Desert of History – Weekend – Kommersant
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In December 1962, the epic Lawrence of Arabia by David Lean was released. Today, this film-colossus looks almost more relevant than 60 years ago.
This historical epic is almost four hours long, filmed on 70mm film, preparation for filming took two years, shooting – 14 months. The film received seven Oscars, was included in almost all lists of the best films of all time, the music of Maurice Jarre became a classic, and the work of cinematographer Freddie Young was recognized by the American Society of Cinematographers as the best in the history of cinema. The film turned unknown actors Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif into stars, forced Steven Spielberg to make films, and politicians to romanticize the Middle East: according to Lean’s film, Arab sheiks are always ready to present Bedouin clothes to a white person as a gift. There is not a single woman in Lawrence of Arabia, there are many love stories, but they are all about love for oneself, or for freedom, or for the desert, or for one’s comrades in arms.
Lawrence of Arabia is based on the memoirs of Thomas Edward Lawrence, warrior, poet, narcissist, liar, manipulator, politician, media star, spy. He crashed on a motorcycle in 1935: someone believes that he was killed, someone – that it was suicide, the official version is an accident. The movie Lawrence of Arabia begins with the death of the hero, and then turns the hero into a myth.
Blue-eyed megalomaniac, introverted masochist Lawrence – actor Peter O’Toole lets in his smile equal parts innocence and mockery – served in the headquarters in Cairo, was impudent to his superiors and entertained his colleagues. How did this clown in an ill-fitting military uniform turn into a warrior who considers himself a demigod, into a man who, according to eyewitnesses, “barely touched the ground when he walked”, how he united the Bedouin tribes and convinced the Arabs to fight against the Turks for independence? We all see this, but we still cannot understand and truly recognize the hero. Screenwriters Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson (he was blacklisted for his pro-communist views, so he only got into the credits in the 70s) and director David Lean made an anti-epic in which the hot air on the horizon is remembered better than battles or long conversations about barbarism and revolution. Lin originally conceived and made “movies for boys” and about boys. A 100% male world, where heroism is a cross between posturing and PR, a world mixed up in war and lies, including lies to ourselves. And the main character is an endless desert that fills the human mind with sand.
When the film was released, historians and participants in the events were horrified. Brother T.E. Lawrence, an archaeologist, called Lawrence of Arabia “an unholy marriage between western and psychological horror” and donated most of the royalties to charity. Some critics called the epic a “camel opera”, a grandiose performance devoid of a human dimension, Peter O’Toole’s performance was considered hysterical, and the main problem of the film, according to critics, was the extreme simplification of the politics of the Middle East and the complete inconsistency of the on-screen character with the real character of T.E. Lawrence. Paulina Cale had the most serious complaint: the romantic David Lean never allowed himself “abnormalities”, the film, according to her, was made in “too good taste” and therefore could not be considered great.
But the smoothness and “normality” of the first, adventurous part is destroyed in the second, where Lawrence endures violence and torture, yells “take no prisoners”, turns away from the desert. In the first part, only general plans are remembered, in the second – only large ones. When the world is larger than the hero, the hero is still able to develop. When the hero begins to feel that he is more important than the whole world, this leads to collapse.
The authors did not intend to explore the life of Lawrence and write his biography. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is not so much a memoir as a conditionally autobiographical novel that describes the Arab freedom movement from Mecca to Damascus, but above all tells about Lawrence himself. What exactly he came up with and completed in his life, a man who changed names and found no peace anywhere, is unknown. It is believed that he could come up with one of the fundamental events of his biography – a story of torture and rape. So Lin, in essence, filmed a mirage.
This is probably one of the most quoted films in the history of cinema. His echoes can be heard in Apocalypse Now and The Lion King, and in Prometheus the android cosplays Peter O’Toole. Both Dunes would have been completely different without Lawrence of Arabia, not only because Frank Herbert was reading The Seven Pillars of Wisdom at the time of writing the novel, but also because for the viewer who watched Lawrence of Arabia, a shot of a man in The wilderness will always be a quote from this film. “Star Wars” Lucas and conceived as a mixture of “Lawrence of Arabia”, “James Bond” and “Space Odyssey”. And Spielberg always said that it was Lawrence of Arabia that was the miracle that inspired him to make films.
This is definitely a miracle. Lawrence of Arabia is not so much a cinematic experience as an existential one. The film is exhausting like a desert, annoying like an endless hike. Requires patience and humility. Perhaps that is why Roger Ebert said that “Lawrence of Arabia” should not be compared with “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (Lean’s previous work), but with such grandiose experiments as Kubrick’s “Space Odyssey” or Eisenstein’s “Alexander Nevsky”.
The film, like its hero, seems to be trying to overcome a force that is greater than him – and is defeated and triumphant, as if this was his goal. Lin shoots the epic, but the laws of life are more important than the laws of the genre. Lin shows the hero, but the hero begins to anger such attention.
And the main thing that can be seen today: from this film, the story is rushing, indifferent, unstoppable, not paying attention to those who think that they are in charge here. It doesn’t matter that the real Lawrence was shorter than the handsome Peter O’Toole, it doesn’t matter that the Arabs here are played by Briton Alec Guinness and Mexican Anthony Quinn and their makeup is not perfect, it doesn’t matter that in reality one of them was called differently and built completely different plans. History is not the will of one man, not summits and not newspaper photographs, history, as we see in David Lean’s film, is a desert over which the sun rises. Its wind sweeps away everyone – both those who wanted to cross this desert and those who wanted to subdue it. As T.E. Lawrence, “fools do not understand that sooner or later everything they so long to possess will possess them.”
The entire film tells how Lawrence of Arabia, one of those who “took human waves in his hands and wrote his will into the whole sky among the stars,” suddenly realized that it was not his will and not his sky – and he is a grain of sand. And the recruits who go to meet him at the end of the film are also sand. And the viewer.
Silenced, decayed, cooled down, dried up, disappeared. The desert remains.
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