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.