For starters I had no idea what this film was about but simply knew that it took place in the desert somewhere and it had won a bunch of (almost all of the) awards when it was released back in 1962. I knew it was famous and that I had never seen it so I finally got around to watching it late last night after getting takeaway pizza and some beers.
I didn't find out until just now when I was looking up the actual year that it was released that a lot of the information portrayed in the film is based on real information and that "Lawrence" was a real person.
That seems so crazy to me because one thing that struck me as odd in this film was the fact that literally everyone speaks English, and that couldn't have been the case in Africa back in the time period this film is portraying - it isn't true now. Well anyway, Lawrence is a real person and apparently there were some historians that were upset that the 6 foot 2 Peter O'Toole was selected for the role when the real Lawrence (whose surname is Lawrence by the way, not his first name) was only 5 foot 5. Too bad Tom Cruise wasn't acting back then. That's the perfect height for him!
The scenery in basically all of the film is outstanding and I would imagine that the location scouts that worked on these films were very busy while discovering just the right locations. Apparently, the entire film was meant to be filmed in Jordan but ended up being filmed in Jordan and Morocco, with some scenes taking place in Spain. The logistics of all of this must have just been awful and the fact that they were able to complete this entire film for a purported $15 million is pretty amazing when you consider all of that.
There were also battle scenes that involved dozens if not hundreds of camels and horses and the coordination of this, with multiple camera angles, must have just been staggering. Had any special effects that existed at the time been used, it would have been glaringly obvious, especially now, and this is what makes some of these scenes so majestic. Like when you think about epic battles such as the ones that took place in Lord of the Rings... most of that is CGI green screen magic... no such things existed in 1962.
I did find it a bit off-putting or amusing how there was so much makeup being worn by many of the male actors in this but I guess it was a different time and this was the way things were back then.
Overall I would say that I am glad that I watched the movie because it is a classic and now that I've read into it I realize that they are telling a true-ish story here about a real man, T.E. Lawrence. The scenery is fantastic and a lot of it probably couldn't be faked so there was probably a tremendous amount of patience required on the part of the director as well as the rest of the cast and crew.
The musical score is outstanding and a few things came to mind when I heard it.
- I have heard this song before, knew it was iconic, but didn't know why
- Similar music is used in desert scenes in many video games, perhaps as an homage to the film
- Conan that Barbarian's epic score might have been influenced a bit by this.
Looking into it a bit more, I discovered that the composer that was selected for creating the score was a third choice and was given only 2 weeks to create 2 hours of soundtrack. That's not asking a lot of person now, is it?
Now it is time for me to talk about the only negative thing I really have to say about the entire film: It is extremely long and there were several points in the film that I hit the pause button thinking "FFS, still an hour and a half to go?" It is 227 minutes long - so long that many cinemas included an intermission period when it was first put in theaters. Throughout the years it has been edited down to a more reasonable length (IMO). Unbeknownst to me, I was watching the original version of 3 hours and 27 minutes and there were man occasions where I was thinking to myself "get on with it already!"
Lawrence of Arabia is the longest film to ever win a Best Picture Oscar beating out Gone with the Wind by just a tiny bit over 1 minute. Now you can't tell me that this was just a coincidence.
Some people consider it to be the best film ever made and it certainly deserves to be on lists of best films but in my mind this is not because of the entertainment value but rather because of how visually spectacular the film is considering the technology that existed at the time. Compared to other films that I personally consider "top films" I would saw that Lawrence is actually quite boring. I've seen it once and if someone wanted me to come by for a screening party, regardless of how comfortable the seating was and how great the snacks were, I would probably RSVP "no."
Have you seen this movie? If so, what did you think?