Lean's Grandest Spectacle

Rating: 10/10 (8 March 2006)

To watch "Lawrence Of Arabia" is to be refreshed anew with the power of film, a visit to a pleasant oasis of perfect delight and contentment after crossing the arid desert of today's movie scene.
I don't blame modern movie makers. I blame David Lean. He set an impossibly high standard with this film, an epic that plays like serial adventure, with rousing action sequences, multi-layered dialogue, gorgeous camera work, a deep-bodied musical score that feels at one with the desert, and a cast of exceptionally good actors all working at their absolute peaks, led by then-newcomer Peter O'Toole in the title role.
His Lawrence is both bigger than life and quaintly eccentric, rubbing his fellow British officers the wrong way when we first meet him as a humble mapmaker in Cairo.
"I can't make out whether you are bloody madman or just half-witted," says the general who sees him off on his new assignment, "appreciating the situation" among Bedouin warriors fighting the Turks in a World War I backwater.
"I have the same problem, sir," is Lawrence's reply.
O'Toole plays him as a consummate dreamer, unhappy in his Western skin and desirous of challenge and change, and for that ultimately no small risk to himself and others. This is soon revealed when he generously presents a revolver to his Bedouin guide Tafas (Zia Mohyeddin does a lot to establish the film's early exotic tone before bigger names arrive to play the Arab parts). Later, Tafas is killed by the gift when he attempts to use it on a strange figure approaching him and Lawrence across the mirror-like horizon. As time passes, we discover how dangerous Lawrence's gift of military power can be for other Arabs, too, and how that doubles back on Lawrence. "Lawrence is a sword that cuts both ways," observes Alec Guinness's sly Prince Feisal late in the film, at which point Lawrence himself is about cut to ribbons.
Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn are very, very good playing off Lawrence and each other. Sharif is a revelation as Ali, shifting from dangerous adversary to calming ally and finally disaffected brother of Lawrence, the moral center as Lawrence strays into bloodlust and self-deification. Quinn provides much of the comedy as rival chieftain Auda, yet also the embodiment of Lawrence's unstable situation as he seeks to make a nation of Arabs. Auda doesn't understand the concept of "Arabs." He just sees rival tribes to chivvy with.
One thing you are struck with watching "Lawrence" is it runs nearly four hours but feels more like 90 minutes. That's of course testament to a lot of things, but the editing by Anne V. Coates is not pointed out enough. No scene feels too long, and while that is a product of Lean's direction and a story by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson, Coates' clever cutting sets a standard for epics by working "off-the-beat" as it were, anticipating a scene change by making it a half-second early, as in the famous one where Lawrence blows out a match and leads us into the desert. Coates had great fabric to work with, of course, but tailors it perfectly. It's a wonder and a shame she and Lean didn't work together again.
Some films, very good ones, start strong and fade in the stretch. Others build momentum as they go along. "Lawrence" is different. The film grabs you right away, and even as we lose some things we miss, we gain other elements we enjoy, creating an ever-changing spectacle that defines the Hollywood epic in its purest form (made by a Brit in Morocco, I know.) It keeps building like a symphony, unfolding with patient vibrancy like some perfectly realized life outside nature.
Picking the best parts of "Lawrence" may be difficult, but it's easy for me to name my favorite scene. It's whatever part of "Lawrence" I am watching whenever I watch the film. Which isn't often enough!