Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe HOLLYWOOD, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The good news: "Lawrence of Arabia" is being re-released nationwide. The bad news: They don't make movies like this anymore. Advertisement Forty years ago, "Lawrence of Arabia" was released to universal praise by critics everywhere: an historic epic based on the life of England's soldier/statesman T. E. Lawrence in the Middle East during World War I. It was a BIG picture in every sense of the word. The cast is among the finest ever assembled: Ireland's Peter O'Toole became an instant star in the title role; Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, Claude Rains, Anthony Quayle, Arthur Kennedy, Omar Sharif and Jose Ferrer. It would be unlikely to find a cast even faintly comparable to that collection of international players, many of them award winners. They responded to the flawless direction of David Lean to near perfection. Advertisement "Lawrence of Arabia" won the Academy Award for best picture, and many of today's critics might well vote it the best picture (albeit in re-release) of 2002. In 1962 it bested four other outstanding nominated pictures: "The Longest Day," "The Music Man," "Mutiny on the Bounty" and "To Kill a Mockingbird." Filmed in wide-screen 222M Super Panavision 70, this classic film captured the breathtaking sweep of the desert with armies locked in combat under seething suns and lethal siroccos. Most of all, it infiltrated the hearts and minds of men at war, their motives, egos, patriotism and devotion to duty. The issues were not unlike what faces the United States today in uncertain confrontations among terrorist countries and western democracies. In all, "Lawrence of Arabia" captured seven Academy Awards, including an Oscar for director Lean. In his distinguished career Lean directed the classics "A Passage to India," "Dr. Zhivago" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai." A creative giant, Lean filmed vast wastelands and hordes of men and horses in conflict. He made heroic movies on a grand scale while never losing sight of individuals' interior conflicts. Today's filmmakers attempting screen spectacles rely on modern movie science: digitization, forced perspective, special effects and highly technical procedures that did not exist 40 years ago. Advertisement When Lean rolled the cameras on thousands of armed men on horseback charging an enemy encampment he did not have the luxury of modern pixels processed by technicians at Industrial Light & Magic or other labs. Lean assembled the necessary thousands of men and horses and brought them to location sites from faraway lands. The thunder of a thousand hooves and the shouts and cries of battle were not provided by technicians in special sound laboratories in post-production studios. There is visceral response in audiences watching "Lawrence of Arabia." No one is wondering how the handful of performers on camera were replicated a thousand times by technical hocus-pocus. The verisimilitude of the environment on screen is light years more effective than the antiseptic substitute reality of today's cumbersome science-fiction extravaganzas in the sterile reaches of outer space. Perhaps there aren't thousands of horses available anywhere for a movie company's use today. The sweat on horses and men is the result of uncounted hours in the broiling, sandy torture and grandeur of nature's wastelands. Lawrence was no super hero, no Rambo, Terminator nor a muscular freak wielding a single weapon of mass destruction. He was an English aristocrat, an intellectual serving his country under treacherous circumstances. Advertisement O'Toole's performance in the title role set a standard for screen heroes that isn't approached by today's martial arts acrobats. Lawrence is driven by intellect, logic and a love of justice. His decisions are based not on muscle mass but on a different plane, philosophical truth. Is this as exciting as watching, say, Bruce Lee or Bruce Willis punching out a gaggle of Asian villains dressed in kimonos standing patiently in line to be felled like so many ten pins? Of course it is. "Lawrence of Arabia" suggests mankind's greatest battles are fought within individuals whose decisions and actions may change the fortunes of all men who follow. This is the story of one such tortured man, Lawrence who makes difficult choices for God and country. All of this, mind you, in a murderous maelstrom of clashing ambition in ambivalent circumstances with far-reaching consequences for generations yet to come. There are no miracles, no parting of seas, no celestial stroke of divine reasoning and certainly no beautiful damsel to be reckoned with. This is not a motion picture to be seen on DVD, cassette or television re-run, nor should it be seen on a conventional movie screen. Advertisement "Lawrence of Arabia" merits an out-sized screen to properly present this outstanding achievement in today's primary art form. The timing is perfect in the slough of mediocre Hollywood movies currently in release.
