Who, me? Neurotic?

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2001)

When this film was released in 1962 I was seeing a shrink. Nothing serious, just the usual ontological Angst. You know, "What's it all about?" "Why have I developed this sudden taste for houseflies?" When I described my torment to him he tilted his head and asked, 'Have you seen Lawrence of Arabia'?
Okay, this film has been analyzed to death, and with good reason. It's one of the best films ever made. David Lean has a way of doing things, and he's never done it better than here. 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' may be more watchable, if you're not in a patient mood, but isn't -- couldn't be -- more thought provoking.
Every role seems played to perfection. Peter O'Toole is a marvelous Lawrence, Homeric and naive. Anthony Quayle, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guiness, all do their best, which is more than good enough. Each is a jewel of a performance.
I don't think I've ever watched a funnier scene than the change on politician Claude Raines' face when Hawkins, as General Allenby of the British Army, tells Lawrence that the British have no ambitions in Arabia. Lawrence accepts his word. Raines is sipping champagne and his eyes drift upwards and his mouth purses with amused disbelief -- how could anybody like Lawrence be so damned stupid?
The editing is unimpeachable. Everyone applauds Stanley Kubrick for his cut in "2001: A Space Odyssey", when the bone flung in the air becomes a space ship. It's like the moment at which the clucking chicken turns into a guitar in "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." But there's a more quiet and equally effective cut here, when T. E. Lawrence in Cairo blows out a match and in the blink of an eye we are watching a crimson sun rise over a desert horizon so flat and blank it looks drawn with a ruler.
If you want an isolated example of good writing and direction, watch the scene in which Lawrence and his men derail a passenger train and shoot it full of holes, killing everyone aboard. Lawrence shouts a cease fire, but his Arabs pay no attention and continue to riddle the cars. He runs out in front of them, shouting, but they still fire on the train. It takes two flares to get them to come to a ragged stop. That's the way real life generally is -- messy, chaotic, and with a jagged edge. Then compare this with a similar scene in "Khartoum," made shortly afterwards. During a battle, every extra follows direction and obeys every order at once, running and riding from place to place like figures in a video game. I won't even bring up more recent "epics" like "Pearl Harbor" and "Titanic."
The most tragic moment doesn't involve death but Lawrence's disillusionment. When his plans for Arabian independence collapse, he's called in for a final conference with General Allenby. His expression is vacuous, far away, his voice distant and distracted. As he turns to leave, Prince Faisal says to him, 'Of course, what I OWE you' -- and there is a quick shot Lawrence turning to leave the room -- 'is beyond evaluation.' But the next shot, lasting a second, is only of Lawrence's back swiftly disappearing through the curtain.
How easy it would have been for a director less thoughtful than Lean, less respectful of the audience, to have Lawrence stop in the doorway -- give us a close up here -- turn back to Faisal and clearly state some sort of fateful exit line: 'You're all hypocrites,' or "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," or something. Then leave, while trumpets of triumph blare. Instead Lawrence gets in a truck and leaves the dust and the camels and the Arabs, unimportantly, dismally, heart-breakingly, behind.