Editors Note: We're blogging through We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel.
Lawrence of Arabia
‘Lawrence of Arabia’ is a movie based on a true story about Thomas Edward Lawrence.
In a nutshell, the movie documents the travels of a man named Lawrence who is sent to help the Arabs settle in Akaba. Lawrence makes friends, watches them die, and tries to earn the respect of the men who don’t trust him.
The overture, entr’acte and exit music is all very beautiful, and I love listening to it.
At one point in the movie, one of Lawrence’s servant boys alerts him to the fact that one of the large party is missing. The man’s camel is still walking with the procession but the man is not on the camel.
Lawrence tells the leader of the caravan that they have to stop and turn back to look for the lost man, but the leader says they must go on, that the man is probably dead by now and that it would be useless to find him. Spurred on by the man’s obvious disregard, Lawrence turns back alone to find the man.
When Lawrence returns, he has the man with him, and both are nursed back to health.
When the Arabs reach the country they want to live in, Lawrence promises the inhabitants that his people will not hurt their people if their people do not hurt his people. Nevertheless, the man Lawrence saved kills one of the other men. Lawrence, having to prove that his word is true, then shoots the man he saved.
In the movie, Lawrence encounters two boys who he takes under his wing as ‘servants’. About halfway through the movie, one of them drowns in quicksand after Lawrence tries to save him. Later, Lawrence tells the man who sent him to Arabia that he enjoyed watching the boy die. I was quite disappointed when my favorite character died.
When Lawrence gets back to Arabia, he is obsessed with looting and killing. He enjoys shooting trains that come by Arabia, killing all the men on them, and taking all the plunder.
Later on, at another train shooting, Lawrence’s remaining servant boy is wounded. Since the Arabs always kill their wounded, Lawrence dutifully kills the boy.
Lawrence tries to go into Deraa, a neighboring city, dressed an Arab, so he can capture it. But instead, they capture him and beat him for having blue eyes and fair skin; he’s not Arab. When Lawrence is released and goes back to Arabia, he tells his friend Ali that he is going to go back to where he came from. He will leave Arabia and get a regular job and be ‘ordinarily happy’.
Lawrence of Arabia died in a motorcycle accident.
One of the reasons why I do not like the movie is for the same reason why I do not like Lord of the Rings. There is a lot of walking. The reasons for why I watched Lawrence of Arabia and not Lord of the Rings is as follows - 1. The camels were walking, not people, and it is much more interesting to watch camels walk than to watch people walk - and 2. I was told to watch this movie for schoolwork, and I was not told to watch Lord of the Rings for schoolwork.
All in all, I think Lawrence of Arabia is quite interesting, with very good actors, but it is also very, very long.