We thought we'd try a different format for our review this time, and we sent each other questions about the movie. We'll give you our Q&A here (with minimal rebuttals).
LK's questions to B:
LK: Did you know anything about this movie or the historical events referred to before you watched it? How did that affect your viewing experience?
B: I did not have the foggiest idea about anything.
LK: Me either.
LK: Did you used to think your tv was plenty large?
B: Yup. Boy, those epic desert scenes make the camels look puny.
LK: What did you enjoy the most? What was the most moving?
B: The movie as a whole was good, but I don't think I have any particular scene that was most enjoyable or moving. More like a flat feeling throughout.
LK: What were the Oscar-earning qualities of the movie, at least from your first impression?
B: It won an Oscar? [apparently it did].
LK: There were no individual female characters in the movie.Did it seem like an omission?
B: Nope. This is a movie about a guy in a war lead by other men, almost all takes place in the desert in a culture that shelters women from the eyes of other males (with whatever implications you might want to read into it with your Western XXI century sensitivities) so women are sheltered thus.
LK: In fact, women appear three times: the Harith women -- no faces -- watching a dinner behind a curtain, and also seeing their men off to war (with uluations), and some women in a ransacked village (dead), but there are dead men too. In context, significant female characters would have been way too Hollywood. Plus, there's much discussion that women weren't terribly important in Lawrence's life... (See Hidalgo)
LK: What did this make you want to know more about?
B: What was really going on in WWI in Arabia. How instrumental was he really in the war? As an aside, it is a great perspective on how Europe and the U.S. have had such political and economic interest in controlling the region to this day and how disgusting it is that the politics of the hegemonic countries have been unable to leave other cultures alone (and made me want to re-read E. Said's Orientalism).
LK: If your wife hadn't cheated and looked at IMDB, do you think you would have ever placed Alec Guinness?
B: Nope.
LK: This disk had no extras, but if there were any extras, what would you want to watch?
B: Was it shot on location? How hot was it really? Things of that nature.
LK: And most important: Sharif or O'Toole?
B: Sharif, for sure. O'Toole is just a bit bland and over-dramatic about his own personal importance in the world (which might reflect the real Lawrence, hmm...)
LK: Did you know anything about this movie or the historical events referred to before you watched it? How did that affect your viewing experience?
B: I did not have the foggiest idea about anything.
LK: Me either.
LK: Did you used to think your tv was plenty large?
B: Yup. Boy, those epic desert scenes make the camels look puny.
LK: What did you enjoy the most? What was the most moving?
B: The movie as a whole was good, but I don't think I have any particular scene that was most enjoyable or moving. More like a flat feeling throughout.
LK: What were the Oscar-earning qualities of the movie, at least from your first impression?
B: It won an Oscar? [apparently it did].
LK: There were no individual female characters in the movie.Did it seem like an omission?
B: Nope. This is a movie about a guy in a war lead by other men, almost all takes place in the desert in a culture that shelters women from the eyes of other males (with whatever implications you might want to read into it with your Western XXI century sensitivities) so women are sheltered thus.
LK: In fact, women appear three times: the Harith women -- no faces -- watching a dinner behind a curtain, and also seeing their men off to war (with uluations), and some women in a ransacked village (dead), but there are dead men too. In context, significant female characters would have been way too Hollywood. Plus, there's much discussion that women weren't terribly important in Lawrence's life... (See Hidalgo)
LK: What did this make you want to know more about?
B: What was really going on in WWI in Arabia. How instrumental was he really in the war? As an aside, it is a great perspective on how Europe and the U.S. have had such political and economic interest in controlling the region to this day and how disgusting it is that the politics of the hegemonic countries have been unable to leave other cultures alone (and made me want to re-read E. Said's Orientalism).
LK: If your wife hadn't cheated and looked at IMDB, do you think you would have ever placed Alec Guinness?
B: Nope.
LK: This disk had no extras, but if there were any extras, what would you want to watch?
B: Was it shot on location? How hot was it really? Things of that nature.
LK: And most important: Sharif or O'Toole?
B: Sharif, for sure. O'Toole is just a bit bland and over-dramatic about his own personal importance in the world (which might reflect the real Lawrence, hmm...)
B's questions to LK:
B: Who was your favorite character in the film?
LK: Sharif Ali. He seemed the most...rational. (And he was the biggest babe.)
B: Is there a particular scene that you found particularly appealing (or unnecessary)?
LK: In general -- any scene with camels running across desert landscapes was really, really cool. Maybe if I saw it more than once, I would notice things that seemed unnecessary, but despite the fact that it was 3 1/2 hours long, nothing struck me as unnecessary (of course I hated the attack on the Turk troops and I covered my eyes, but the point seems to be the ugliness of war, etc., so I get that.)
B: After watching this film, would you like to know about the real T. E. Lawrence?
LK: Hell, yes. And more than just the Wikipedia entry. There is a 2008 book out on him, but I haven't found a review of it. You can get most of his own writings online, but I think I'd prefer more of a biography and historical context. I don't know a lot about the Arab Revolt. I think it would be really, really interesting and I'm sure it has a lot to do with contemporary issues in the region.
B: What did you think of the music? Will you buy the sound track?
LK: Maybe I already have...
B: What!?
LK: Kidding. But yes, I was into it. It was so interesting that on the DVD there is this explanation at the beginning that you aren't supposed to be seeing anything while the overture plays. It's a blank screen so that you are just listening to the music. It gives it a much higher level of importance as a result -- and when the same themes occur later in the movie, they have more power.
B: What prompted you to see this film in the first place anyway?
LK: Because it's famous. And epic. (I thought you put it in the queue.)
B: No. No. YOU put it in the queue.
LK: I'm pretty sure it was you...
B: Who was your favorite character in the film?
LK: Sharif Ali. He seemed the most...rational. (And he was the biggest babe.)
B: Is there a particular scene that you found particularly appealing (or unnecessary)?
LK: In general -- any scene with camels running across desert landscapes was really, really cool. Maybe if I saw it more than once, I would notice things that seemed unnecessary, but despite the fact that it was 3 1/2 hours long, nothing struck me as unnecessary (of course I hated the attack on the Turk troops and I covered my eyes, but the point seems to be the ugliness of war, etc., so I get that.)
B: After watching this film, would you like to know about the real T. E. Lawrence?
LK: Hell, yes. And more than just the Wikipedia entry. There is a 2008 book out on him, but I haven't found a review of it. You can get most of his own writings online, but I think I'd prefer more of a biography and historical context. I don't know a lot about the Arab Revolt. I think it would be really, really interesting and I'm sure it has a lot to do with contemporary issues in the region.
B: What did you think of the music? Will you buy the sound track?
LK: Maybe I already have...
B: What!?
LK: Kidding. But yes, I was into it. It was so interesting that on the DVD there is this explanation at the beginning that you aren't supposed to be seeing anything while the overture plays. It's a blank screen so that you are just listening to the music. It gives it a much higher level of importance as a result -- and when the same themes occur later in the movie, they have more power.
B: What prompted you to see this film in the first place anyway?
LK: Because it's famous. And epic. (I thought you put it in the queue.)
B: No. No. YOU put it in the queue.
LK: I'm pretty sure it was you...
5 comments:
Oh my gosh, I think you guys need to get your own movie review show. This was excellent!--Tipsy
Yes, well, we've been discussing a video podcast... ("Irregular, Untimely Movie Reviews with LK & B")
I was offered a job at the University of Memphis by a T.E. Lawrence scholar (he's got a few books out on the dude...look it up somewhere scholarly--his). This guy also doesn't like women. And, no, he's not "sheltering" them.
http://cas.memphis.edu/english/bios/tabachnick.htm
To give you additional context: The female character question was a result of us still reeling from the godawful Hidalgo not long before this. We were, frankly, relieved not to have an artificially and completely unbelievable cross-cultural, heterosexual romantic relationship stuck in to conform to some misguided Hollywood expectations. (I'm still trying to scrub this experience from my aesthetic memory...)
Is this representation of Lawrence/Arabs/Bedouins/war/male homosexual and homosocial relationships/pedophilia/masochism/mental illness/the media/the military/etc. problematic when viewed from a step or two back, armed with biographical and historical information and critical training? Most definitely. Let me count the ways!
But as a self-contained story, it rolled along fine.
DM: Or did you mean to say that scholar didn't like women?
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