100 - Lawrence of Arabia

100 - Lawrence of Arabia (8.3)

The first film in the list is the 1962 epic, Lawrence of Arabia. It's synopsis on IMDB says it's The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.

Based on a true story, and lasting for a very, very long 3 hours and 47 minutes, this took us about 5 sittings to watch. I had not seen it before and knew nothing of the story. The only thing I did know was parts of it were filmed in Morocco (Aït Benhaddou) and Jordan (Wadi Rum), both places where I've been on holiday and been told by excited guides "this is where they filmed Lawrence of Arabia".

The film stars Peter O' Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn and Omar Sharif and was directed by David Lean.

In 1963 it won 7 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography (Color), Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Music Score, Best Art Direction and was nominated for lots of others. It won the BAFTA for Best British Film and two other and Peter O'Toole won Best Actor. 

But was it any good?

I enjoyed it way more than I expected. It was a little confusing as I didn't know anything about the real story and the nuances in the politics in the Middle East; reading the Wikipedia synopsis helped. It was sometimes hard to keep track of who was who. It was notable that there were no female characters in the film (although I think this was probably a fair representation of the time the film was set).

I quickly came to like Lawrence as a character, he was very eccentric and was I rooting for him to succeed in his missions. There were some moments that made me laugh, and I enjoyed watching him enjoying his new outfit. I thought it was clever that throughout most of the film, the action moves from left to right (or West to East) mirroring Lawrence's journey. The first probably 3/4 of the film was at a leisurely pace with lots of details but then seemed to be over too quickly with what felt like an abrupt end. 

This was released in 1962 (20 years before I was born) so I imagine that for the people who watched it when it first came out this would have been exotic and they would have been impressed by the scale (a huge cast of extras and camels), colours and long shots of desert scenery. 

I'm going to re-order the list to my preferences at the end of the challenge, but going to rate this as:

I wouldn't actively choose to re-watch it soon but wouldn't avoid it, probably watch again within the next 5-10 years.

Have you seen it? What do you think?