POLLance of Arabia - the Deavid Lean Director Poll

Lean and Robert Bolt's orientalism presents itself in many ways, the oddest of which is to give the Arabs the heartiness of white executive boar members.

The film does dawdle, in part because Omar Sharif plays the conventional handsome Valentino-esque hero while Peter O'Toole gives a weird supporting performance-as-lead.

I saw it about two decades ago in 70mm and apart from the Imax like motorcycle opening it made little impression on me.

um yea it’s obviously a very beautiful well done movie but fuck white savior bullshit

/Left

Doesn't the movie ultimately mock white savior mentality?

At at least that's how I've always viewed it, partly as a movie that is a commentary on orientalism through the lens of orientalism, culminating with a message not just of Lawrence's failure as a person and as a leader, but as a failure of the whole cynical British mission.

The movie does both, I think, without quite figuring out how or why, which is its fascination for me.

Yeah, I think I agree with that, especially your choice of the word fascinating. There are not that many movies that earn that description.

Thank you everyone. I got the impression there's a rabid fanbase out there. Saying "So a blond British twink convinced the various tribes of the Arabian Peninsula--and the rest of the world--that they constituted The Arabic People?" felt like asking for trouble.

There's a definite throughline to Star Wars, quite apart from Alec Guiness--how many alien critters are basically space camels? I admire the spectacle, but if you've got a competent DP and a budget that allows for as many retakes as necessary that's not hard.

I am aesthetically offended at the idea that this film played on TV in some sort of pan-and-scan monstrosity of a cut (especially on the small B&W TVs my mother insisted on buying for years). I don't think the filmmakers were conscious of the "white savior" complex as we use the term today. But, possibly in spite of itself, it does show the feet of clay on which the idol of the British Empire was built.

hadn't seen Brief Encounter before now, it is pretty good

I remember having affection for his epics but haven't seen any of them in a long time. My recollection is that they were entirely about Hollywood movie-making and high glamour, with not many concessions to reality. The melodrama of Brief Encounter kind of points to that

LOA is more complex.

I.e. it's not just "about" Hollywood moviemaking and high glamour.

I really want to see it again

have recently seen In Which We Serve and Summertime, and want to watch Major Barbara, Blithe Spirit, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and Hobson’s Choice before going back to the epics

Hobson’s Choice is minor but worth the watch for Laughton.

I watched In Which We Serve on the same day as Preston Sturges' Palm Beach Story. They were both 1942 films but were so opposite in their views of the world