1962 Directed by David Lean
The story of British officer T.E. Lawrence's mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic figure in the cause of Arab unity but his psychological instability threatens to undermine his achievements.
Peter O'Toole Omar Sharif Alec Guinness Jack Hawkins Anthony Quinn José Ferrer Anthony Quayle Claude Rains Arthur Kennedy Donald Wolfit I.S. Johar Gamil Ratib Michel Ray John Dimech Zia Mohyeddin Howard Marion-Crawford Jack Gwillim Hugh Miller John Barry Bruce Beeby Fred Bennett John Bennett Steve Birtles Robert Bolt Peter Burton J.R.M. Chapman Barbara Cole Basil Dignam Peter Dukelow Show All…
Arabia no Rorensu, Arabistanli Lawrence, Lawrence Ish Arav, Lawrence d'Aràbia, Arabijas Lorenss, Lorens od Arabije, Лоуренс Аравiйський
how is a colonialist epic about a tormented sadist with a twinkle in his eyes so universally beloved?" ... best not to answer that.
what i find most amazing about Lean's masterpiece is that such a politically thorny, morally vague 228-minute film about a man's grand-scale psychic collapse has become such a celebrated movie, regarded as a treasure by EW and the the intelligentsia alike.
i should probably say a little something about the 4K DCP presentation, but... i'm sleepy. maybe later.
Today was the day...
...that I finally conquered Lawrence of Arabia.
I'm only 51 years late to the party. How did I manage to miss out on this golden gem of cinema? Well, I honestly couldn't tell you. I've been swept away by other great films throughout the years, I have always been short of time and my backlog grows and grows with every day. It's sad that a monumental film like this got pushed so far back but my mindset was always "I'll watch that soon. I HAVE to watch that soon."
Repeat that for a few years and you get why I'm only just now seeing Lawrence of Arabia here in May of 2013. But I'm glad I…
I like sand. It's coarse, rough, and mesmerizing. And it gets everywhere.
getting swept up in riding the vast, beautiful whirlwind of revolutionary history and warrior myths just in time for the political realities of colonial empires and the vulnerabilities of our mortal bodies to gradually and brutally deflate it. obviously not really a brave or original take to say that this is one of the most striking, jaw-dropping pieces of spectacle film ever crafted that somehow never loses the subjective, psychological intimacy it has with its characters while doing so. probably the most brilliantly edited film ever, right? finally getting to see this on 70mm film was a dream come true.
Something about my parents' massive television renders everything so crystal clear. I assume it's one of those high def formats that I can't keep rack of, 1080p Blu-ray with 10K megapixels and a 3D surround sound and dreamatorium, that sort of thing. I've no idea. The television is bigger than your apartment. It's disgusting, but holy fuck, it makes bad movies look good and good movies look great and movies like this look like... your preferred cliche of what looks good. The depth you get, the visual depth, the clear, clean colors, the details you pick out, it's too real, so vivid that it breaks down your suspension of disbelief, because it shows the edges of the sets when there…
This film is Based on of the life of T. E. Lawrence who was most famous for leading armies of Arabian tribes in military campaigns going against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The film was directed by renowned filmaker David Lean and Peter O'Toole starred as Lawrence in one of the greatest performances I've ever seen in a film and I'll go into more detail with that soon. So it was beautifully shot in 70mm with such care and precision, Freddie Young's cinematography is beautiful the look of the sun and the desert in the film is just incredible creating a constant hypnotic feeling.
Some amazing shots will stick with you forever especially a match cut involving a…
"For some men, nothing is written unless they write it."
Lawrence of Arabia is a massive, sprawling epic of a movie. You've heard of it before and you know that it's big, but it's impossible to overstate just how gigantic it really is. There's a shot in which a large number of camels appear on screen all at once, and they're each about the size of an ant. I watched this on my 40" HDTV and I could tell there was still a huge abundance of detail I was missing out on. I'm going to run out of synonyms for the word "big" pretty quickly, so just take my word for it. This movie is big. Big big.
But sheer…
Four glorious hours of camels walking in extreme long shot. Oh, and also a pretty devastating subversion of the white man's burden narrative, in which a man hates his own people and tries to go native, but is always reminded he cannot, no matter his accomplishments. Another epic on the subject would have ended in a blaze of glory. This one stops in a pool of self-contempt. Almost makes one look forward to the release of Lawrence's death seen in the film's opening.
One of the grandest epics ever produced on film celluloid, Lawrence of Arabia isn't just a film but a journey of a man's life & his love for a nation, and even with its nearly 4 hours of runtime, it manages to keep the viewers completely glued to their seats, thanks to the sheer magic of David Lean's stellar direction, breathtaking cinematography, stunning production design, spectacular score & Peter O'Toole's dominating performance.
Set during the First World War, Lawrence of Arabia follows the life of a controversial British figure named T. E. Lawrence and covers his experiences in the Arab Peninsula where he was sent to investigate the progress of Arab revolt against the Turks but later leads them in winning their…
