An Excellent Effort on Many Levels

Rating: 10/10 (3 August 2006)

I won't try to compete with the superlatives of others and am less certain that this movie was the best flick of the 1960s. In that decade, American "culture" enjoyed a true renaissance, and our films were as much a reflection of it as was our music, our literature, and our science. As many good movies were made in a single year back then as have been made ever since, which is perhaps why Peter O'Toole didn't win the Academy Award for Best Actor --he had too much competition (Gregory Peck won it for "To Kill a Mockingbird"). Obviously, however, "Lawrence of Arabia" was one of the best movies of its time and one of the best movies ever made. To me, the real star of the movie was the Arabian Desert (although technically, it was filmed in Morrocco and Jordan). There was dramatic and arresting physical beauty in its sense of limitless space and its bleak, wind-whipped desolation. The dunes with their swirling sands, the dramatic barren mountains, and the isolated ridges far off in the distance yet easily visible all contributed to a dreamlike world. Perhaps even more important, and certainly more relevant to the theme, was the spiritual element inseparable from the vast emptiness of the broiling desert wilderness. The gorgeous and highly effective landscape photography firmly established the setting early in the film. Not unexpectedly, it was Lawrence's determination to leave the desert that signaled his eventual demise. His return "home" to England and the shallow, conventional life it offered led to the motorcycle accident that ultimately killed him. It seems he had ceased to follow his heart, perhaps because his experiences in Arabia, which had inspired him to greatness, had at the same time transformed him into someone he no longer believed in, understood, or felt he could keep living up to. By war's end, therefore, he seemed to have outlived his usefulness, if not so much to his Arab friends (who apparently worshiped him), than in his own mind.
The outstanding performances by Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn (and even Alec Guiness) threatened to upstage O'Toole's Lawrence, but he held his own and made the movie his. As such, it was probably the defining role of his career. It wasn't long, however, before Omar Sharif starred in "Dr. Zhivago" and Anthony Quinn in "Zorba the Greek," no doubt these opportunities arising from their significant part in the making of "Lawrence of Arabia." After watching this movie again, I had a new sense of the Arab's plight, yet had to remind myself not to get carried away. The film was set during WWI, long before Israel became a country, and in that day, the Arabs were the oppressed people fighting for their independence from the Ottoman Empire, a civilization which at the time was well ahead of their own tribal existence and encroaching upon their seemingly cold and detached wilderness ethic. Much has changed since then.
By the way, many years ago I had the opportunity to get a good look at a beautifully restored "Bruff" motorcycle (actually spelled b,r,o,u,g,h). That was the type that Lawrence owned and on which he had his fatal accident, shown in the opening sequence of the film. It looked to be all engine, with a surprising amount of horsepower for motorcycles of that era, which is why it was the fastest racing bike of its time.