The Massive Lawrence of Arabia Pic Spam

[przed]

Last Sunday I took a mate to see Lawrence of Arabia in an actual 70 mm print at the Bell Light Box. It is without a doubt my favourite film of all time--I've seen it countless times--so I reckoned it was long past time for a big Lawrence pic spam to indulge my love.


The Best Edit Ever
Before I get to Peter O'Toole's prettiness and the true love of Lawrence and Ali, I'm going to get all arty for a second. Because this is one of the most amazing looking films ever committed to film. Every shot is impeccably composed and lit. The score matches perfectly with the visuals. And it has the Best. Edit. Ever. (Yes, I'm an editing geek. I'm also a vidder, so that shouldn't be surprising.)

This edit occurs early on, when Lawrence finds out he's being sent to Arabia to "appreciate the situation" with the Bedouin. The cut comes here, from Lawrence blowing out a match...


...to the sun coming up over the desert. The contrast between the two images is beautiful and shocking and really tells the viewer they're in another place entirely.


Okay, enough with the arty stuff. On to the pretty.

Florence of Arabia
There is no getting around it: Peter O'Toole is a beautiful man, and he was probably at his most beautiful in Lawrence. (He's also a stunningly good actor in it, but just at the moment let's concentrate on the pretty.)

He's at his best in the Arab robes he's given after helping the Bedouin take Aqaba. Like here, where he's all dusty and exotic.


And here, where he's facing down the injured Turkish soldier who's just shot him.


Or striding the tops of the cars of the train he has just derailed, the sun glinting behind him.


Or even here, at the end, when he's gone through hell and he knows he's going to be sent home and he'll lose Arabia and everything that means anything to him. As a performer, O'Toole does angst wonderfully, and he uses that skill to the fullest in this film.


The Epic Slash
If it was just Peter O'Toole being pretty and awesome, I would still love Lawrence, but it might not be my favourite film ever. However, it also has the bonus of being one of the greatest love stories between two men ever.

Introducing Omar Sharif as Sherif Ali:

In the above scene, Lawrence is trying to convince Ali to help him take Aqaba. That he has to get so close to him to do it is, I'm sure, only a pleasant side effect.

Then we have the aftermath of the Battle of Aqaba. Notice how Lawrence has grabbed Ali's bandolier? The best part is how his hand ends up in that position. He lovingly wraps his fingers around that leather, one finger at a time. I could watch those few second over and over again.


And then we get the epic eye fucking, with Lawrence silently asking Ali to trust him.


And Ali doing exactly that, in spite of his natural inclinations.

Ah, true love.

Hurt/Comfort O Rama
But the course of true love never did run smooth. In the case of Lawrence and Ali, there's politics and racism and an unfortunate incident with a Turkish general.

But first, a warning and a biographical digression.

The warning: this bit involves some triggery stuff.

The biographical digression: I have a feeling this is the film that seriously warped me into the person I am today. The first time I saw it, I was 8. I honestly had no business watching it, and there were large bits that I wouldn't get until I saw it again at 15 (when it positively blew my mind), but this next bit probably turned me into the hurt/comfort fan I am today.

So, what happens in the film is Lawrence, suffering from hubris and a desire to make good on a promise to the English generals, visits a Turkish garrison town with only Ali. He's caught by the Turks, who have no idea who he really is, beaten, and raped by a Turkish Bey, leaving Ali to pick up the pieces

Ali makes him sleep.


Ali forces him to eat.


And Ali generally looks after Lawrence with a care that is incredibly sweet. Here, he helps him put his robe on. Awwww.


This is, however, the beginning of the end for Lawrence and Ali. Lawrence has been shaken by his experience, and tells Ali that he needs to return to his own people. Ali, in turn, gets angry, and asks Lawrence if he's thought of the other members of their group. This is the truly telling bit: he points to the others and says "Have you no care for them," but when he gets to "them" just look where his hand is pointing. It's his own hurt he's reacting to, even though he can't admit it.


Lawrence's reaction to Ali's hurt is some pretty epic hurt of his own. (I've mentioned I have a soft spot for blokes who've had the crap kicked out of them, no? I'm sure this is ground zero for that kink.)


Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
Every epic love story, alas, has it's epic end. That's no different foor Lawrence and Ali.

Lawrence does return after the rape, but he's changed. Harder. More unhinged. And then he calls for the massacre of a retreating Turkish column, and Ali can no longer overlook what he's become. Here, Ali finds Lawrence, stained in the blood of the men he's killed.


Ali walks away in disgust, but Lawrence cannot help but follow. Whatever is driving them apart, there is still something tying them together.


Which brings us to the penultimate scene between them. The Bedouin have taken Dasmascus, and are trying, unsuccessfully, to find a way to work together to bring order to the city. Auda, another Bedouin chief, has just insulted Ali, and Lawrence leaps to restrain Ali, warning him there will be bloodshed if he doesn't back down.


Given the bloodshed Lawrence has just unleashed, Ali looks at him in disbelief.


And Lawrence looks down in shame. Though you'll notice that he doesn't take his hand off Ali.


Their final scene together is pretty heart wrenching.

The Bedouin are withdrawing from Damascus, taking Ali with them. Lawrence is staying, doing what he can to let the Bedouin create their own country after the war. They both know they won't see each other again. And we get one final, hopeless bit of eye fucking between them. First from Ali.


Then from Lawrence.


Then Ali leaves the room, and Lawrence, his back to Ali, looks utterly defeated.


Though he manages one last moment of wistfulness after Ali has gone.


While Ali weeps for his loss, even as Auda prods him to admit that he loves Lawrence. (Seriously! He uses the actual L word and everything.)


Well that's it. The highlights of why I love Lawrence of Arabia, with illustrating pretty pictures.

Comments

[st-crispins.livejournal.com]

RE: Best Edit ever.

YESSSSS! I show that clip in film class.

I would screen Lawrence more but my class times are simply too short in my current college.

[przed.livejournal.com]

That clip should be shown in every film class.

If I was actually teaching film, I'd be tempted to use it in the syllabus. Though it would take a heck of a chunk out of screening times.

[dorinda.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmmmm yesssssss. Thank you for this. A beautiful film, with gorgeous characters, and so much intensity in the emotions and relationships that it always blows the top of my head right off (in the best of all possible ways). In short: PHWOAR.

[przed.livejournal.com]

What you said. Including PHWOAR!

[callistosh65.livejournal.com]

That was a *gorgeous* picspam, my dear. I haven't seen the film in a while, and this has made me want to watch and revel again NOW. YOu're right, the hurt/comfort is epic, and Peter O'Toole never looked as beautiful and perfect in a film role ever again.

[przed.livejournal.com]

It's such a fab film. I can never see it too often. There's always something new to notice. (And I've seen it a ridiculous number of times in a theatre. Probably approaching 30.)

[miwahni.livejournal.com]

'fessing up that I've never actually seen this movie, but your picspam has shown me what I've been missing. Another one for my amazon.co wishlist.

[przed.livejournal.com]

If you lived in Toronto, I'd be dragging you to see it ASAP. (I've dragged countless friends to screenings of it when I've found they've never seen it.) Barring that, you should totally add it to the wishlist.

[miwahni.livejournal.com]

Okay, so here I am, nearly three years later, to tell you that I finally watched this movie on Christmas afternoon. Oh boy - so much hurt, and so much love, and angst, and such beautiful visuals, and...and... I want to watch it again. I'd love to see it on the big screen, it was so amazingly beautiful on my little tv.
Thank you. I'd never have seen it, if not for this post.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Sigh. Thank you for letting me revisit the movie in my head this morning! Agreed re: that beautiful edit from match snuffed out to desert sunset.

I admit when I rewatch, I pretty much watch the first half (I also have deep deep love for the introduction of Auda Abu Taji -- "Thy mother mated with a scorpion!" -- and so forth) and stop watching when things get really dire. I'm a wimp that way. :-)

[przed.livejournal.com]

I can understand only watching the first half, but the darkness in the second half is at least as big a draw for me as the triumph in the first. I'm funny that way.

Agreed on Auda. ("There is no gold in Aqaba. Aurens lied. He is not perfect." Ah, Auda, how awesome you are.)

[dorinda.livejournal.com]

Aaaahahahaha. Me too, sometimes! If I turn on the TV and it's running on Turner Classic Movies, but I'm feeling too fragile for the second half, I...opt out. *g*

[gritsinmisery.livejournal.com]

You still have a 70 mm screen? They tore the last of ours down 10 years ago. *is jealous* However, when they remastered and re-released Lawrence back in the 80s you can bet your sweet ass Hubs and I were there for a showing. And when this came on over the holiday break just as Hubs was turning off the TV to go to bed, he couldn't help but stay up and watch.

This movie is both a technical and acting masterpiece, no two ways about it (I'm a lighting freak, m'self.) It doesn't hurt that it stars two pretty, pretty men, either. I had a crush on Omar Sharif before I even knew what the hell a crush was.

[przed.livejournal.com]

We lost our last 70mm screen about 10 years ago as well. (The final screening was, of course, Lawrence of Arabia. And yes, I was there for the end.)

Fortunately, the Toronto Film Fest just opened their year round headquarters, complete with 5 screens, one of them 70 mm capable. It's a brilliant space, but a huge financial gamble for them. I'm just hoping they manage to keep it open.

As for the film itself, yep, it's pretty much awesome on every level. Including lighting. *g*

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

This is gorgeous. I only ever saw the film on television, with many distractions, so I'm definitely ready for a rewatch giving it my UTMOST CONCENTRATION.

[przed.livejournal.com]

The second time I saw it, when I was 15, it was on a PBS station during a pledge-a-thon. Which meant regular half hour interruptions whilst they begged for money. I didn't care and sat through the whole thing, rapt. And then watched it again when they ran it the following weekend under the same circumstances.

You totally should give it a rewatch. There is always something new to see in it, even if you've seen it as many times as I have.

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

Yet another reason we share a brain. My favorite movie of all time. I was a bit older than you, and at the time I first saw it didin't quite get that the Bey had raped Lawrence (I actually read that in a book about him, afterwards). It's also the first movie that actually caused me to faint! The FOURTH time I saw it, I hadn't eaten breakfast and for the first time there was no intermission (the way it was cut first, there was an intermission). I came out into the street of Allentown, PA, where I was visiting grandparents, and there was a heat wave going on. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the sidewalk staring up at people who didn't realize I had just trekked through the desert with El Aurens.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Yay for sharing a brain! (I always knew you had impeccable taste. *g*)

When I was 15, I got that something more than a mere beating had gone on with the Bey, but hadn't quite grasped what. Then I read a ton of biographies about him and got it. That said, the signs of what happened are there on screen, if incredibly subtle. (It all plays out in the horror on Ali's face as he sees what's going on.)

The fainting thing is a bit alarming. Yikes!

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

It's a brilliant film but then I'm a HUGE David Lean fan anyway.

I've seen it several times as well, but not as often as I've seen some films I love less because it's emblazoned on my brain and I can sort of re-watch it at will.

You made some really love screencaps here and I've always thought that people who don't see/get the connection between Lawrence and Ali must be blind.

Thanks, petal. ♥

[przed.livejournal.com]

It is a brilliant film, and I say that even though I'm up and down on Lean. (I quite like his Dickens adaptations, but loathe Zhivago. I would have loved to have seen his take on Nostromo, though, had he lived long enough to complete it. I love that book.)

I can pretty much play it at will in my brain as well, and yet I never tire of seeing it on the screen. (I've lost track, but the number of times I've seen it in a theatre, let alone on TV, is fast approaching 30.)

As for anyone not noticing the connection between Lawrence and Ali, they'd really have to be blind, wouldn't they. Just look at them!

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

I've seen Zhivago once and that was enough.

I have the big love for Bridge on the River Kwai though, a perfect fusion of a film.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Kwai is the Sweetie's big Lean love. I can appreciate it, but it doesn't hit the same buttons for me as Lawrence.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

Lawrence is definitely the best, we were just talking about other Lean films.

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

I really need to see this film again! My parents took us to it in a cinema when I was about 14 and I was dumbfounded with glee when I realised how slashy it was becoming! (By the end I was wishing so hard that they would ride off into the sunset together, even just for a little, although obviously having seen the beginning I sort of knew how it would end)

Great picspam, thank you! *g*

[przed.livejournal.com]

You were clearly more advanced that me. It blew my head open when I was 15, and I totally knew that it was the Lawrence and Ali thing that was doing it, but I had not the slightest inkling of what slash was at the time. (Hey, it was 1980, and I was too innocent for my own good.)

That said, they so deserved to ride off into the sunset together, however impossible that was.

[beledibabe.livejournal.com]

What a great film. Love your analysis. ;>

[przed.livejournal.com]

Analysis, drooling. Potayto, potahto. *g*

[green-key.livejournal.com]

An incredibly beautiful picspam. Even though I knew the story, I just sighed my way through the pretty pretty men. *sigh* Thank you.

[przed.livejournal.com]

I just sighed my way through the pretty pretty men. *sigh*

Then my work is done. *g*

[firefly1311.livejournal.com]

Saw it first when I was 14 (1973) and lost count how often I saw it in the little theater in our town over the next years (at least 3 or 4 times a year). My twin-sister fell in love with Ali and I fell in love with the Sinai. 1980 I went to live there with beduins (riding my camel humming that lovely Music theme).
What I like best: There are no women except the distand beduins doing zaghareet when the men goes to war.

[przed.livejournal.com]

We saw it first in the same year, then. Though I fell in love with Lawrence and read every single book on him I could find in our local library.