Lawrence of Arabia (1962): A Review

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

In a time when live-action cartoons and the third remake of a Hollywood story are declared among 'the greatest films ever made', it may be hard to remember when such a term meant more than fanboy hyperbole cranked up to 11. For me, it takes more than squeeing to rank a particular film in that pantheon of true masterpieces.

Lawrence of Arabia, the biopic of Colonel T.E. Lawrence, is one such film. An epic film about one man's soul, with vast vistas and standout performances directed by a titan of cinema, Lawrence of Arabia mixes the sweeping and the intimate in this extraordinary portrait of this most conflicted and contradictory of historic figures.

British soldier and intellectual T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) is sent by the Arab Bureau to find Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) and 'find out what his intentions are'. Lawrence, who loves the land and its people but feels himself also a British officer, encounters the formidable Sherif Ali ibn el Karish (Omar Sharif) who has murdered Lawrence's friend and guide for drinking out of his well despite being a member of a different clan.

Upon reporting to Faisal's British adviser Colonel Brighton (Anthony Quayle), Lawrence is his usual contrarian self, insisting the Arab uprising should remain independent of British interests in Arabia. He comes up with an audacious plan to aid Faisal's plans: attacking the heavily-defended port city of Aqaba by land. With a very dubious Ali and fifty men going with him, they make a dangerous trek across unforgiving desert before attacking, receiving aid from the bombastic chieftain Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn).

The British now find themselves facing off against one of their own who in the words of General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) has 'gone native'. Where Lawrence's heart truly are perhaps even he does not know, as he begins to become enveloped by the myth of 'Lawrence of Arabia', helped by ambitious American journalist Jackson Bentley (Arthur Kennedy).

As the Arabs continue their uprising against the Turks and the British continue their machinations on Arabia under the shady dealings of British Arab Bureau head Mr. Dryden (Claude Rains), Lawrence seems two men in one body. It isn't until his torture and perhaps rape at the hands of the Turkish Bey (Jose Ferrer) that Lawrence becomes a whole new man, filled with an almost uncontrollable bloodlust. Eventually, despite Lawrence's efforts he cannot give the Arabs a state or be completely absolved of the duplicity.

Now Colonel Lawrence, he quits Arabia to return to his own native land, a stranger among his own people, destined to 'back into the limelight'.

I have often thought that Lawrence of Arabia is less about war and Lawrence's exploits in the desert than it is about the man himself: where he began and ended versus where his myth began and ended, whether even he knew who or what he was. The key to the ultimate theme in Lawrence of Arabia is when he and one of his two servants finally cross the Suez to arrive at the canal. As this British officer, dressed in once-beautiful but now dirty Arab dress stares out, a motorcyclist comes upon them.

"WHO ARE YOU?" he shouts, and the double meaning packed into that one statement from Robert Bolt and a-then uncredited Michael Wilson's screenplay hits the viewer. Director David Lean (whose voice was the one calling out) moves in on O'Toole's blank expression as he keeps shouting "WHO ARE YOU?" Lawrence does not know who he is and can provide no answer.

Over and over this theme of the man who has no roots, no people, ill-fitting no matter what garb he wears, keeps returning in subtle ways. It may have begun at his birth, when he tells Ali that his father was not married to his mother. Despite Ali's statement that as such he is free to take whatever name he wants and create his own destiny, something in Lawrence always keeps him separate from the people of his birth and the people he has integrated to.

At one point, when forced to kill, he declares to the disparate Arab tribes, "I HAVE NO TRIBE!". While on the surface he means that he can take a life without creating a blood feud, I think it also means that Lawrence is rootless, that he is neither authentically British or authentically Arab in the way his opposites Brighton and Ali are. Both those men fight for what they believe while keeping to their honor without reservation. Lawrence, who flows turbulently between them, cannot fully commit to one or the other.

Lawrence of Arabia is helped by some of the best performances captured for film, starting with a man so breathtakingly beautiful the playwright Noel Coward remarked that if he'd been any prettier the film would have been called Florence of Arabia. While technically not Peter O'Toole's screen debut, I do not think anyone has had a larger or more brilliant opening performance than his. O'Toole, it has been noted, was in a sense wrong for the part in that he was well over half a foot taller than the real Lawrence. I don't think it matters, as O'Toole so brilliantly captured this version of Lawrence, a man forever a bit off-center, brilliant, passionate but also arrogant to the point of reckless.

Lawrence's evolution from a mere officer to a myth partially of his own creation as 'Al Aurence' and back to Lawrence is an extraordinary piece of acting. O'Toole makes Lawrence human in his uneasiness, his oddness and then his shifts to almost mythic status and then to monstrous and ultimately conflicted and tortured physically and emotionally. He starts out as intelligent but a bit clumsy, filled with the arrogance of youth and then slowly becomes a frightening figure, particularly when he leads a massacre of fleeing Turks. His cry of "NO PRISONERS! NO PRISONERS!" is terrifying, filled with fury and emotional turmoil.

Omar Sharif, making his English-language debut after being a star of Arab cinema, is more than O'Toole's equal as Ali, the Arab nobleman in every sense of the word. He too evolves from being a 'little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous and cruel' into Lawrence's only true friend and conscience. Sharif is the heart of the film: a man with a strong sense of honor, who fights for his people while struggling with a man he has grown to respect, perhaps even love as a brother but who also will take no nonsense from anyone.

I don't think there is a bad performance in Lawrence of Arabia. While perhaps Quinn's bombastic and almost loony Auda may come across as over-the-top, it fits the character of this larger-than-life figure. Quayle's Brighton is a man wholly dedicated to the British manner and perhaps the only honest British officer, a contrast from the wily Allenby as portrayed by Hawkins.

In his all too few scenes, Rains excels as the ever-calm Dryden, forever plotting to further British interests while doing his best to not leave any fingerprints.

Guinness too is excellent as Prince Faisal, even if today his casting would be highly criticized. He makes Faisal into an elegant, sophisticated, calm man, one who dreams of freedom for his people and his own way wily and shrewd, forever attempting to avoid exchanging one master for another. Kennedy's cynical American reporter Bentley (obviously modeled on real-life Lawrence chronicler Lowell Thomas) adds a touch of humor but is also a prism to observe Lawrence. We see this in two scenes where he takes Lawrence's picture.

In the first we see Lawrence at his zenith, almost a sun-god, with Bentley as his proclaimer. In the second we see Lawrence at his nadir, drenched in blood and death, with Bentley angry at the massacre his former sun-god has led.

While relegated to one scene, Jose Ferrer is masterful and chilling as the Turkish Bey, the menace and as open as possible suggestion of homosexual desire so well-captured.

If anything, Lawrence of Arabia is filled with masterful subtlety.

It also has some amazing technical feats, in particular Anne V. Coates' editing. The cut from Lawrence blowing out the match to the sunrise is still breathtakingly brilliant, as is the sequence where we see Lawrence lost in thought until he comes up with one word: Aqaba. It's a credit to both Coates and Lean that despite its massive length Lawrence of Arabia ever feels like it is dragging or padded.

Freddie Young's cinematography is equally brilliant, capturing the wide variety of desert and placing us within that harsh world. Maurice Jarre's score is also a masterful work, blending Western and Arab themes for a memorable soundtrack.

Lawrence of Arabia may not be accurate history but it is brilliant filmmaking. This epic film of one man's conflicted, complex and contradictory soul will stand the test of time long after all the sands of the desert are carried off by the whirlwinds.

1888-1935

DECISION: A+

1963 Best Picture: Tom Jones

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957): A Review

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

War Is Madness, Madness Is War...

There is exactly one scene in The Bridge on the River Kwai that features a woman. This actually puts it one woman ahead of the other great David Lean war epic, Lawrence of Arabia, which has no credited females. Like that film, The Bridge on the River Kwai is a war film that has less to do with war itself and more to do with the actions men take that defines their character. The Bridge on the River Kwai is an intelligent war film, one that mixes action with intellect.

Cynical American Navy Commander Shears (William Holden) is living by his wits in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Asia. He is biding his time before making an escape from Camp 16, run by Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa). As camp commandants go Saito is no different then others: he's not sadistic but he is not benevolent either.

Into the camp come the newest prisoners of war, a group of British soldiers led by Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness). The by-the-book Nicholson is determined to keep the British end up and follow the rules of war no matter what.

Among the rules he will not break is the idea that officers work as slave labor along with enlisted men, a violation of the Geneva Convention. Saito is simultaneously appalled and angered at what he considers nonsense. He insists there are no rules and demands Nicholson and his fellow officers work. Nicholson, as leading commander, equally stubbornly refuses.

Saito has him locked up, with his other officers locked up separately. Shears is mostly amused by this battle between these two ridiculously stubborn men, but he stays out of their own private war. Saito has more pressing concerns.

Tasked with building a railway bridge in a certain time, he finds himself way behind schedule and worse, with the British soldiers deliberately lousing up the task. Saito is at wit's end. He attempts a charm offensive on Nicholson, seeking a compromise that will allow him to save face. Nicholson, as strict as ever despite his weakened condition, stubbornly holds fast.

Eventually, in desperation, Saito finally gives up, using the excuse of the anniversary of a Japanese victory to grant an amnesty. Nicholson seems triumphant, Saito privately humiliated, and Shears takes advantage of the celebrations to make a daring escape.

Saito, however, got more than he bargained for when it came to Nicholson. Ever the proper and thorough British officer, he decides to put himself of building a proper bridge. Nicholson sees the construction project as a way to keep morale up and restore discipline to his troops, but the medical officer Clipton (James Donald) quietly suggests to Nicholson that them building a bridge that actually works might be construed as collaborating with the enemy.

Nicholson scoffs at this idea, insisting he knows best. Even Saito is astonished, perhaps shocked and even a little appalled at Nicholson's behavior and total obsession. Just about everyone thinks that Nicholson has lost his mind: in desperation to finish the bridge on time, he quietly orders his officers to work alongside the others (the very thing he insisted he would not do). The Japanese are astounded to later see Nicholson essentially raid the sick unit to find workers, and more astounded when he manages to lead a few of them into the labor.

Meanwhile, Shears has survived his escape and is recovering with the help of a beautiful nurse, getting ready to return to the States. He therefore is displeased when he meets Major Warden (Jack Hawkins). Shears has valuable intel about this bridge and is pressed to return to the jungle to help them blow it up. Shears attempts to get out of it by telling them he is not really Shears but an impostor masquerading as an officer.

Unfortunately, this hurts rather than helps Shears, as his false identity is not only already known but used as leverage against him. Reluctantly, he returns to the jungle, with Warden and Lieutenant Joyce (Geoffrey Horne), a young Canadian on his first mission. Trekking through the jungle, Shears essentially becomes redundant to the mission and Warden is injured.

Shears is both appalled and angry, not just at being dragged back into the snake pit but in how Warden, like Nicholson, insists on following protocol and procedure during war. Shears does the worst thing for Warden: he keeps him alive.

Finally arriving at the new bridge, they see its success. Unbeknownst to them, Nicholson and Saito have become, if not buddy-buddies, at least equal partners in the building of the bridge. Nicholson in particular takes great pride in 'his' bridge, while Saito can only marvel at the unintended results of British imperialism for Japanese imperialism.

Things come to a climax when the train at long last is getting closer to the bridge on the River Kwai. The mission to blow it up is in danger of faltering, and this pits Warden/Shears/Joyce against Nicholson/Saito. Nicholson spots the charges at Joyce, who has managed to kill Saito, and furiously & frantically attempts to stop him from blowing up the bridge, even calling for help from the Japanese to stop him.

A skirmish erupts as the train gets closer. After Shears is wounded trying desperately to stop Nicholson, they see each other. The sight of an enraged Shears breathing out his last word, a furious, "YOU!" seems to snap Nicholson into the horror of his actions. "What have I done?" he asks himself.

As he attempts to set the charges himself, Warden's missile injures Nicholson. The mad Colonel has enough strength to fall on the charger, blowing up the bridge as the train is passing with Japanese officials and soldiers.

As Clipton, who declined to be on the bridge and watched all this from further off, comes into all this chaos, he can only snap, "Madness! Madness!" at this sorry spectacle.

The Bridge on the River Kwai, despite its length, never flags or fails to hold your attention. This is because the film is more than an adventure or a war film.

Instead, The Bridge on the River Kwai is about just how insane war itself is, about the men who wage it being unaware of how their actions affect those under them. We see this with Shears, the cynical yet realistic figure who sees that following the rules is not important when it comes to human lives.

We see this in the slowly corroding figure of Colonel Nicholson, brilliantly portrayed by Alec Guinness. Guinness brings almost an innocence to his Colonel, someone we know is not malicious but rather rigid and stubborn to the point of idiocy.

I think many people would see Nicholson as insane, an almost witting collaborator. Some may be tempted to see him as a man of principle done in by his own rigid code.

After seeing The Bridge on the River Kwai again, I think Nicholson was not insane in the clinical sense nor was he, at least in his mind, a collaborator. What he was rather was a man blinded by his own sense of duty, like many leaders well-meaning but so strict and driven by his own ideas that all other considerations were never considered.

Nicholson objects to forming an 'escape committee' due to his legal interpretation that in a technical sense they are not actually prisoners-of-war since they were ordered to surrender (and as such, not really 'soldiers' when they were taken). He decides to build 'a proper bridge' to show British efficiency. He even angrily lectures a soldier for not doing his best in order to thwart the Japanese as being 'bad'. All these indicate that Nicholson's insanity (if it can be called that) came from his myopic view.

Lean and screenwriters Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson* show Nicholson's descent subtly. His insistence that officers work too is done so offhandedly that it almost goes unnoticed. His raid on the medical wing, however, is chilling, the obsession taking on a form of mania. The fact that a few injured men followed their pretty bonkers commander is a sad commentary on how others can go along with clearly irrational acts if they mistake loyalty for love.

Lean punctuates this moment by repeating the same music used when Nicholson is freed. At that first use, it is meant to be triumphant: that of a man besting his enemy by sheer determination. At that second use, it is more cynical and sarcastic, the triumph now gone.

Lean also shows that for all their differences Nicholson and Saito are two of a kind. Both could have gotten their way if they had bent a little, but instead both insisted on total subjugation. All that misery eventually got them to where both wanted the other to go, making things more muddled. Both at one point call the other colonel 'mad', but in reality, neither could see his own insanity.

Hayakawa was equally strong as Saito, driven by his own sense of honor yet finding his frenemy to be at turns an irritant and a useful idiot. Holden is excellent as Shears, a man who only wants to live and who is unconcerned with the craziness around him except when it drags him into things.

Holden is the everyman in this tragedy, the one who just wants to live through this yet finds that all his efforts are for naught whenever his superiors insist on going into inept choices. His best scene is when they parachute into the jungle. Warden essentially tells him that his services are not needed after all, but Warden seems unperturbed by the fact that this man, having endured so much to get out of the jungle, now finds himself a third wheel to something those same superiors insisted he was indispensable.

In turns wry and bubbling with controlled rage, you see Shears almost ready to kill Warden, while the oblivious Warden notes nothing, or at least pretends not to. Later on, Shears, Warden and Joyce get a listen to Tokyo Rose, who ends her broadcast by saying, "Don't forget, don't volunteer for anything". Even Tokyo Rose seems to be mocking Shears.

The Bridge on the River Kwai has a fantastic moment of transition. Contemplating the situation, Dr. Clipton wonders whether both Saito and Nicholson are insane, then looks up and asks, "Or is it the Sun?"; as we see the Sun, we then shift smoothly to a parched Shears, bringing the other story so well into the first.

The Bridge on the River Kwai is pretty much an anti-war film, showing the idiocy and insanity that accompanies it without short-changing the action. It is an epic that also remains intimate amid the explosions. It is above all else, a grand achievement visually and story-wise.

DECISION: A+

1958 Best Picture: Gigi

*Originally, the novel's author, Pierre Boulle, was credited for the screenplay and was awarded an Oscar for that. However, Foreman and Wilson wrote the screenplay secretly, as they had been blacklisted and were therefore unable to receive screen credit. Curiously, Boulle did not speak English. It was around 27 years later that Foreman and Wilson received belated credit and Oscar recognition for their work.

Great Expectations (1946): A Review (Review #590)

GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946)

Life Is Not A Pip For Pip...

I tried to read Great Expectations, but truth be told I found it exceptionally boring (and this from someone who loves Charles Dickens).  My friend Fidel Gomez, Jr. (who may or may not be dead) suggested I read Great Expectations a chapter a day rather than reading continuously, since it reads better as a series of adventures rather than a straight book. 

Perhaps.

I do know enough of the plot to plunge into the first adaptation of Great Expectations.  David Lean created a brilliant adaptation, mixing the moody visuals with a story that keeps one interested (albeit moving a bit slowly for my tastes).

In voice-over, Pip (John Mills) narrates our tale.  He starts out as a young orphan, taken in by his unpleasant sister named "Mrs. Joe" (Freda Jackson) and her kindly blacksmith husband (Bernard Miles).  While going to visit his parent's graves, Pip is accosted by an escaped criminal, demanding food and drink and threatening to have his fellow escapee kill Pip and his family.  A terrified Pip does as he's told, going so far as to steal the bullying Mrs. Joe's pork pie.  Before he is discovered though, the criminals are caught, and the one that bullied him, Magwitch (Finlay Currie) takes the fall for the pie.

Some time later, the wealthy but reclusive Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) requests Pip come visit her and her ward, Estella (Jean Simmons).  Miss Havisham is a truly bizarre figure: jilted on her wedding day, she continues to wear the bridal gown she had on before news of her runaway groom came to her, the wedding feast still laid out, with only the rats to delight in the mummified cake.  She wants a playmate for Estella, but in really she is training her to take revenge on all men by having them fall in love with her only for Estella to later reject them.  Pip does indeed fall in love with Estella, though she is terribly cold with him. 

More time passes in this odd game, and Pip discovers that he has a mysterious benefactor, one who wishes 'great expectations' for him.  He now abandons his apprenticeship with Joe and goes to London to become a gentleman, where the benefactor's lawyer Mr. Jaggers (Francis L. Sullivan) and his selected roommate Herbert Pocket (Alec Guinness) will handle his finances and show him how to be a gentleman. 

As is the case in life, mo' money mo' problems.  Estella (Valerie Hobson) has indeed grown beautiful and cold, turning from Pip to the dull Bentley Drummle (Torin Thatcher) whom she cares nothing for.  All this time Pip suspects that the mysterious benefactor is Miss Havisham, but we find that it is Magwitch himself, grateful for Pip's kindness and never having forgotten it.  Magwitch has made a fortune in Australia, but returning to Britain puts him in danger of getting locked up again.

Jaggers, ever loyal to the employer his shrewd legal mind won't recognize, tells Pip, "Take nothing on its looks; everything on evidence.  There is not better rule."  Why did he think Miss Havisham was his benefactress?  Why was Estella so cold?  What of Estella's parentage...how is Magwitch related to that question? 

Pip, having met his 'great expectations' and found them lacking, confronts the cold Miss Havisham and colder Estella.  Havisham, having seen the extent that her vengeance has wrecked so many lives, attempts to call Pip back, but her gown catches fire and she is killed.  The truth comes out at last: Magwitch is caught attempting to escape with Pip and Pocket's help but is killed in the process, and when Drummle discovers Estella's true past he abandons her.  Estella appears to be repeating the mistakes of her patroness, but Pip forces the window curtains open, and now perhaps Pip and Estella can enter the world with hope.

Great Expectation has all those Dickensian coincidences that I have come to see are Chuck's modus operandi.  What ARE the odds that Magwitch (the criminal Pip meets) would be Estella's father (who was taken in by Miss Havisham, who knows of Pip)?  What ARE the odds that Mr. Jaggers would be the lawyer to BOTH Miss Havisham AND Magwitch (thus giving the impression of who was helping Pip)? In Charles Dickens' novels I find that coincidence plays a major role: the relationship between the  Evremondes and the Mannettes in A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist being the long-lost nephew of the family that rescued him.  Great Expectations does not stray from these aspects (though again, never having gotten through the novel I cannot say how close it is to the original). 

However, Lean creates this creepy, moody world where Pip finds himself going from the gentleness and sincerity of Joe's lower-class to the rarified world of wealth only to find that money cannot bring happiness.  Think of those characters that have money: Miss Havisham and her greedy relatives waiting for her to die, Magwitch running from the law.  They are not happy at all, and Pip learns that those 'great expectations' are fraught with falsehoods.

Among Great Expectations brilliant moments come from the visuals.  The spooky moor and graveyard, the decayed opulence of Havisham's heartless mansion, the genteel squalor of Pip and Pocket's digs: they themselves tell us as much of the story and characters as the spoken dialogue.  If anything, Great Expectations is a beautiful film visually.

In terms of performances there is some extraordinary acting in the film.  Hunt's Miss Havisham is a cold, cruel being who by the end finds that she has been wrong.  While we don't actually see her burn (and she certainly deserves to burn) we do feel empathy for her.  Simmons, only a child at the time, is brilliant as the cold and heartless Estella.  In a smaller role, Jackson's Mrs. Joe inspires total hatred for how mean and bullying she is.

However, we can't leave out Mills' Pip, who goes from a gentleman to a man, as well as Guinness' light turn as the comic Pocket, eager to help in any way he can.

If I were to find any faults in Great Expectations, is that it feels terribly long (and this is after Lean, along with Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan, as well as Kay Walsh and Cecil McGivern, streamlined the novel).   It just felt as if the film is so long that it starts to drag.  However, this is a minor complaint. 

Great Expectations is a strong adaptation of a book I found a bit dull.  Minus the sometimes slow movement I found it to be well-made, well-acted, and well worth the time, particularly if you love the book. 

DECISION: A-