DB7

Desert movie saga Lawrence of Arabia has been named the greatest film epic of all time by a UK film magazine.

The 1962 David Lean film starring Peter O'Toole in the lead role was deemed the most spectacular epic by Total Film.

Second place went to Ben-Hur, the 1959 classic starring Charlton Heston. Third was George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy and fourth The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

O'Toole also features in Troy, an adaptation of the Homer story co-starring Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana, which opens in the UK on 21 May.

Other films nominated by Total Film included US civil war saga Gone With The Wind at number five, and the second part of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather gangster trilogy at six.

Further movies in the list included Braveheart, Dances With Wolves, Monty Python And The Holy Grail, Gladiator and The Deer Hunter.

The Last Of The Mohicans made the top 50, along with Jason And The Argonauts, The Ten Commandments, Gandhi and Out Of Africa.

Dan Jolin, Total Film's features editor, said Lawrence of Arabia was a clear first choice when considering movie epics.


He said: "Not only is it a gripping war drama played out on the grandest scale, but it deals with all the big themes - heroism, friendship, ambition, hubris.

"Epic doesn't have to mean 'old'. The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is proof that modern film-makers can do big movies as well as classic film-makers."

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. Ben-Hur
3. Star Wars
4. The Lord of the Rings
5. Gone With The Wind
6. The Godfather Part II
7. Spartacus
8. Once Upon A Time In The West
9. Ran
10. Malcolm X

Marky B

I am pleased that Lawrence won that poll.
As much as I enjoyed the LOTR and the SW movies and would gladly put them in any top ten listings,Lawrence of Arabia was a rarity in epics of that era.
I often found the so-called epics of the fifties and sixties empty of character,miscasted with a script cobbled together for a school nativity. With the exception of Spartacus and The Vikings,Roman and religious epics left me cold - that's including Ben Hur.
Lawrence of Arabia was intelligent,with an oft witty script,spectacular photography,stirring music,full of characters and made with precision of a clockmaker's patience.
Long,yes. Unwarrantingly long,no.
It was film I knew a lot about before I actually seen it,so I went sat down to watch the tv-video recording knowing what to expect. I finally got the proper video version and now I possess the DVD. My only grief is that I have never seen it on the big screen.
David Lean made it like a stage play,but on a stage bigger than a theatre. You see Lawrence's death,his memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral (where it was questioned he whether he was it) and the flashback to his days as a cartographer.
All key characters come into his life:Mr Dryden (Claude Raines),Colonel Brighton (Anthony Quayle),Prince Feisal (Alec Guinness),Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif),Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn),Colonel Allenby (Jack Hawkins),Jackson Bentley (Arthur Kennedy). They shape Lawrence's life,but in turn he changes their lives.
Although British,he wants to become an Arab and tries to match their prowess in the desert,drinking when they drink and conforming to barbarism to save further grief between tribes (his shooting of Gaseem,played by IS Johar).
He relishes in battle,gaining a perverse satisfaction in the killing of Turks. Perhaps a result of his encounter with the Turkish bey (Jose Ferrer). He tries to set up an Arab council,but the tribes are at odds each other (a la the Middle East now),the result being a chaotic order.
In the end he is a disillusioned man,having sacrificed his role in the British military to help the Arabs,but to find it an impossible dream.
Peter O'Toole (which he should have won a joint Best Actor Oscar with Gregory Peck) carried the film through as the central character,rarely off screen,with others feeding off him.
Ali Sherif leaves the centre stage,as does Auda Abu as Lawrence's future is decided by Allenby,Feisal,Dryden and Brighton. Lawrence,the main man throughout the film,stands in the shadow as others discuss him as if he wasn't there. His days of glory are over.
He leaves in a car driven by Brian Pringle,passing a caravan of camels,hoping to see for the last time his friend Ali,but to no avail. He passes a truck carrying troops singing "Goodbye,Dolly Gray" - his heart heavy of going back to England,missing the Arabs already. Then a motorcyclist passes,he watches and takes an interest in thing that one day will kill him.
In Lawrence,the sun and the sand are characters too,whether it is the opening dramatic vista from Anne V Coates' clever cut from extinguished match to the throbbing glowing of the sun,then the outburst of sand,blue sky and sun,to the relentness crossing of the sun's Anvil to get to Aqaba.
A remake of this film should never happen,as it could not be bettered. Despite a wealth of directorial talents of today,the David Leans don't come ten a penny. As described in the Radio Times,his handling of the film was "magisterial".
In my view,it is the greatest British film ever made (I know it had American money,but the pedigree was British),a lesson in movie making,a lesson of pooling the maximum talent to the maximum effect and delivering a film to leave us satisfied,nourished,with gratitude to such genius.
Amen.
Marky B thumbs_u

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

Genevieve's Mechanic

[quote]Originally posted by DB7:
[QB] Desert movie saga Lawrence of Arabia has been named the greatest film epic of all time by a UK film magazine.

Further movies in the list included ...., Monty Python And The Holy Grail.......


ERMMMMM Epic?
Gm

AndrewLA

I'm curious what you all think of this. A friend of ours mentioned that he had just watched LAWRENCE OF ARABIA again for the third or fourth time, and how much he loved it, and what great visuals, and so on. It suddenly became apparent to me that he was unaware that the story took place during World War One. He simply assumed that somehow Britain was being an imperial bully in the Middle East by moving in on an even worse imperial bully, Turkey. The surrounding context was unknown to him. This isn't an uneducated person. But he has no knowledge at all of that time and place.

I don't see how anyone can watch this movie and not know about the world war going on at the same time. But then I started thinking, does LAWRENCE, in fact, make this clear? If you're not informed about the modern world, would you know? Did LAWRENCE, being a film from the 60s, simply assume audiences already knew that stuff?

The larger question, of course, given recent events, is whether many people today have any knowledge at all of the history of the Middle East in the early twentieth century...?

Fellwanderer

History of the Middle East in the early 20th C? I suspect many people, especially, those born post-1970, have very little knowledge of the history of this country in the early [or even mid] 20th C!

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

Freddy

To be specific about Lawrence, the film itself is a film based on historical events but it can never be regarded as a definitive history of what actually went on in "a sideshow of a sideshow". Have a read of Seven Pillars Of Wisdom or look at

Analysis: the "Lawrence of Arabia" film

A great site and a fascinating piece of work.

If we have a knowledge of history then we have to learn from it. As it is said 'those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it'.

regards

Freddy

DB7

I can understand your friends lapse. It wasn't a theatre of war we covered in great detail at school (I've probably learnt more from the History Ch etc) and LoA tends to veer more into Boys Own Adventure territory than the semi-documentary approach of many war films. Maybe he's not helped by the opening which jumps from Lawrence's crash and funeral into a flashback of WWI already advanced three years. Were it a war film rather than biopic I suppose a scene would have been devoted to the outbreak of war.

Only last week a cabbie tripped me up with the what film has no women in speaking parts?

Also, which female star wore the same coat in every film appearance?

DB7

How does the man in the street have access to information about WMD's? Most of the country was duped/lied to.

Steve Crook

Has anyone ever seen a definition of what a WMD actually is?
You can do a lot of destruction with a stick!

Steve

Steve Crook

If it's the obvious one then she was actually male, and there was more than one of her

Steve

DB7

Yep, a mine of information The Daily Express.

Marky B

It was actually: which is the only Oscar winning film where there were no speaking parts for women.
Ta Ta
Marky B

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

Marky B

And those who try to re-write history,weren't there.
Ta Ta
Marky B

I am special. The heavens always open for me.

Steve Crook

Oscar winning could be a bit harder.
The usual one is "Which film has a female lead who never speaks? And yes, it's a sound film." The answer to that is usually One Million Years B.C. (1966).

If it's a sound film then I'd assume it's a war film or a western.
Maybe All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)?
Or possibly a musical where they don't speak but sing?

Steve

penfold

If it's Best Film Oscar it has to be Wings, the only silent to win that title, otherwise there must be a few candidates, including IIRC, Wallace and Gromit's Wrong Trousers...

Bit of a Bay Window, what??