Lawrence of Arabia

Watching this movie recently, and then watching it again the moment the stupefied aura of amazement disappeared I realized they just don’t make ‘em like this anymore. This is classic cinema in its best at everyway.

You feel in the characters, the very tone of the movie. It’s in no hurry so as not to be too long, and its in no hurry to start. Not once is their some gratuitous sex scene and or big boom, it actually gives its viewers some credit; it doesn’t assume they have the attention span of a three year old. But then again this movie was made before the days of Internet and cell phones, before everyone was accustomed to constant entertainment and instant gratification.

Lawrence of Arabia is, in my opinion, the greatest war movie ever made, and it’s not even truly about a war, but a man. Peter Toole’s performance here must be marked as one of the great of all time. In him we see the meek and humble lieutenant go into the desert and we see through his determination, coming from an inexplicable motivation, become a giant, a hero, a legend.

Its unlike all other war movies I’ve seen in that its not about the blood, the bullets, the fighting action, which all other war movies have inevitably relied on, even if they were trying otherwise. In Lawrence these things just happen to happen. The characters, the struggles, they take of the stage. We watch Lawrence himself eagerly, hoping and anxious he’ll get the admiration and approval of his Arab comrades and take joy with him when he attains it. We watch him struggle with himself as he is horrified by the simple pleasure he takes in killing and his pain and guilt over the death of the two young boys who accompany him…they are truly simple, but heartfelt moments of powerful cinema. It is exactly their simplicity that makes them brilliant; its brilliant that they are so simple yet beautiful, they lack the dramatic artificial glare and pomp accompanying other movies, like Children of Men, which scream out to us, “Look at me, I’m trying to be deep, I’m trying to astound you.”

Then, after the intermission in the film, (yes it was that long), we feel all the more keenly the film’s sharp change in tone. We feel alienated from Lawrence as he is changed by pride, by hubris, and as he starts to drift away from his Arab friends while still battling an inner-battle we never see. Though we catch a glimpse of the old Lawrence after his horrific massacre, a glimpse of him in his inner turmoil and guilt, we never get the same feeling about him.

This isn’t unintentional; it’s purposeful and is masterfully subtle. Lawrence is changed, and we feel pains over his change but they are his pains as well. At the end of the movie it is apparent how he feels, stripped away of all his allusions, he feels empty and his failure to found a country for the Arabs tears him inside. He is forced to leave himself behind, to go back, the hollow shell of the man he once was. His death then at the end of the movie seems fitting, as if it was how he would have wanted to go and the flash of grass and a yell serve as a powerful final emphasis. With the film’s end we get this glimpse of talk and rumor and see the legend of Lawrence the man begin.