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Upon telling several friends that I had plans to view this four hour-long epic, they sighed, telling me that it was too long and tedious to possibly be enjoyable. (I guess this is just the standard web 2.0 mentality..?)

Ironically enough, there is something pleasurable about settling in to watch such an extensive film; one loses sense of time while taking in clever bits of dialogue and theme that she would have missed otherwise. While Lawrence of Arabia is a fantastic film, I would not want to view this more than once — I’d rather not crucify that magical element through objective analysis.

The film is so grand in scope, That you can’t help but be swept away by it. Even it’s running time is long. There is little subtlety in this film everything seems larger then life including it’s theme.

It’s nice to see legendary actors true talents of there time working together on a project worthy of there talents. Unlike today the only time you get to see worthy actors together for a film. It seems to be for a comic book movie or a bad run of the mill cliche ridden story. I think maybe it’s the actors ego’s of today that is less about collaboration and being shown up on screen. But my thinking is if you have co-stars it keeps you on top of your game, Though it may also be the Fact that actor’s salaries are so high today and most budgets must stay mid-size. The irony is that classic actors who have become legendary were more then willing to collaborate where as the disposable actors of today are all about themselves and there non-existent legacy.

Today the film would actually have to cast arab actors instead of classically trained brits for most of the roles. The brits do no disservice to there characters. The only one who comes close to being the same ethnicity of his character is Omar Shariff.

This film truly is the definition of word epic. Watching this film is like reading a great novel. It fills in all the details and motives for the story. Where as other directors would have condensed or explained certain story aspects in dialogue. Instead of showing them. It presents a character who is both idealistic and brave. But get overcome with his own reputation. He is capable of mercy, fear and over the top revenge.

I warn you if your going to watch this clear your calendar as it is almost 4 hours long. David Lean’s camerawork is amazing he makes everything beautiful and most of the movie takes place in the desert. There is nothing more beautiful then the sight of peter o’toole the Brad Pitt of his day. (With infinitely more talent) The sight of his piercing blue eyes n the dry landscape across the desert. You can see what made women’s heart A flutter. Yes, I am a straight male.

I’m sure with all these classic actors who were all notorious drinkers casting this film a quarter of the budget was spent on booze. The battle scenes while not as action filled as we are so used today are amazingly shot and choreographed. A true sight to behold.

It may be the definitive epic film, with its long run time, sweeping visual scope and huge canvas of battles and varying peoples. What makes it so unusual is that all of that epic trapping is put in service of a story that illuminates one complex and incredibly conflicted man. Throughout, TE Lawrence struggles with his sense of identity, loyalty and his attitude toward the violence he encounters while serving in Arabia during the WWI. It might be one of the most visually influential films ever made.

David Lean won the second of his two Best Director Oscars for this sweeping desert classic – part war film, part bio-pic, part poli-social commentary – about the adventures of T.E. Lawrence and his campaign during WWI to unite the Arabs against the Turks, with grudging British assistance. Peter O’Toole gives one of the great performances in film history as Lawrence, a blue eyed, soft-spoken romantic who finds a kind of elegance in the desert (“it’s clean”), and profits a swelled vanity when the Arabs take him in as their own in a difficult, seemingly impossible push against the Turkish army; when his carefully constructed war against the Turks – destroying their rail system, thus weakening their supply of arms – leads to a systematic massacre, Lawrence straddles the thin line between war hero and ego maniacal messiah. At nearly four hours, this is one of the few long movies that never feels its length; it begins with a script (by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson, originally uncredited due to the blacklist), which is constantly at odds with the film’s romantic vision of the desert in portraying Lawrence and his duel role as savior/egotist, and through Lean (and by extension, Freddie Young’s mesmerizing wide-screen photography), grants the story enough wealth, beauty, scope, and care to never have to rely on bio-pic cliches to make Lawrence a fully realized, conflicted anti-hero.

This Epic film sets one of the most brilliant larger than life personalities in a war that shook the world and changed the shape of politics and borders all throughout the rest of the twentieth century this war would have repercussions that last even unto today. Within this war is also a revolution the affects of which we are truly realizing with all this world shaking and grand film making I still find myself lost into this world still bigger than the characters or events that move them. This ocean desert that they all find themselves swept up in becomes a beautiful and cruel world filled with danger characters easily become lost among this desert that easily dwarfs everything else in the film. The desert controls them and shifts all things within it almost imperceptibly. Everything in this movie may be epic but nothing can over power the sands of the desert.