Lawrence of Arabia

"Lawrence's endurance seemed so great to the local people at Jerablus that they could not believe in his death, for 'he could outride, outwalk, outshoot, and outlast the best of them.'

[Shaykh Hamoudi, the chief local foreman at Carchemish, said to an interviewer] 'Tell them in England what I say. Of manhood the man; in freedom free; a mind without equal; I can see no flaw in him.'"
-"A Prince for Our Disorder," John E. Mack

As expected, Maurice Jarre's exciting theme sets the tone immediately. We see T.E. Lawrence, and he is about to go for a ride--so are we, frankly. This is how "Lawrence of Arabia," the great British epic, begins. Forgive me for the "ride" sentence, not only for its corniness, but for seemingly approving of the bizarre adventurous sentiments, one of the few legitimate arguments against the film. Yes, few films are faultless, but "Lawrence of Arabia" is arguably the best film Great Britain has given the world.

We're soon introduced to Lawrence the character, and he is quite an eccentric one, extinguishing matches with his bare fingers and possessing a "funny sense of fun," according to the bureau man, played by Claude Raines, whose opinion it is to send Lawrence to Arabia, where Bedouin tribes have attacked the Turks at Medina. And from there, we go to the desert, a big sea of sand accompanied by Jarre's iconic score. Lawrence befriends a Bedouin who serves as a guide; that is, until he is mercilessly shot by a rival Arab. This Arab is named Sherif Ali, and he is played by Omar Sharif, who would go on to star in Lean's "Doctor Zhivago." From here we see more of the film's romantic embrace of the desert; Lawrence decides to return to the desert to rescue a man who has fallen off his camel, but Sherif Ali warns him that they will both die, for "it is written." Lawrence shouts back that nothing is written. Lawrence appears to believe that he is the master of his fate and the captain of his soul; to Sherif Ali, he is a blasphemer. But Lawrence pulls it off. "Nothing is written," he repeats, before succumbing to exhaustion and falling to a carpet to sleep.

Before I continue, I have to first simultaneously defend and acclaim Peter O'Toole and David Lean. Both are at the top of their game, but unfortunately, not everyone agrees with me. David Thompson's "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film" is not so kind to O'Toole, claiming that O'Toole played the character with "desperate intensity." Thompson may be unflattering towards O'Toole, but he is vicious toward Lean. Thompson accuses Lean of suffering from "the Selznick syndrome," and that "Lawrence of Arabia" is the only Lean epic where the spectacle is "sufficient to mask the hollow rhetoric of the scripts." Lean slowly became "the prisoner of big pictures, a great eye striving to show off a large mind." Those are serious allegations. Thompson is likely accurate that Lean's films are best appreciated if one can tolerate the weakness in character development and especially dialogue. Is the script hollow? Yes, especially the dreadful scene where Lawrence first gains the attention of Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness, a player in many Lean films). Over the panic of a superior military officer (Anthony Quayle) and the barks of Sherif Ali (with a tremendous amount of overacting in this scene), Lawrence somehow gains favor by comparing the desert to the ocean, and it is here where Thompson is accurate in his description of O'Toole's desperate intensity. The screenplay isn't awful but it's not exactly Shakespeare. All I can say is there is nothing wrong with spectacle; "Gone With the Wind" may be a guilty pleasure for some, but to paraphrase Benthem, the quantity of pleasure being equal, spectacles like "Lawrence of Arabia"can be as good as "12 Angry Men."

Is there a lot of overacting? Some folks on Reddit seem to think so, as does the blogger behind "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die." But other epics could also be criticized for bad acting and emphasizing style over substance. "Seven Samurai" by Akira Kurosawa (a director so rarely criticized) comes to mind. You might be hard-pressed to find worse acting in such a respected movie than "Seven Samurai," and, for that matter, virtually all of Kurosawa's films. Does this sole element make "Seven Samurai" or "Throne of Blood" or "Ran" bad films? Of course not. Viewers must observe films holistically. (To be fair to Mr. Thompson, he doesn't appear to care for Kurosawa either.)

I don't mean to pick on its screenplay, but there is one final note I want to address: Lawrence's odd simplicity. As he establishes himself as a leader in the Arab fight against the Turks, Lawrence claims that he loves the desert because it's clean. With all due respect to my current host country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, this is not the case anymore. The Jarre theme--its light, romantic crescendo--quickly vanishes from one's head when one sees an omnipresent sight of Coke cans, Snickers wrappers, and plastic bags (which are killing camels at alarming rates). While Jordan (where the film took place and was shot) is still, for the most part, one of the great beauties of the world, I wonder if "Lawrence of Arabia" gave me premature images of such a wonderful, clean ocean of a desert (and I do hope Saudis--particularly the youth--start taking better care of their country).

"Lawrence of Arabia" is great fun. At three-and-a-half hours, it can often test one's limits of patience, but, at least for me, the only scenes that dragged are the final thirty minutes. Flawed? Certainly (see above). A masterpiece? Definitely. It's a beautiful film that you owe yourself to see.