Lawrence of Arabia

"So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are."

I've been interested in seeing this film for a while, just I've been too lazy to watch the film. It was great.

Title: Lawrence of Arabia
Year of Release: 1962
Director: David Lean
Genre: Adventure/Biography/Drama/War
Rating: 9.5/10

This film is about Lawrence, an English soldier who is viewed as a man who is foolish and quite useless, he is very educated and passionate about Arabia, and he goes there to investigate the Arab revolt against Turkey during World War I.

Well to anyone who has seen this film knows that the cinematography is absolutely amazing, the desert looks really beautiful and the shots are fantastic. It really helps make the scenes more enjoyable and the amazing scenery and great cinematography make the typically long scenes presented in a traditional "epic" film very amazing and jaw dropping. What initially attracted me to this film was definitely the desert scenes, I don't know what it is, but I just find deserts interesting and appealing. I love westerns mainly for that reason, the setting is great. I also think the attire the Arabians wear looks great, sure I wouldn't wear it myself, but in a film, it's very cool, I think. When you see them riding on their camels or horses riding into battle with their swords raised, those scenes are great, they really do look like modern warriors.

The character development is very good, probably only matched by the Godfather and Citizen Kane. There are no jumps in character personality, and the way it shows two sides to some of the characters, instead of showing them in a typical one-sided view. The character of Lawrence on the outside appears very likable but he has tendencies that can make him in some eyes unlikable. Which definitely makes him interesting. Lawrence is certainly not a simple character, there are a lot of complexities to his character, and he only becomes more and more complicated through the film, he's not quite a man you can guess what he does and what he is capable of, the only thing you can be sure of is, he is very determined to accomplish what he sets his mind to, despite all doubt.

Like Akira Kurosawa does in most of his films, there are a lot of long shots in this film, and there are few close shots, only a handful if even that many, but I remember seeing one, I cannot remember exactly of who, but it did feel strange to see it there. A lot of the time you won't notice the shots used in a film, but this is one you do, it's very effective, the use of long shots in this film in particular, more relevant than in a Kurosawa film, if I may say so myself. The long shots really help showcase the beautiful desert, the armies of men, as well, the empty vastness of the desert and how difficult of an adventure the men all go through, particularly through the Nefud desert, the desert which was considered impassable, there is no water for a long while and the sun constantly shines on you all the time, there is no resting in that area.

The battle scenes are astonishing, especially the "No prisoners!" battle scene. It's good they didn't dwindle on lengthy battle scenes for effect, because it doesn't seem relevant to this film in particular. This film is not an action film, and I don't think anyone should really watch this for the action, though the action is very good and whatnot, another example is with the trains. This film I think should be viewed because of it's amazing cinematography and brilliant character development, alone, the development as I've said is matched by Citizen Kane and Godfather, the cinematography in my opinion is matched by Apocalypse Now, 2001: A Space Odyssey (I guess that's debatable for some, but I loved it) and Seven Samurai, the two combined though are unmatched by any film, it is definitely a great achievement in film history.

If your interested in seeing this film, go ahead and watch it, if it interests you, it will match or surpass your expectations, no doubt. It's over three hours, so if you have a relatively short attention span like myself it MIGHT be a stretch to watch this, I had no problem, I even skipped the intermission, isn't it interesting how they had intermission actually edited into the film, how things change, eh? Expect amazing scenes, amazing acting and fantastic characters because that's what you'll get and more!

Click me to view the trailer!