Thoughts on Lawrence of Arabia & Lawrence AFTER Arabia

[sarahmichigan]

So, it's probably a big old "duh" to some of you that I should have watched the classic 1962 David Lean film "Lawrence of Arabia" BEFORE I tried to watch the made-for-TV movie "A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia."

And I'm sure some of you are appalled that I've reached the age of 37 without having seen the '62 film before.

Nevertheless, it was kind of interesting to watch them in the "wrong" order, and here are my thoughts on both.

"A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia": OK, I admit it that Ralph Fiennes' hotness was one of the reason I initially checked this movie out. I thought I knew enough about Lawrence's life that'd make sense, but I think I would have gotten more out of it if I'd seen the '62 film first.

First off, the positives: It's beautifully shot, Fiennes is radiant and makes a wonderfully beautiful but asexual Lawrence, and Alexander Siddig (still going by his real name Siddig El Fadil at this time) was a huge surprise. He plays the Arabic prince beautifully and he is stunningly handsome, which doesn't hurt. This film also deconstructs some of the mythos around T.E. Lawrence and looks at his life more critically than the '62 epic did as well.

Big negative, though: It's a terribly talky movie. It's mainly about political maneuvering, and there's a lot of dialog and not nearly enough action, though there is some smoking, smoldering chemistry (not really sexual, but intense, nonetheless) between Fiennes and El Fadil.

So, I went back and watched the classic not too long afterward...

"Lawrence of Arabia": Things started off badly because we've been having some issues with our DVD player, and when the music started up with a black screen, I thought there was something wrong with the DVD or the player. I went back to the menu, started over, and saw there was a disclaimer saying that "Director David Lean intended for the overture to play with no picture" both at the beginning of the film, and after the "intermission" that's inserted into this (rather long) movie. I was thinking to myself, "Well, David Lean is a punkass, then, because film is a visual medium!" Philistine or not, I fast-forwarded through the 4-minute-plus overture to get to the visuals... And, from there on out, I have to say it was a fantastic movie.

Did they take liberties with the truth? For sure. Lawrence had turned into a legend in his own time, much less nearly 30 years after his own death, but that's part of the charm of the movie.

It's one of Peter O'Toole's earliest roles, and he is... again the word "radiant" comes to mind. His blue eyes peering out of a wind- and sun-burned face, his platinum hair, his white robes of the desert sherif. Wonderful. And he plays him asexual but slightly effeminate, extremely smart and arrogant and masochistic, which is just right. He also does a bang-up portrayal of Lawrence's wild-eyed craziness after being captured, beaten and sexually abused (though the last bit is only hinted at extremely obliquely) by the Turks.

And Omar Sharif as Sherif Ali? OHMIGOD. I've always had a "thing" for Omar Sharif since the first time I saw him in Dr. Zhivago, but he is 10 times sexier in "Lawrence." Those eyes! I could fall into them and never come out. Even his dorky mustache cannot detract from his beauty. And, I should probably mention that he acts the part beautifully as well. :)

I do have some quibbles, in addition to the one already mentioned about Lean's lunk-headed ideas about the overture.

For one, PLEASE STOP CASTING ALEC GUINNESS AS 'THE EXOTIC ONE' for chrissake! I'd just recently watched him play the Indian character Godbole in "A Passage to India" not long ago, and here he is cast as a blue-eyed Arab. Guinness can act the fuck out of any part, but why, why couldn't they find more Arabic actors for these roles? Anthony Quinn, with his dark-browed looks, actually was passable as Bedouin mercenary, but Guinness is the ultimate English white boy. Geezy petes! *

Also, I had to laugh at an early line in the movie that that said the Bedouin could "travel 60 miles a day in the deep desert." No disrespect to the Bedouin, who I'm sure are desert experts, but they can't move 60 miles in a day in the desert - their CAMELS can. I have a lot more respect for camels after watching the film, actually. They're odd and clumsy looking out of context, but in the desert, they actually look pretty elegant, especially when dressed up colorfully Bedouin-style. And they can go 20 days without water. These are some tough animals!

When all is said and done, I'm glad I watched both, but it's certainly the '62 movie that I will definitely have to watch again.

(Also, thanks for reading and sorry that this devolved into a drool-fest over all the eye candy...)

*as I noted in the comments, this is actually me chiding the David Lean of 1984 more than the David Lean of 1962.

Comments

[joecaloric.livejournal.com]

Part of your issues with Lean's film is that you are looking at it from the perspective of 2010 and not 1962. Its a 48 year old film! For most of the 20th century nobody expected actors to actually LOOK like the people they were portraying. A little makeup and you're good to go. Thus we have white people playing Asians and Native Americans, and in this case Arabs. Having an actor of Guiness' caliber was much more important than his eye color (and of course today they could have turned his eyes brown with contacts but not then.) The same goes for the overture. You're watching the film on a dvd on your tv. This film was made to be shown in a HUGE theater (like the Michigan or bigger). It was meant to be a theatrical event. So just as musicals have overtures and entre'acts. So too does this movie. The score itself was an orchestral work of art. Imagine yourself going to the Fox Theater in Detroit, having had your hair done that day, dressed up with long gloves on. You had dinner at a nice restaurant and now you were going to see the film. THAT is the context in which it was meant to be shown, and the overture works perfectly there.

I saw the restored print when it debuted back in the late 80s at the Wang Center in Boston. It was an amazing experience.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I do take your point, but Guinness was getting cast as "the exotic" well into the 80s (case in point, Passage to India, also a Lean film, from 1984)!

Also, I stand by what I said about the overture. A movie is NOT a play and he shouldn't be treating it like one; directors get into major trouble when they try to make a movie just like a play. A movie is a visual medium, and expecting the audience to sit through 4+ minutes of overture with no visuals is asking for trouble, IMO.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I also am not sure I agree with you about directors not caring if actors looked the role: they chose O'Toole I think for the resemblance, and why cast Sharif as Ali if they didn't care to get the Arabic characters to look Arabic?

[joecaloric.livejournal.com]

Sharif was also a very popular actor at the time, so his actually being arab was just a plus. Also he was like the ONLY arab big time actor at the time. I certainly can't think of another.

And obviously you can think what you want about the overture, but it doesn't bother me and it didn't bother audiences in 1962. I just think our attention spans are shorter now and our expectations are different. It was not that weird for epic films to have overture, entre'act and exit music. Gone With The Wind, and The Ten Commandments are two other examples of the same thing.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was Sharif's first English-language role- he'd only been in Egyptian cinema up until that point.

I agree that I am looking back with a modern eye, but I also think that some movies (or movie tropes) don't really stand the test of time. I find, for instance, some older movies that are technically good almost unwatchable because of racism and sexism that was unremarkable at the time.

The overture is quite beautiful, but I didn't have the patience for it in a movie that is ALREADY 3+ hours long!

My beef about Alec Guinness's casting is really more a "shame on you" to the David Lean of 1984 than it is to the David lean of 1962. What was understandable in 1962 - choosing Guinness because he had the gravitas to pull of the role of a king/emir, even though he doesn't look the part - is less forgivable in 1984, at which point there were a lot more Indian actors that could have played Godbole.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Heh, also please note that I cheerfully said I was a Philistine about the issue, and that overall, I loved the movie, in fact thought it was fantastic.

It boggles the mind that some people find it boring; it's long, but it's pretty action packed and the acting, music, sets & costumes are STUNNING. I didn't realize it until looking it up, but it actually approaches being FOUR hours long, which is long even for a stage play with intermission (my family was heavily involved in community theater, so I'm not ignorant of that field). It seemed to go faster because it's actually well-paced for such a long movie.

[joecaloric.livejournal.com]

I agree about the pacing. Very well done and the length is part of what makes it an epic. It is an event to watch it. And since it doesn't bog down that makes it a success.

As far as the Godbole thing (I'm not sure I've even SEEN Passage) you have a point there, but don't underestimate the power of having worked together before. SO much about filmmaking is using people you know.

I've really never been bothered by racism or sexism in older movies. I just see them as products of their times. I tend not to look at them with a modern eye. But then, I'm really not very critical of movies for someone with a film degree. lol