One of my new goals is to watch old movies. Another goal of mine is to understand each lyric in Billy Joel's we didn't start the fire. Score! Two birds with one stone.
That unfortunately is the only "score" in this story. Lawrence of Arabia is a 3 1/2 hour long movie that focuses on his military service in SouthWest Asia during World War one. The character of Lawrence has a prophetic personality, everything he says has such certainty. He is an outcast of the British military, and jumps at the chance to work with the Beduin's on the Arabian peninsula. From then on, he "becomes native", until he sees the casualties and brutality of war, especially with the Beduin's and is conflicted and confused about his loyalties to himself, his country and his new friends.
I lost interest pretty early on, and spent most of the movie grading. I couldn't even watch it all in one sitting. It did start to get interesting towards the latter half, but I think I had missed so many nuances by half paying attention that I did not get the whole thing. I'm not really sure I got the whole point.
I do feel however, that I got the idea of war, and conflicting cultures and how they all work together. There was also a big about race, in which Lawrence feels he can't continue to be successful because of being White in an Arab world. It really did a good job of displaying different political structures and their struggle to work together successfully. As a history teacher I think I gleaned all that I could from it.
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