RogerBW's Blog

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 20 March 2025

1962 historical drama, dir. David Lean, Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif; IMDb / allmovie. In a world… one man… epic.

Well, this is an epic film, of a style that really doesn't get made now that sweeping vistas and casts of thousands can only be faked with computers. A huge cast (because "stars" didn't take up quite such a high proportion of the budget in those days), lots of long shots… did someone mention historical accuracy?

Well, no, not really, and there's a twofold problem there: the script was written mostly based on Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which isn't entirely reliable in the first place, and then it was altered to make this extremely complex man easier to understand. If he's been that simple he wouldn't have been able to do the things he did.

My goodness, Peter O'Toole was young and pretty in the 1960s. He hasn't quite grown into his face here, but this was a star-making transition from theatre and TV work into film, after Marlon Brando had turned the part down to do Mutiny on the Bounty. (But really, a man that fair in the desert… where is your hat?)

Omar Sharif would go on to work with Lean again in Doctor Zhivago, probably his biggest role, but this was apparently where he met Lean and they decided to work together again if they could.

Alec Guinness as Prince Faisal lays down the tracks he would follow fifteen years later in Star Wars; indeed, it's quite shocking to see how much of this performance he'd recycle.

But perhaps because my film taste was formed in fallen latter days, I'm not as impressed by the great panoramas as I should be, and I end up noticing what a simple story and what mostly one-note characters are playing out against it. It's a film to go to the cinema and be bludgeoned by, perhaps in the manner of a modern big-budget superhero film, rather than one to appreciate for its subtleties.

I can see echoes of this in the style of The English Patient and The Man Who Would Be King, and even to some extent in Star Wars. But the thing I think must really acknowledge the influence of this film is Dune from three years later: here the messiah comes to the desert nomads and fails to lead them to what he ultimately wants, there he does manage to lead them and it still ends in dismal failure.

I talk about this film further on Ribbon of Memes.

See also:
Dune, Frank Herbert
The Man Who Would Be King
The English Patient

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