Brilliant touches

Rating: 10/10 (10 April 2016)

As well as the epic sweep of this movie, there are the enduring moments, images and transitions that remain in the memory and raise this film to the level of greatness. I mention just four that sear this film onto my consciousness: the extinguishing of the smouldering match followed by the rising desert sun (a brilliant metaphor for Lawrence, a smouldering wick caught up in his own hell fire will he be snuffed out?), the ringing of the alarm bell at Aquaba, a superimposed sound transition to the attack scene, as the camera closes in on Lawrence's agonised features following the execution that he had to carry out before the attack and to make sure it happened (again an amazing metaphor as the bell rings out like it is announcing coming doom for Lawrence as he has much more blood to spill in the coming days) And then the ship that suddenly appears on the Suez canal but as if it is sailing across the desert (a nod to the idea of camels perhaps, I don't understand if it is meant to be a metaphor but it is simply a magnificent image). Then, at the very end there is the juxtaposition of the Arab camel riders and the truck-borne Tommies singing their contrasting songs: different songs, different technologies, contrasting, conflicting cultures with Lawrence exiting history still not knowing to which culture his allegiance lies - as the driver comforts him with the thought that he is going "home" But is he really going home?
The pivotal moment of the film follows shortly after the Ship image, when a motorcyclist appears on the far bank of the canal and cries out "Who are you?" and the camera closes up on Lawrence's exhausted, wondering face. This is the question that encapsulates the whole film, who exactly is Lawrence? and it is reprised at various points: The scene outside St Paul's, Faisal's question "is he a desert loving Englishman?", the MOs failure to see Lawrence is not a "filthy" Arab, The journalists treatment of him, Lawrence dressing like an Arab prince, Preston calling him a brilliant soldier etc etc etc, All the way through, it is a brilliant, intelligent screenplay. The motorcyclist was actually David Lean, putting his own signature on a magnificent canvas....
There is one segment that encapsulates the touch of David Lean's direction of actors, the scene with Jose Ferrer as the Turkish Bey. Ferrer described his small part as the best acting he'd ever done while O'Toole said he learned more from Ferrer in that scene than all his years at drama school. But watch the acting of the uncredited extras, soldiers and flotsam from Deraa. With no dialogue they capture the degradation, hopelessness, (in the case of the townsmen) and the callousness and resignation (in the case of the soldiers) of the "cattle" who surround the Bey magnificently. Who are these unsung heroes? Two are jobbing Spanish actors but the rest are also excellent, especially the man third in line with the fez and the young soldier. They are brilliant and add so much to the intensity of this scene...