The Good: Great cinematography, Great DVD bonus features, Decent-enough acting
The Bad: Pacing, Light on character development, Stiflingly boring plot
The Basics: A painfully drawn-out film, Lawrence Of Arabia follows a British soldier's campaign with the Arab forces through the Middle East, crossing the desert a lot.
As it appears I am rapidly becoming the voice of opposition for most established views on "the classics" of American cinema, I think that as I begin my review of Lawrence Of Arabia, it is worth noting that I am not trying to contradict the views of others. In fact, I tend to not look at the reviews of anyone else before I watch a movie and evaluate it for myself. But, as Lawrence Of Arabia won the Best Picture Oscar, there is the assumption that it is one of the greatest movies in cinematic history. In truth, though, the bulk of Lawrence Of Arabia is like the mockery of The Lord Of The Rings (reviewed here!) from Clerks II; it's people walking or riding through the desert. It is stiflingly boring, even though it is an obvious achievement of cinematography.
I was excited going into my viewing of Lawrence Of Arabia. Sitting down to watch this represented the fulfillment of a promise my father made to me over fifteen years ago, even though I did not watch it with him. Fifteen years ago, Lawrence Of Arabia was remastered and cinematically released in limited release. My father, who loves this film, told me at the time that we would drive the hour to Buffalo, the nearest place that had a theater that was showing it, because of his absolute belief that this film had to be seen on the big screen. Well, we never got around to it somehow and I now have a pretty big HDTV, so I figured it was time to watch it. Unfortunately for the relationship between my father and I, I could see why he wanted me to see the film on a big screen, but after watching it, I find it impossible to care. This was a tragically boring film and one I doubt I would have liked any better in theaters. Lawrence Of Arabia is based upon a novel, but it is important to note that this review is solely of the cinematic interpretation of it.
A British officer, T.E. Lawrence, is out on his motorcycle driving at ridiculous speeds when he goes off the road and dies. Following his funeral, various people asked respond to the reputation and their experiences with the man. As British colonial influence diminishes, but the imperial presence rises during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Lawrence befriends local tribesmen in Arabia and uses them to drive the Turkish forces out. Allying himself with Prince Feisal, Lawrence challenges Feisal's army to cross a dangerous route through the desert to a Turkish outpost and the Suez Canal. Making the difficult passage, Lawrence achieves a great victory by securing Acaba, and helping the British to take access to the Suez Canal away from Turkey and the Axis powers.
Following the victory at Acaba, Lawrence is promoted to Major and sent back to the desert to destroy the Turkish railroad and infrastructure throughout the Middle East. He does this with a strange combination of military efficiency and piracy that makes him a controversial figure in the British and American minds.
I am beginning to think that the only truly interesting films set in the desert are the Star Wars films as lately all of the movies I've seen with North Africa or the Middle East as a setting have been painfully boring. Lawrence Of Arabia looks incredible, but it is so boring through long stretches that it becomes quite difficult to pay attention to or care about. After a musical overture that stretches on before the film begins, the movie quickly gets mired down in the process of Lawrence traversing the desert, which takes over an hour. This is problematic in that it looks good in terms of having technically great cinematography, but exceptionally low plot or character development. While the film might accurately paint a portrait of what it is to traverse long sections of desert, the longer it stretches on, the purpose becomes increasingly murky. In other words, because the film is so preoccupied with how Lawrence is crossing the desert, the viewer forgets why he is doing so.
Like many movies over three hours long (this is almost four hours in duration), there is an intermission, but rather ridiculously, the first disc does not end at the beginning of the intermission, instead it appears awkwardly shortly after the beginning of the second disc. I find myself writing about this because most of the plot is repetitive and the character aspects are either lacking or come up only so late in the latter half of the film that a respectful reviewer would not reveal them. As far as the repetitive aspects, the plot and character aspects are pretty much confined to deaths surrounding Lawrence. To maintain peace within rival tribes he is leading, Lawrence is forced to kill a thief himself. While this initially works and has some measure of interest to the viewer, the scene is mirrored by the desert claiming one of his friends and Lawrence having to put down a wounded friend in a way that becomes droll and feel familiar and dull to the viewer. Lawrence's only real character development, it seems, comes from how he loses those around him.
Even those around him are only marginally developed or interesting as characters. So, for example, while Omar Sharif is prominently featured as Ali, the character is little more than a sidekick until the final forty-five minutes when he comes into his own. Similarly, Alec Guiness's role as Prince Feisal is little more than a cameo in this epic-length movie. And while I usually have trouble watching torture, it is so passive and illustrated in the least graphic possible terms in this film that it is not difficult to watch at all. Moreover, Lawrence's reaction to torture is more defined than the torment itself which makes it seem unfortunately more melodramatic as opposed to truly inspired character work.
That said, Peter O'Toole, who stars as T.E. Lawrence is good in the role, though he is not given much to work with. For large portions of the film, O'Toole's role is simply to walk and appear as if he is struggling. When director David Lean finally gets around to developing the character, he has O'Toole act like a Christlike figure with little panache. He uses stigmata imagery in one scene, then has O'Toole prancing ridiculously in other moments. And what might have seemed incredibly important at the time - the question of whether or not Lawrence has "gone native" seems unimportant in retrospect. The character is either a tactician or a man who got lucky by whom he allied himself with, but either way, Lawrence does not actually evolve as a character and as a result, the actor has little to do after he has established him.
On DVD, the two-disc Lawrence Of Arabia looks good, despite a few moments the film skips from poor edits (most notably in an exchange of dialogue between Lawrence and the prince). The entire film has a commentary track which is informative and there is a documentary on the making of the movie that is quite thorough. As well, there are other featurettes on the casting and locations of the movie. The special edition also has a strange conversation with Steven Spielberg where he describes the influence this particular film had on him. There are preview trailers and other advertising bits included on this version. In fact, the extras are so thorough and complete that they bring this movie back up from below average territory. While the film might be long and boring, the extras are so engaging as the make the source material almost palatable!
Still, even the completeness of the extras does not improve the overall film enough to make it worth recommending. This is long, repetitive and lighter on character development than most people want to admit. Watching the preview trailer and listening to the score might be a better use of one's time than this very drawn-out film.
[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this is part of my Best Picture Project available here! Please check it out!]
For other movies with Sir Alec Guiness, please check out:
Return Of The Jedi
The Empire Strikes Back
A New Hope
Bridge On The River Kwai
5/10
For other film reviews, please click here to visit my index page!
© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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