Lawrence of Arabia
Directed by: David Lean
Starring: Peter O' Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, Omar Sharif, Jose Ferrer, Claude Rains, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Wolfit
Rated: PG
Very rarely does a film come along that truly deserves the praise of being an “epic.”
Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean and released in 1962, is such a movie. Epic in story, beautifully filmed and at 3 hours 42 minutes, there's not a wasted frame. I've only seen it on DVD where it looks fantastic. Seeing it on a big screen, like the big one at The Palace or at the Gillioz, would be nothing less than awe inspiring.
This is the apex of director David Lean's career, and he was no stranger to epics.
He directed 19 films, including The Bridge on the River Kwai, Dr. Zhivago and A Passage to India. Yes, his “epic pedigree” speaks for itself.
Lawrence of Arabia is listed at number five of “The Greatest Films of All Time” by The American Film Institute and at number one on AFI's specialized list of “Greatest Epics.”
Deservedly so.
Lean took on what seemed to be an impossible task. The ergonomics and logistics of shooting in the desert and the breadth of the story made Lean seem like a man gone mad.
Where could he raise the money for such a wild dream? He was committed enough to throw in his own funds and while not listed in the original credits, he has since been acknowledged as the other producer along with Sam Spiegel. Spiegel is a legend in his own right, having produced The Bridge on the River Kwai, The African Queen, On the Waterfront and Suddenly, Last Summer.
As Omar Shariff put it in an interview many years after the fact, ''If you are the man with the money and somebody comes to you and says he wants to make a film that's four hours long, with no stars, and no women, and no love story, and not much action either, and he wants to spend a huge amount of money to go film it in the desert--what would you say?''
Most producers would say “NO!.”
We can only appreciate the fact that Lean and Spiegel were men with vision.

O'Toole plays T.E. Lawrence, the main character and author of the memoir on which the film is based.
Lawrence is a soldier in the British army and is dispatched to the Middle East in 1915. He soon makes allies of many of the tribal rulers of the region and eventually becomes a powerful leader in the Arab's war against the Turks. His trials and tribulations are equal to, maybe ever greater than his triumphs.
If you've seen the film, there's no way you have forgotten the magnificence of the spectacle. If you haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil anything for you.
Just suffice it to say that Lawrence of Arabia is one of the most beautiful, powerful and moving motion pictures ever committed to film. Seek out the collector's edition DVD, presented in a beautifully restored print in its full wide-screen glory. Avoid the older versions that were released in the “pan and scan format” or better still, call Mike at The Moxie and urge him to have a showing of it at The Gillioz.

The Wind and the Lion
Directed by: John Milius
Starring: Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith, John Huston
Rated: PG
After seeing Lawrence of Arabia I started thinking about other “epics” and realized (and I'm embarrassed) that I had never seen The Wind and the Lion.
I remedied that situation last weekend with a Netflix order.
It, too, is an incredible film in every way: Looks, plot, execution, production values, etc.
And it, too, is based on a true story. For me it was a very informative bit of history (besides being a beautiful movie) that filled me in with a piece of important American history in which I was sorely lacking knowledge. The body of the film is based on a real incident (but the “facts” have been changed somewhat) involving the kidnapping of an American citizen in the first years of the 20th Century and the political bargaining that went on between the Theodore Roosevelt administration and the Berbers of Morocco.
There is an overwhelming sense of a sea change in the world as it was known at the time. It was the beginning of a new century, technology was growing at an exponential rate and the geopolitical scene was evolving in ways heretofore unimagined.
Candice Bergen is the kidnapped American, Sean Connery is the chieftain behind the abduction and is doing the deed to embarrass the powers that be in Morocco as well as stick a thorn in the side of Roosevelt's empire-building political philosophy and jingoism. Roosevelt was an enigmatic president and besides his bent for empirical domination, he also had a hand in establishing the National Park and monument system, did a lot to break up financial monopolies and trusts and was a staunch proponent for protecting the environment. He was instrumental in enacting the Pure Food and Drug Act and was the first president to: fly a plane, take a submarine voyage, own a car, have a telephone and win a Nobel Peace Prize.
WHEW! That was back when presidents could get things done. His accomplishments are all the more confounding when you realize he was a conservative Republican. Political stripes were different 100 years ago, I guess.
The Wind and the Lion is a great movie and makes me long for a biopic about Roosevelt.