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Movies & TV

Romance in the desert

The first time I saw Lawrence Of Arabia, it was in 70mm. It was February, 1989, and the restoration of David Lean’s 1962 masterwork was enjoying a glorious engagement at the York theatre.

I’d seen portions of it previously – mostly on television, where the studio cut would turn up in a dreadful panned-and-scanned transfer – but never the whole thing, and never as it was meant to be seen.

It was love at first sight. And now Lawrence is back in Toronto for its first large-format engagement in a decade or more, playing a 70mm limited run at the Lightbox for TIFF Cinematheque’s Essential Cinema series.

If you’ve only experienced Lawrence Of Arabia on video, I’m afraid you’re going to have to clear your schedule. As I’ve said before, Lawrence is pure cinematic bliss. It’s a stirring, thrilling war movie that also works as a terribly intimate portrait of a confused man clarified – and then destroyed – by the discovery of his own lusts.

Peter O’Toole’s vivid performance as the perpetually cloaked hero made him an instant star as his most faithful and most perceptive allies, respectively, Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn became overnight sensations. The film also boasts one of Alec Guinness’ greatest supporting turns as Lawrence’s mentor and puppet master, Prince Faisal.

Some people prefer Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai and I suppose I can see that. It’s an equally ambiguous story of wartime morality, with a more conventional adversarial relationship between Alec Guinness’ POW and Sessue Hayakawa’s commandant, and William Holden providing a strong heroic turn as the witness to their madness. Lawrence ultimately is a story about a man fighting himself the closet thing the movie has to an opponent is the desert, and not just in a metaphorical sense.

Don’t worry about the four-hour running time. I’ve seen Lawrence more than a dozen times since that night at the York – including three or four more 70mm screenings at the Cinesphere – and it moves like a dream. The seats are much more comfortable at the Lightbox than they are at Ontario Place, so that’ll help, too.

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