Hollywood classic offers epic adventure

Lawrence of Arabia is exactly the type of film that critics are referring to when they say that Hollywood doesn't make movies like it used to.

Director David Lean's 1963 account of T. E. Lawrence's life, which is ranked No. 5 on the AFI top 100 American movies list, is a sweeping epic and incomparable to most movies today. Lean is a master of his craft, also directing such classics as The Bridge On the River Kwai and Doctor Zhivago, and won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, for his Arabian masterpiece.

However, it was cinematographer Freddie Young, who also won an Academy Award, who made this film so remarkable. In the movie, Lawrence falls in love with the desert, and Young makes the audience fall in love with it as well by capturing its magnificent landscapes.

The film opens with the death of T. E. Lawrence, remarkably played by Peter O'Toole in his first major movie role. It then shifts to Cairo, where Lawrence is a Lieutenant in the British army during WWI. Much to his pleasure, he is soon transferred from his desk job to Arabia.

Once in Arabia, he attempts to unify the bickering Arab tribes and lead a rebellion against the Turks. After several stunning victories, Lawrence becomes a heroic leader to the Arab people and a legend to the rest of the world. Like anyone who makes it to the top he finds he has only one place to go, and that's down.

The large scale of this movie, with its vast landscapes and large battle sequences, is not like contemporary movies. While the battle scenes are not as powerful and intense as Mel Gibson's epic Braveheart, they don't need to be because this movie is driven by its story and not by its violence.

The length of the two-cassette tape movie, 222 minutes, might turn off some people, but some great movies, like Titanic and Braveheart, are more than three hours long.Lawrence remains a great movie and is better than most movies that make it to the theater these days.

If you do decide to visit your local video store and take this movie home, it is recommended that instead of renting the normal version you pick up the 30th anniversary widescreen director's cut.