Lawrence of Arabia
Feb. 13th, 2011 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteordustLast weekend, I watched Lawrence of Arabia, for the very first time.
It is something I have been meaning to watch for years.
And now, just like after Hikaru no Go, and after Avatar: The Last Airbender, I feel like running around, waving my arms, and telling everyone who will listen how COMPLETELY AWESOME it is.
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. COMPLETELY AWESOME. AND HEARTWRENCHING. AND EPIC.
Why did no one ever tell me this? (Except for all the people who awarded it seven Oscars and called it bigger than Ben-Hur and gave it 98% on the Tomatometer.)
Do I even need to talk about why it's so awesome? Or are you all eating popcorn and thinking, "Um, we know, it only came out, like, fifty years ago?"
Peter O'Toole is brilliant. If he never did anything else in his life, he would be remembered for this. His Lawrence is riveting to watch, by turns awkward and passionate and charismatic and arrogant and anguished. A man who fits in his homeland as poorly as in his army uniform, who acknowledges, "I'm different", who has "a great hunger for desolate places". The movie is a psychological portrait of a complicated man in an impossible situation, and I cannot imagine anyone else doing the job he did.
The script is brilliant. Some of the lines are electrifying:
"I think it is far from Damascus."
"Nothing is written!"
"They're going to get it, Mr Bentley. I'm going to give it to them."
"Do you think I'm just anybody, Ali? Do you?"
"The best of them won't come for money. They'll come for me."
The direction is brilliant. People talk about the match blowing out into the sunrise, but what I will never forget is his shadow running ahead of the cheering army, his feet striding across the roof of the train, his silhouette against the sun.
Why isn't there a comm for this? There ought to be a comm.
I have read my way through Yuletide and am working my way through A03.
I am hunting down A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia next. Though I don't know if I can bear to watch someone else play Lawrence now.
I've started reading Seven Pillars of Heaven:
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When we came.
New fandom. Fallen hard.
*sigh*
It is something I have been meaning to watch for years.
And now, just like after Hikaru no Go, and after Avatar: The Last Airbender, I feel like running around, waving my arms, and telling everyone who will listen how COMPLETELY AWESOME it is.
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. COMPLETELY AWESOME. AND HEARTWRENCHING. AND EPIC.
Why did no one ever tell me this? (Except for all the people who awarded it seven Oscars and called it bigger than Ben-Hur and gave it 98% on the Tomatometer.)
Do I even need to talk about why it's so awesome? Or are you all eating popcorn and thinking, "Um, we know, it only came out, like, fifty years ago?"
Peter O'Toole is brilliant. If he never did anything else in his life, he would be remembered for this. His Lawrence is riveting to watch, by turns awkward and passionate and charismatic and arrogant and anguished. A man who fits in his homeland as poorly as in his army uniform, who acknowledges, "I'm different", who has "a great hunger for desolate places". The movie is a psychological portrait of a complicated man in an impossible situation, and I cannot imagine anyone else doing the job he did.
The script is brilliant. Some of the lines are electrifying:
"I think it is far from Damascus."
"Nothing is written!"
"They're going to get it, Mr Bentley. I'm going to give it to them."
"Do you think I'm just anybody, Ali? Do you?"
"The best of them won't come for money. They'll come for me."
The direction is brilliant. People talk about the match blowing out into the sunrise, but what I will never forget is his shadow running ahead of the cheering army, his feet striding across the roof of the train, his silhouette against the sun.
Why isn't there a comm for this? There ought to be a comm.
I have read my way through Yuletide and am working my way through A03.
I am hunting down A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia next. Though I don't know if I can bear to watch someone else play Lawrence now.
I've started reading Seven Pillars of Heaven:
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To earn you Freedom, the seven pillared worthy house,
that your eyes might be shining for me
When we came.
New fandom. Fallen hard.
*sigh*
