Everytime I watch Lawrence of Arabia I feel like I'm wasting my life

[HEyHEY]

Seriously. Why the hell am I slaving away in Vancouver when I should be on some exotic epic adventure?

[theredpen]

1. Oh... I thought you meant that watching Lawrence of Arabia was a waste of time.

It's a pretty good movie.

[HEyHEY]

2. My favourite

[JVS]

3. Maybe Halliburton needs someone to work in Iraq.

[HEyHEY]

Well, I am learnign Farsi for the purpose of going to Afghanistan.

[HEyHEY]

5. Well, I am learnign Farsi for the purpose of going to Afghanistan.

[Paladin]

4. I Went To A Lawrence Museum Exhibit A Couple Of Years Ago

At the Imperial War Museum in London. Absolutely the most impressive historial exhibit I've ever seen---they had everything: from his infant clothing, to his desert robes, to the motercycle he was riding when he had his fatal accident, and ending up with David Lean's Oscar for Best Director. How the hell they got all this massive amount of stuff together, I'll never know; I wish it was a permanent exhibit, but I managed to see it right before it closed.

And my compliments on living in Vancouver. I went there for a conference last July and fell in love with the place.....

[Hardrada]

17. The real Lawrence of Arabia was 5'1" whereas the movie version

was well over 6 feet (Peter O'Toole). I had no idea.

[supernova]

6. They're putting all his writings online

http://telawrence.net/telawrencenet/welcome.htm

Absolutely brilliant and original mind.

Oh and LoA is the same age as me. :-) I think we're both aging quite well. ;-)

[MilesColtrane]

7. My suggestion:

Put Maurice Jarre's wonderful score on your iPod.

When your pushing a cart in the produce section and that thing is soaring in your ears you can't help but feel like a true adventurer

[JVS]

8. "you can't help but feel like a true adventurer" Even if you're just going down the hall for a whiz?

[HEyHEY]

10. Ever heard it?

Amazing!

[HEyHEY]

9. I have it!

[pokerfan]

11. My favorite film

It will be the first title I get on BluRay as it's one step closer to film quality needed to properly enjoy this film on TV.

There is a moment in the film when the hero, a British eccentric named T.E. Lawrence, has survived a suicidal trek across the desert and is within reach of shelter and water, and he turns around and goes back to find a friend who has fallen behind. This sequence builds up to the shot in which the shimmering heat of the desert reluctantly yields the speck that becomes a man - a shot that is held for a long time before we can even begin to see the tiny figure. On television, this shot doesn't work at all - nothing can be seen. In a movie theater, looking at the stark clarity of a 70mm print, we lean forward and strain to bring a detail out of the waves of heat, and for a moment we experience some of the actual vastness of the desert and its unforgiving harshness. (Roger Ebert)

I was three when it was released. I am also aging quite well. I've even managed to visit Arabia on three different occasions.

[HEyHEY]

12. I had the pleasure of seeing it on the big screen last year

Actually turned it into a radio documentary too.

[MilesColtrane]

13. Bit of trivia about that shot:

To film Omar Sharif's entrance through a mirage, Freddie Young used a special 482mm lens from Panavision. Panavision still has this lens, and it is known among cinematographers as the "David Lean lens".

[pokerfan]

14. Isn't that a different shot?

I believe that the shot Ebert is writing about is where O'Toole emerges from the Nefud with the lost man.

But I suspect that Ebert is remembering Sharif's entrance.

"Nothing is written."

[MilesColtrane]

15. You're right.

I blame reading comprehension as taught in public schools and inordinate amounts of Jack Daniels.

[ashling]

16. You feel that way

because you are. :shrug: :)

[LibertyLover]

18. Lawrence of Arabia

was one of the first movies I went to when I was a kid. My mom, who had read 7 Pillars of Wisdom years before, wanted to see it and so we went. All I remembered were long stretches of very bright scenes and Lawrence getting whipped by the Turks. When it was re-released in the early 1970s mom and I went to see it again. This time I was in college and had a real love for history. At the intermission I asked my mom if she had 7 Pillars. She said of course she did and when we got home she found it for me. I stayed up all night reading it and thus began my love affair with T.E. Lawrence. Since then I've read a number of biographies and The Mint, as well as a collection of his letters. If you have never read his report on Mesopotamia for The Times, I strongly recommend it. Change some of the names and it could have been written 2 days ago. A fascinating, complex and misunderstood individual. Thank you for the link to his writings - I hope they will have his translation of Homer.