Far from Lean's best

Rating: 5/10 (19 April 2006)

For those in need of a patriotic flagwaver, there's the deeply moving and magnificently written In Which We Serve. For those looking for a good literary adaptation, there's Oliver Twist or Great Expectations. For those looking for a simple but well told love story, there's Brief Encounter. And for those dying to spend a few hours watching The Great White Father rescue the Arabs from perfidy, there's this.
Beautifully shot and well-acted it is, but ultimately I must side with the contrarians--most notably the New York Times' Bosley Crowther--who find Lawrence of Arabia an empty and extremely overlong epic that fails to cast any light on what made this amateur Orientalist tick. And frankly, why should we care anyway? This paean to stiff upper lip British resolve may have played better in 1962, before Britain withdrew from 'East of Suez', but now it seems a very odd picture indeed: a four hour film about a man who is ultimately little more than an historical footnote.
Lean's next film, Dr. Zhivago, is even worse, but that hardly qualifies this as a 'must see'. Unless you are a World War I enthusiast, an admirer of widescreen photography, or Paul Wolfowitz, you can safely give Lawrence of Arabia a wide berth.