Lawrence of Arabia (1962): Shira’s Take

In case our readers (what few of you we have left) have wondered where we’ve been for months, just know that Lawrence of Arabia is a hard movie to decide to sit down and watch. True to my memories and my expectations, it was very, very slow and very, very epic. But I have to give it a little more credit than I have in the past. T.E. Lawrence really is a great character and Peter O’Toole plays him with amazing onscreen chemistry with himself. And the story is interesting, just executed in a way that I’m not so into. The major problems I have with Lawrence of Arabia are those of personal preference; I hate desert movies, and I don’t like looking at men as much as I like looking at women. If you can get past the endless sandy landscapes (which, of course, are beautiful, but get kind of monotonous) and the lack of speaking women, you’re set.

To give you an idea of how incredibly slow this movie is, an Annie Hall‘s length in (about an hour and a half) is when Lawrence finally dons the characteristic white sherif robes. And in terms of how I felt watching the movie, it was actually akin to the early BP winners like Grand Hotel, where I almost couldn’t control how badly the movie made me want to sleep. Clearly, I think Lawrence has more merit than Grand Hotel.

I dunno. In general, I think I gave this movie less credit than it deserves, but I still never really want to watch it again. Note to myself: Alec Guinness is in my humble opinion the most talented actor in this movie, but that accent was SO AWFUL. 6/10

Lawrence of Arabia (1962): Eitan’s Take

It is hard in such a short space to sing the praises of Lawrence of Arabia, a film so complex and so daring that it actually earns every one of its nearly four hours of running time. Artistically, it is possibly the greatest triumph in the history of filmmaking — it proves how harrowing and compelling a film can be despite its epic scope. And, moreover, it takes the life of a complicated man and refuses to trivialize a single facet of his existence. I last saw it more than ten years ago, so watching it now felt like a virginal experience. This is a movie that one must breathe in deeply. It consumes you, the way the vast and unstoppable sandstorms consume so many frames of the film.

Lawrence is a larger than life character — Howard Hughes, General Patton, Oscar Wilde, and Kahlil Gibran rolled up in a sheik’s outfit and thrown into a duststorm. Portraying him in all his powerful, flamboyant, and sometimes bloodthirsty glory is a difficult balancing act, but David Lean — whose other Best Picture winner, A Bridge on the River Kwai, is poignant but never more than a simply effective yarn — dives headfirst and brings out not only the greatness but the utter strangeness of the man the Arabs called “Destroyer.” Peter O’Toole’s performance is probably among the best in all of cinema. Watch in the beginning, as Lawrence wanders out into the desert in the dark of the night with two boys following him; the scene is swathed in ethereal grays and tans, the vastness of the beautiful desert nearly overwhelming the man, and yet, O’Toole’s brilliance shines through. Lawrence was a conflicted man, torn by alliances and led by his heart more often than his head. In that scene, we can see every element of the great man — his humility, his ambition, his struggle with the sprawling emotional consequences of his every action. Lawrence of Arabia is frequently cited as the most beautiful film ever made, and it certainly has its share of flawless cinemascopic panoramas and dazzling shots of Arabs charging into battle with giant banners. But at the center of it all is T.E. Lawrence, and he comes through as both a poet and a warrior in every frame of the film.

This film stands at the pinnacle of modern popular cinema, and there is nothing that Lean, O’Toole, and the incredible supporting cast do that they don’t do with finesse and precision. Consider Lawrence’s second-act transformation into a massive celebrity among his Arab tribal followers. A more adoring movie might accept his messianism as fact. Lean challenges the mythology of Lawrence and picks away brilliantly at the mere notions of mass celebrity, idol worship, media, sadism, and the transformative powers of fame. The transition from humble British soldier-traveler into a man who asks his followers to watch him walk on water is made believable because O’Toole injects anguished moments of caution (witness the quivering lips in the iconic minutes before they charge into Damascus) into even the grandest events of Lawrence’s long, strange journey through the desert. The film also works flawlessly as a commentary on communal identity and communal ideology; Lawrence seemingly belongs in none of his many worlds, and yet, he is the master of each of his domains. Trapped in the tremendous voids of gloriously desolate Saudi Arabia and Syria, Lawrence is portrayed masterfully as a man whose aura of mystery dominates every moment of his existence. To this end, the film is filled with too many jaw-dropping moments to count, not the least of which is the forever iconic “NO PRISONERS!” scene and the powerful din of galloping horses. You can practically feel the sand in your throat at every turn.

And, as a last comment, I would like to remark briefly on the film’s expert way of dealing with T.E. Lawrence’s queer sexual identity. O’Toole portrays him as unabashedly flamboyant — a man who reveled in both garish excess and small moments of effete self-love. Of course, the film never comes right out and says that Lawrence was gay, but it is too successfully implied by Lawrence’s strange fascinations with male flesh and his extravagant confidence to ignore. I have to give the film high marks for dealing honestly and as unambiguously as possible with Lawrence’s queer tendencies. It is certainly one of the more notable and mysterious facets of his extraordinary life, and no story about would be complete without contextualizing the man and his mythology within the important realm of his queerness; it defines his physical boundaries, it explains his relationships with the men who surrounded him, and it certainly helps us understand why he allowed himself to be such a powerful leader while remaining insular and cautious about the details of the life behind the facade.

All in all, I give it a 3/10. Joking! Joking! A perfect, beyond-well-earned 10/10.