1916年、カイロに赴いている英国陸軍のロレンス少尉は、トルコへの反乱に意気込むアラブ民族の現状を確かめに向かった。そこで彼は反乱軍の非力を痛感し、アラブ種族をまとめ上げてゲリラ戦へ打って出ることに。やがて、トルコの一大拠点を巡って激闘を展開し、勝利する。そして、再びゲリラ戦の指揮官として新しい任務を与えられ、トルコ軍を打倒するロレンス。だが、一方でアラブ同士の争いが起こり、彼も尽力むなしく徐々に孤立していく。
製作費: $15,000,000 (23億円)
興行収入: $70,000,000 (105億円)
推定収支: $55,000,000 (83億円)
※製作費・興行収入はTMDBのデータを参照しています。収支は(興行収入 - 製作費)で算出したFindKey独自の推定値であり、広告宣伝費や諸経費は含まれません (1ドル=150円換算)。
監督: David Lean
脚本: Michael Wilson / Robert Bolt
音楽: モーリス・ジャール
制作: Sam Spiegel
撮影監督: Freddie Young
制作会社: Horizon Pictures
This is obviously an epic film, lasting nearly four hours with the wide, sweeping desert vistas and huge cast. It describes a fairly brief period of time out of a remarkable man’s life. I wonder how modern viewers handle the length of the movie, accustomed as they are to movies this lengthy featuring superheroes with humor and almost constant action. I don’t even remember how long ago I originally watched Lawrence of Arabia —quite possibly forty or more years ago. It has aged pretty well overall. The only negative thing that struck me when I recently re-watched it may well be due to my age. But it can be a talkative film at times, which is fine, but they sometimes talk fairly softly, and if such a scene transitions to music, I found the music to be so loud in comparison that it lifted me half of my chair. I had to have remote in hand to be ready to adjust the volume. A minor thing.
227 minutes of greatness! I've always wanted to watch <em>'Lawrence of Arabia'</em> given its standing as being one of the greats, though that rather long run time always put it on my subconscious back-burner. At last, I rooted out some time for it and man it was a well spent near four hours! I'm not going to say its length is ignorable, though it truly doesn't feel like a 3hr 47min movie - so every credit to all involved. Peter O'Toole's performance is undoubtedly outstanding, I can't really add anything more to what I'm sure many, many others have noted down the decades - he is, put simply, brilliant. Other strong performers are Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif and, albeit more minorly, Claude Rains. No-one on the cast puts a foot wrong, as expected. The cinematography throughout is also absolutely exquisite, the entire look and feel of the film is just stunning. There is much more to say about this but I'll leave that to those that have already said such things. I'm just here to watch great movies and this 1962 picture is unequivocally one of those. Quite evidently a classic, no doubt about it.
This has got to be in my top ten movies - it is an almost flawless exercise in marrying fantastic photography, casting, writing, costumes and a score into three hours of wonderful entertainment. Rumour has it that Albert Finney was offered the lead role and suggested Peter O'Toole instead. If that is true (or not) then clearly serendipity was already on hand to guide this rendition of the story of TE Lawrence, who inspired and led an Arab uprising against the Ottoman empire. The iconic scene that introduces us to Omar Sharif as Lawrence heads to meet Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) starts us on a journey mixing adventure, politics, superstition, ambition and cruelty. Anthony Quinn is superb as are, in lesser capacities, Claude Rains, José Ferrer and Jack Hawkins as his somewhat cynical, but opportunistic GOC. Arthur Kennedy helps take Lawrence's story to the world and through his eyes we see how his character is changed by all the violence around/instigated by him. Peter O'Toole conveys the emotional rollercoaster of a journey from naive, optimistic officer to war-weary veteran in a dazzling fashion. This is a true treat of a film.
Totally lives up to its reputation as a classic. A gripping story of a man that loses his soul that makes almost 4 hours seem like two, and with photography that hasn't aged whatsoever.
