My boy, you will be nothing insignificant but definitely something great, either for good or evil.

Lawrence Of Arabia
David Lean 1962 UK
Starring: Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, José Ferrer, Claude Rains, Anthony Quayle

Peter O'Toole has always held a strange fascination for me. He was obviously supremely talented but as with a good many others (among them Oliver Reed, Richard Burton and Michael Elphick) his talent, and by extension his choice of roles, was severely affected by his alcoholism and reputation as a hellraiser. Unlike the aforementioned actors however he lived well into old age and often transcended the very poorest of material to deliver some of the best work of his entire filmography. Still, the zenith of all his accomplishments is commonly thought to be one of his earliest, namely the charismatic fire of his T.E. Lawrence in David Lean's Lawrence Of Arabia. In 2005 Premiere magazine held a poll asking for readers' opinions on the greatest film performances in an attempt to create a definitive top fifty. O'Toole's Lawrence topped the list (and apparently by quite a margin). Even during the film's original release in 1962 critics raved about his "desperate intensity" and "the messianic fury in his eyes" although of course O'Toole himself saw things differently, famously quipping in his own slyly self-deprecating style, "I was pissed as a fart just trying to stay on the bloody camel". Regardless he is undoubtedly exceptional, starting out as charmingly insubordinate and arrogant before moving into fierce, passionate territory, regularly veering between extremes of opinion, closing in on madness, his sparkling blue eyes betraying their beauty with a murderous severity. There's always a risk with biopics that, sometimes because of the director or the studio's own admiration or interference from the person themselves (or their descendants), the portrayal will border on sycophantism and gloss over any unflattering traits or acts that are likely to disappoint fans but Lean does well here hitting us with Lawrence's egotism and conceit, his fallibility and almost sadomasochistic enjoyment of violence, holding them up alongside his compassion, heroism and endless good intentions. He also displays a great subtlety in many scenes despite the epic nature of most of the sets (actually Jordan, Morocco and Spain), particularly in the opening moments showing Lawrence's slightly ironic death in a motorbike accident, eschewing any shots of the body or even the crash itself and replacing it with the simple yet affecting image of Lawrence's goggles hanging from a bush. There's a real respect for death throughout be it in killings that happen in the timescale of the story or in almost every characters' ability to recall how many they've slain or how many of their people have died even when the number reaches seventy-five. Another problem with the genre though is the historical accuracy of such a depiction and, researching the actual Lawrence, I have to admit that there are many points that have been twisted to better fit the narrative and some that are utterly fictitious but the film is so good that it's easy to accept the controversial changes, especially if you know little about the man himself. One negative consequence of O'Toole's notorious brilliance however is that he overshadows what's a genuinely enviable cast including Alec Guinness' well mannered Prince Faisal, Jack Hawkins' duplicitous General Allenby, Anthony Quinn's confrontational Auda ibu Tayi and particularly Omar Sharif's initially pure but swiftly disillusioned Sherif Ali (a role originally offered to Alain Delon and Dilip Kumar, although arguably neither would have been right for it). To call the film one of the finest of all time as many have is a huge exaggeration - calling it the best of 1962 is closer to the truth - but as far as O'Toole's oeuvre goes this has got to be near the top.


PETER O'TOOLE