while criticizing "Bonnie and Clyde" for being so fictionalized. This film is far, far from what T.E. Lawrence actually was. Yes, he believed in the Arab Revolution, and helped with it in World War I, but very little else of this film is true. It is not suggested anywhere that Lawrence was a sadist, as he is portrayed here. It is suggested that he was actually gay, which is hinted at here, but hardly exploited. Know what? As a film, none of that matters to me. And, there. I'm calling bullshit on myself. I criticize "Bonnie and Clyde," while revering this film. I'm a hypocrite. I am. Know what though? This film is so far superior to "Bonnie and Clyde," that it's like talking about a poorly done child's coloring book page as compared to Picasso's "Guernica." That's unfair. "Bonnie and Clyde" is hardly a child's drawing. But it's not even close to the masterpiece this is.
I can go on for days and days about individual scenes and their significance as I watched. I can talk about the fact that all the action and movement goes from left to right in the film. I can talk about the scenes of the Arabs crossing the desert, and their tiny, tiny stature in comparison to their surroundings. I can talk about the mastery of the train scene. I can talk about the scene where Lawrence checks his reflection in his knife, which is reprised later, in a much, much bloodier environment. I can talk about the thrill of the raid on Aqaba. I can talk about the unreal visual of a boat traveling through the desert. I can talk about the scene where Lawrence rides back to camp with Gasim on his camel. I can talk about the amazing visual of our introduction to Sherif Ali. I can talk of our introduction to Auda Abu Tayi. I can describe the heartbreak of a scene with unstable sand. I can talk about ill fitting clothes, and awkward walks. I can talk about the destruction of the myth, as the man comes to realize he's no myth. I can go on and on. I'm not going to.
I do find it odd that most of my favorite films have defined "act" breaks. Those films include this, "The Godfather," "Jaws," "Star Wars," "Dr. Strangelove...," "Psycho," and "12 Angry Men." All of them have moments of profound shift of either scene or mood. It may be my work, my entire life, in theatre that makes me love that so. I don't know. I just know that films I love tend to play that way. "Lawrence...," in its initial act, establishes T.E. Lawrence and all the other characters as conquering heroes, men to be admired for their pluck, or bravery, or whatever. We then, in this film, get an intermission, and what follows can best be described as "denouement." We watch as Lawrence slowly devolves into animal, sadistic to the core, full of false pride, hubris, whatever. We see him so blindly arrogant as to believe that he can walk right into a town full of Turks and escape any sort of recrimination. Why? Because he's T.E. Fucking Lawrence, God's chosen one. Of course, Lawrence does not escape, and is captured and brutally tortured by the Turks. He is also, the film more than discreetly implies, raped by one or all of his captors. From then on, we see Lawrence not as conquering hero, but as vengeful beast. Even the Arabs, the barbarians, are shocked by the Englishman's behavior. This is what great tragedy brings us. And to place this film in the pantheon of great tragedies...is proper. Tell me Shakespeare wouldn't have written this, given its availability in Elizabethan England. Of course he would have. Of course this story gets told, however inaccurately, because it is so...so completely fucking compelling, that it just has to be told.
I'm gushing again.
Acting in this film is also top rate, from the lead, played with unflinching gusto by Peter O'Toole. Equal to him, and no less a force on screen are the portrayals performed by Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn. Both men commit to their roles, and to the scenes, that we don't, not for a second, believe they aren't whom they claim to be. Also brilliant are Alec Guinness, Claude Rains, Jack Hawkins, Arthur Kennedy and Anthony Quayle. José Ferrer makes a grand entrance and steals his brief time on the screen. Pitch perfect. All of them.
It is no understatement to say that this film easily qualifies as one of the 5 best films I've ever seen, and it is certainly one of my favorites, as well. That is not always the case, as I think "Citizen Kane" is the single best film I've ever seen. Given historical reference, and all the innovations it basically invented, all others PALE in comparison, but I wouldn't even put it in my top 20 of my "favorites." This film, and "The Godfather" achieve the rare (for me) confluence of being both.
I don't want to continue, as we'll be here all day. We will. Trust me.
"Lawrence of Arabia" is simply one of the greatest films ever made. If you haven't seen it, you need to do so...now. If you have...you need to watch it again, because you should. Because it is that good. Because you need to see it again. Because...well...because.
In researching a bit on this film, I found a quote that Steven Spielberg said this film would cost about $285 Million dollars to make today. I'll bet it's way more than that. No one makes film like this any more. Thank God this one was made.
Ebert wrote about it late in life. His thoughts are here. I do love his description of the shimmer in the viewer's eye when describing the experience of watching this film.
You know where I see that? When I talk to my Dad about this film.
Watch it. Watch it again.
EDIT: I should have mentioned this. This film was produced by Sam Spiegel. His resumé in the AFI Top 100 includes: "The African Queen," "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (also with David Lean), this film, and "On the Waterfront." I'd say the dude knew what he was doing. Three of those four were Best Picture Oscar winners.
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