I owe someone at TIFF Bell Lightbox a fruit basket. I wasn’t able to catch the 70mm engagement of Lawrence Of Arabia when it played at the beginning of the year, so they’ve brought it back for another limited run as part of their summer 70mm series, screening tonight through Monday and again on Wednesday.
Obviously they didn’t program it specifically for my enjoyment the January shows were all afternoon screenings, and plenty of people weren’t able to take four hours out of their workday to come down and catch one. This time around, the schedule is more accommodating, with screenings at 6:45 pm through Monday and again on Wednesday, and 2 pm matinees all weekend (and again on Wednesday).
I love Lawrence, and have seen it in 70mm four or five times I’ve lost count of the visits to the Ontario Place Cinesphere during the 1990s. I’ve also watched it on VHS, laserdisc, DVD and the odd 35mm print I even watched it on a five-inch Video Watchman during a plane trip to Los Angeles, just to see what that would be like. (Big surprise: it was not my preferred presentation.) I’m expecting great things from next year’s 50th anniversary Blu-ray release, but I don’t expect even that will rival a 70mm viewing.
Lawrence Of Arabia is the sort of movie that embodies the best of Western cinema. It’s a gargantuan studio epic that unfolds with heart-rending intimacy, using the massive scale of the desert as a backdrop to one man’s inner journey. Peter O’Toole, as great as he is, has never bettered the brilliant, complex performance that made him a movie star Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins and Alec Guinness were all pretty damn great too.
If I went on any further, I’d just be rehashing what I wrote about it last winter, and nobody wants that. So I’ll just nod respectfully in the direction of the Lightbox, and suggest that since this is very likely one of the best movies you will ever see, you should probably see it in the best conditions possible. You’re welcome.
And remember, this is a limited run. On August 12, Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus replaces Lawrence in the 70mm rig – and once again, it’s something you should see.
Spartacus may not be a great work of art, caught as it is between Kubrick’s evolving fascination with strategy and politics and the very conventional project he took over from the departing Anthony Mann. And sure, the performances aren’t nearly as well-modulated as they are in something like Lawrence. But there are individual sequences in Spartacus that are truly astonishing, and of course you’ll be seeing them in the 70mm restoration produced by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz in 1991, shortly after they’d finished restoring Lawrence to its best possible state.
This run is even more valuable in light of Universal’s recent Blu-ray edition, which has had all the fine detail and film grain removed via excessive digital noise reduction, resulting in a transfer that looks weirdly plastinated. See it in 70mm – on film – and you’ll understand what Kubrick wanted you to see. The home version just doesn’t do it justice.
