What a privilege, to be able to see today (July 2003) one of the best films of all time in all of it’s big-screen glory, some forty-one years since it’s opening night (1962)!
Lawrence of Arabia, at the Stanford Theater tonight, surrounded by a large crowd of people was just astounding.
I remember little from my first attempt at watching this epic. If my memory serves me right it was on Spanish TV and I tried to tape it, but 4 hrs. worth of VHS tape weren’t enough to fit the movie with all those silly commercials. Thank God for that! It was probably thanks to the unfortunate cut of the last few minutes that I was even more eager to see it today at the Stanford!
The widescreen format was meant for epics such as this one. The fine photography of the desert, blue skies and blue eyes of O’Toole are just magnificent on the big wide screen.
If you add to that a tremendously interesting script, you have movie magic at it’s best.
A couple of themes have resonated, one of them being the concept of “home” for T. E. Lawrence. The connection he feels with the desert is eerily familiar for me and Silicon Valley/California. There is also a line of dialog that goes something like:
Auda: When Aurens has got what he wants, he will go home. When you have got what you want, you will go home.
And this is truly an interesting way to put things for somebody like me who: a) doesn’t really know for sure where home is anymore, b) would like to know what it is that he wants that keeps him searching before he goes home.
But -then again- maybe that wonderful statement is just that: good movie dialog. Nothing more, nothing less.
Lawrence’s messianic egotistical impulses are also interesting, and they make for a rather dark second half of the feature. But a terribly interesting one at that!
Watching such a great movie surrounded by such a great audience in such a great theater made me think of the place I live in once again. And why there is a (self imposed? outside influenced?) need for me to move up to San Francisco. What is calling me up there?