# Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

### reviewed by
Michael Turton

Retrospective: Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Directed by: David Lean Starring: Peter O'Toole (T.E. Lawrence), Alec Guinness (Prince Feisal) Anthony Quinn (Auda abu Tayi), Jack Hawkins (General Allenby) Omar Sharif (Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish), José Ferrer (Bey of Deraa) Anthony Quayle (Colonel Harry Brighton), Claude Rains (Mr. Dryden) Arthur Kennedy ( Jackson Bentley). Running Time: 216 minutes. Reviewed by Michael A. Turton

This awesome epic, recently re-released in letterbox format after a loving restoration, is simply one of the most greatest movies ever made. Not merely a great epic, this is a painting whose tremendous canvas hides a universe of hidden detail and subtle symbolism that give the film its oddly uncommunicable emotional power.

_Lawrence of Arabia_ is a rather strange epic; indeed, one might profitably ask whether it is a heroic epic at all and not simply a very long movie about Lawrence of Arabia. There are no redemptive moments in _Lawrence of Arabia_, because almost everything Lawrence tries his hand at flops. His dream of Arab freedom is betrayed by his superiors and by his disciples. His death -- a failed attempt to avoid a bicycle while riding a motorcycle -- redeems nothing and no one. His followers melt away as time goes on. His close friends cannot comprehend him, his supporters are using him and in the end those around him admire him without understanding him. An assurance from Lawrence ("There's enough time. Go and get another one.") is like a death sentence from anyone else. He is even forced to shoot the man he saved from the desert. And unlike the heroes of _Dr. Zhivago_ or _Spartacus_, Lawrence is neither caught up in or the mover of great events, he is merely the leader of "a sideshow of a sideshow."

Much of the critical commentary on _Lawrence of Arabia_ has focused on the fierce, obsessive acting of Peter O'Toole in the starring role, the homosexual overtones of the film's womanless universe and sadomasochism and the wondrous directing skill of David Lean in using the desert as the backdrop for his story. But many of the critics have missed the deft hints that stitch together what otherwise might be a canvas too big for the viewer to take in. For though the pace of the story is slow, it never stops; a great many changes in the characters take place; but none seem absurd or unheralded; we empathize with that impossible creature, T. E. Lawrence, yet he has not a single monologue. How can this be?

The story is not about T. E. Lawrence, and critics who complain that it is some kind of (failed) psychological exploration of Lawrence's life a la _Citizen Kane_ have missed the boat. The film tells the story of another person, half-legend, half-autochthonic creation of a godlike will, Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence of Arabia does not even have a first name; his parentage is uncertain and we are told again and again that he is a man who may create himself. Regardless of who is doing the talking, he is invariably addressed as "Lawrence." Further, we are never permitted to see him alone. Whenever Lawrence is on the screen, he is with someone, and we know him only through the eyes of his disciples, as if Lean were some modern-day Luke who had decided to film his gospel rather than jot it down in Amharic. Thus, the commentary at his funeral is not some announcement to the moviegoer that we are about to go on a journey into the psyche of a hero, but rather, it is a clue to the way in which we will come to know Lawrence of Arabia, as much a creation of those around him as he is the realization of his own flawed genius. Lawrence has no past (his dossier gives no hint of his extraordinary gifts) and, as we know from the beginning, no future. He wanders through an eternal present made manifest both in the vastness of the desert wastes and in the utter lack of references to time in the film. This is compounded by the weird rootlessness of Lawrence's universe, whose turbulence is an illusion hiding an eternal and unbreakable stability which rests on the pillars of mutual hatred and mistrust between Arab and Arab and Turk, and its absence of a future, with the British moving in and nary a woman in sight.

So Lawrence is to become a hero, a prophet even. And when do we see Lawrence awaken as a prophet? He is ushered into the tent of Feisal and there, suddenly begins speaking from the Koran and urging his plans on Feisal. And what are King Feisal's plans? Why, he dreams of going to Damascus! The Arab revolt is set on the road to Damascus. Wasn't there another man too who became a prophet on his way to Damascus? Thus we are forewarned, in an allusion that is more like an echo than a statement, of the fate of Lawrence. At one point Feisal remarks that with Lawrence, "mercy is a passion, with me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which is the more reliable." Not just a sample of his suave wit, it foreshadows the changes which will take place in Lawrence after his experiences in Deraa. Yet another reason we unquestioningly accept Lawrence's transition to sainthood is the allusions to the biblical travails of Jesus, as when Lawrence is tormented in the desert by Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish (Omar Sharif), then left alone, just as Jesus was, or when he brings back a man from the dead, just as Jesus did. And of course, the film takes place in the Holy Land, with its powerful associations for Westerners, with the Turks for latter-day Romans and the Arabs incongruously cast as Jews.

_Lawrence of Arabia_ is layered with such understated allusions. As Lawrence enters Cairo, whose deafening cacophony and crowds contrast harshly with the stillness and solitude of the desert, he is followed by an officer on a motorcycle, an officer whose voice we hear but whose face we never see. As he leaves Damascus another man on a motorcycle passes him, leaving Lawrence in his dust. We see him fading away, in the distance. Both are linked to the motorcycle which kills Lawrence, and both are harbingers of his ultimate doom. The motorcycles relate to another theme whose recurrence helps bind the film together, that of the constant and jarring juxtaposition of the world of machines and the world of the desert, which almost always results in chaos and death, as when the Turkish planes attack Feisal's camp as Lawrence arrives, or the absurd horror of the broken trains spilling their mechanical guts across the pristine cleanliness of the desert, or the slaughter of the Arabs before the Turkish guns at Medina. Another interesting touch is the strong use of color: the Arabs in blue, the British in Khaki, Dryden the diplomat (it goes without saying) in gray, Lawrence always in unearthly white (which gets symbolically dirtier as he approaches Cairo after taking Aqaba). Even when Lawrence wears a uniform as he attempts to become an ordinary man after Deraa, we can rest assured: the uniform belongs to *another man.*

Another way Lean keeps the movie from sprawling from his grasp is his use of the small. Details provide moments of transcendent clarity, like the clanking of kitchen utensils in the Turkish column moments before it is wiped out by Lawrence's cutthroats, or Lawrence's goggles hanging from the bush after his death. Muscular personalities, brilliant acting, an unforgettable score and an often underappreciated script complete a movie of staggering emotional power.

_Lawrence of Arabia_ is the finest work of an artist of almost terrifying skill. No greater homage can be paid to Lean than to say that he made a sweeping film which is almost too subtle to understand, yet so powerful that it does not need to be understood.

    Copyright 1998 Michael A. Turton

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