‘There may be honour among thieves, but there’s none in politicians...’
David Lean’s historical masterpiece has been hanging around my watchlist for years now. I know the reason I haven’t watched it until now. You know the reason I haven’t watched it until now. It’s the running time, isn’t it. No reasonable person has time to sit down for a film that is 187 minutes long. Not when you could literally watch just under nine episodes of Rick and Morty in that same time period. Also… it looks and sounds like it might be boring, doesn’t it. Let’s be honest with each other. And yet…
T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) is a soldier with a vision. A vision that will take him across the desert and deep into a strange war that he only partly understands. While there, he will meet the inscrutable Price Faisal (Alec Guinness) and the loyal Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif). He will be forced to make decisions that end in bloodshed. And when he returns to the British army, he will be mocked, insulted and misunderstood. This is his story.
I have no idea of the historical accuracy of Lean’s period drama, and I don’t care to know, when reviewing any film, my only concern, to paraphrase Maximus Decimus Meridius – was I not entertained? And in this instance, I absolutely was. Despite the mammoth running time, only occasionally does Lawrence of Arabia drag. This is a testament to O’Toole’s frankly astonishing performance and the sheer scale and majesty of Lean’s vision. The sweeping backdrops are legendary, and the shoot took in locations in Spain, Jordan, Morocco and Syria. This kind of majesty has sadly been lost in this age of CGI and SFX. The use of hundreds of extras is a thing of the past as well, and it is striking just how impressive the larger scale scenes are in this film. Crucially, the quieter moments are equally as compelling thanks to a series of masterful performances, but also due to the success of the screenplay (credited to Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson). Not one scene is wasted, and everything services the story. Whilst the decision to kill Lawrence off in the opening scene is perhaps a questionable one, the rest of the film feels surprisingly modern whilst also retaining a they-don’t-make-them-like-that-anymore nostalgia.
In short, Lawrence of Arabia deserves its reputation as one of the greatest historical dramas ever produced. A true masterpiece.