Long Live "Lawrence of Arabia"
As you all must know, Lawrence of Arabia is my favorite film. In fact, I had no favorite film until I saw it (again) in college at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square during college. I went by myself, and though the screen was small and (ugh) rear-projected, I fell headlong in love with it. I'm going to try to articulate why.
At it's most basic, cinematic level, I love Lawrence because every piece fits and no one element takes precedence. The spare-yet-witty script, the acting, the scenery, the camerawork, the composition; everything takes its place and nothing is wasted. On the big screen, it is not an overlong movie--each pause in the action and longshot of the desert means there is something you need to see. On television, it just looks like sand. In the theater there's a dot moving across that sand, or a sun rising behind it, that needs your attention.
Psychologically, while it "fails" as an accurate biography, Lawrence captures something about the neurotic/genius that I find endlessly intriguing. T.E. Lawrence, whatever you think of the man, was a complicated, fascinating figure. Peter O'Toole is not exactly playing the historical figure, but he is embodying something nonetheless important and interesting. The duality of wanting an "ordinary life" and being somehow unable to settle for it; of being a sensitive, compassionate soul with a lust for destruction; sends the character and the movie into a bed of quicksand whose bottom we see before it even starts. He is a hero and a demon. A god and a devil.
And to be shallow for a minute, one pretty pretty man.
Put him next to Omar Sharif and the celluloid smoulders.
Ahem. But it's not just hormones that drag me back. It's the simple story of the rise and fall of a very complicated man. It's told in a few well-chosen words and the most eloquent cinematography (Trans)Jordan's ever seen. Yes, it's a "big" movie. Yes, it's all Hollywood epic. But somehow it's an epic that got it right, because it's an epic that's about someone, something, not about spectacle. It uses it, certainly, but at its core is this tortured man who didn't know what he wanted but certainly knew how to get it.
[Perhaps someday I'll take more care with this and really explore what it means to me; for now, this will have to do.]
At it's most basic, cinematic level, I love Lawrence because every piece fits and no one element takes precedence. The spare-yet-witty script, the acting, the scenery, the camerawork, the composition; everything takes its place and nothing is wasted. On the big screen, it is not an overlong movie--each pause in the action and longshot of the desert means there is something you need to see. On television, it just looks like sand. In the theater there's a dot moving across that sand, or a sun rising behind it, that needs your attention.
Psychologically, while it "fails" as an accurate biography, Lawrence captures something about the neurotic/genius that I find endlessly intriguing. T.E. Lawrence, whatever you think of the man, was a complicated, fascinating figure. Peter O'Toole is not exactly playing the historical figure, but he is embodying something nonetheless important and interesting. The duality of wanting an "ordinary life" and being somehow unable to settle for it; of being a sensitive, compassionate soul with a lust for destruction; sends the character and the movie into a bed of quicksand whose bottom we see before it even starts. He is a hero and a demon. A god and a devil.
And to be shallow for a minute, one pretty pretty man.
Put him next to Omar Sharif and the celluloid smoulders.
Ahem. But it's not just hormones that drag me back. It's the simple story of the rise and fall of a very complicated man. It's told in a few well-chosen words and the most eloquent cinematography (Trans)Jordan's ever seen. Yes, it's a "big" movie. Yes, it's all Hollywood epic. But somehow it's an epic that got it right, because it's an epic that's about someone, something, not about spectacle. It uses it, certainly, but at its core is this tortured man who didn't know what he wanted but certainly knew how to get it.
[Perhaps someday I'll take more care with this and really explore what it means to me; for now, this will have to do.]