A Few Words About A few words about...™ Dr. Zhivago -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[24fpssean]

Yes, Lawrence of Arabia is more about the legend of T.E. Lawrence than Lawrence himself. It sticks to the main thread of Seven Pillars but is made in a purely mythological sense (i.e. Icarus flying too close to the sun, there's even a shot of Lawrence on the back of the train with his "wings" spread out against the sun). O'Toole is also a foot taller than Lawrence, who was 5'3".


Seven Pillars is an amazing read. I try to do it once a year.

 

[Robert Harris]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 24fpssean

Yes, Lawrence of Arabia is more about the legend of T.E. Lawrence than Lawrence himself. It sticks to the main thread of Seven Pillars but is made in a purely mythological sense (i.e. Icarus flying too close to the sun, there's even a shot of Lawrence on the back of the train with his "wings" spread out against the sun). O'Toole is also a foot taller than Lawrence, who was 5'3".


Seven Pillars is an amazing read. I try to do it once a year.

I highly recommend the 1922 un-cut version of Seven Pillars. It's a reasonably different read. First published in 1997 or thereabouts in a limited edition, and now available via Castle Hill Press (UK) in a smaller library binding.


RAH

 

[PaulDA]

Originally Posted by PaulaJ


Also Lawrence in real life knew much earlier about the Sykes-Picot agreement than shown in the movie and his knowledge that the French and English intended to dupe the Arabs and carve up the Middle East between them was the cause of much inner conflict and guilt.


Some of this later post-war period is treated in the 1992 TV movie A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia, starring Ralph Fiennes as Lawrence and Alexander Siddig as Prince Feisal (both very fine performances) which is out on a rather fuzzy DVD. It's not entirely accurate either but no biopic ever is.

A Dangerous Man is quite good (notwithstanding its historical deviations, which are relatively minor as such things go in historical features) and I use excerpts from it in several courses I teach (Modern Middle Eastern History, Modern World History, Peace and Turmoil in Modern Times). It is quite good at recreating the mood of the Paris talks as well as providing some sense of the prevailing attitude of many westerners to "the Orient".

 

[24fpssean]

I've heard about the un-edited Seven Pillars! Didn't realize the differences were that substantial but have always been curious about them. I love Lowell Thomas' With Lawrence in Arabia for its different perspective and Thomas' wonderful writing. That will be my next read, the uncut Seven Pillars, this summer, after I finish this giant book on Irving Thalberg. A Dangerous Man is rather good, certainly one learns more about Lawrence. I always thought the best way to tell his story would be to use his friendship/relationship with Dahoum as the springboard for what he did for the Bedouin. The poem that opens Seven Pillars is undoubtedly written for Dahoum (“I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars” ). All right, RAH, I'm ordering the new and improved Seven Pillars. To think that he lost the first draft while changing trains at Reading.

 

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean I've heard about the un-edited Seven Pillars! Didn't realize the differences were that substantial but have always been curious about them. I love Lowell Thomas' With Lawrence in Arabia for its different perspective and Thomas' wonderful writing. That will be my next read, the uncut Seven Pillars, this summer, after I finish this giant book on Irving Thalberg. A Dangerous Man is rather good, certainly one learns more about Lawrence. I always thought the best way to tell his story would be to use his friendship/relationship with Dahoum as the springboard for what he did for the Bedouin. The poem that opens Seven Pillars is undoubtedly written for Dahoum (“I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars” ). All right, RAH, I'm ordering the new and improved Seven Pillars. To think that he lost the first draft while changing trains at Reading.

The drafts differ by around 25%. Major. Jeremy Wilson, who wrote the Lawrence bio, which also should be experience, publishes a great deal of Lawrenciana. The 1922 is one of the latest in library form, along with the unexpurgated 1928 version of The Mint. Visit here: http://www.castlehillpress.com/ or more specifically here: http://www.castlehillpress.com/publications/2008_seven_pillars_parallel_texts_prospectus.shtml If one can go the extra funds for a quarter goatskin or leather binding, Mr. Wilson's products are beautifully rendered. Rich blacks, but very little shadow detail. Beautiful color in the goatskins. I just received The Mint in leather, and am extremely pleased. RAH

 

[24fpssean]

!!! I will find the extra funds for the goatskin binding. I will find them. To me, it's like eating off of fine china reading a valuable book that is richly bound. Thank you so much for those links, Robert. This will be a treasure!

 

[marsnkc]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean




I think this is probably not as true as you might think. In the days of the Studio system, early 1930's through the early 1960's, films were just considered a product. Studios cranked out 52 A pictures a year, and there was very little thought given to them beyond their theatrical run, unless they happened to be a monster hit. B pictures and shorts were really made only to fill time on a double bill. Fewer than 20% of films made in a particular year ever actually got a re-release. In fact so little thought was given to the film libraries, that the powers that be at RKO had the original camera negatives for all of their films destroyed to recover the silver content. There are now no original negatives for films like King Kong, Murder, My Sweet, Out of the Past, and Citizen Kane.


It was only after studios started to realize they could rent their film libraries to TV that they again became important. Most studios didn't understand the importance of this until they had already sold off their libraries, as Warner Bros. did, selling off all their old films to MGM. The product was really not thought of as an investment.


Doug

Sean, best of luck with your book.

Douglas is right. Wasn't it Zanuck who said that the life of a film is about a month?, and Douglas, even 'monster hits' weren't given much consideration beyond their theatrical run. Ask Robert Harris!


Sean, I don't agree that Lean had lost his edge after his 'smaller' masterpieces like 'Great Expectations' and 'Oliver Twist' and no longer had to 'prove himself'. Surely 'Lawrence' and 'Twist' are two completely different animals, one a story with an 'epic' background told better in majestic widescreen color and the other eminently suited to a black and white, more 'claustrophobic' ratio. Lean was at the zenith of his powers at the time he made 'Lawrence', and if you think he was suffering from a 'bloated ease of success', I recommend you read 'Lawrence of Arabia: The 30th Anniversary Pictorial History' by L. Robert Morris and Lawrence Raskin (1992 - available through resellers on Amazon), itself a majestic telling (with priceless photos) of the making of 'Lawrence' (and the earlier attempts by others to make it, including Brian Desmond Hurst, the director of the Alastair Sim 'Scrooge') and its restoration by Robert Harris and Jim Katz. To read of the physical challenges that had to be surmounted makes this miracle of a film seem all the more miraculous. Nothing bloated or easy about the making of it. Nor the result. There isn't a wasted frame in it. No lack of 'economy of story telling' here.

(I don't know which is the most exciting part of the Morris/Raskin book, the first part detailing the making of the film or the second, describing the restoration and how close we got to losing this masterpiece. The restoration not only saved what we already knew of the film but restored - in the other sense of the word - footage that was not seen since the London premiere. To see the march into Wadi Rumm for the first time - it's beyond belief that this astonishingly beautiful and dramatic scene could ever have been cut - not to mention THE GOGGLES, well..., to Robert Harris, I'll borrow a quote from Feisal, who says to Lawrence at the end of the movie: 'What I owe you....' And from Shakespeare: 'I were but little grateful if I could say how much').


On the question of THE STORM in 'Ryan's Daughter', it's worth reading Kevin Brownlow's definitive biography of Lean. The expected storm just wouldn't materialize yet, ironically, the drizzling weather wouldn't permit other shots, forcing Lean to pack up and move for eight weeks to South Africa and a similar beach (the rocks had to be painted black to match the Irish one) that Eddie Fowlie had discovered, leaving poor Roy Stevens, an associate producer, behind in Ireland to capture a storm. Stevens got his storm, so well that it prompted a jealous rage in Lean who told Stevens to 'f**k off'. They didn't speak for two years after that. (Re-reading this part today makes me wonder if RAH had any experience with this side of Lean's personality. I wish he'd publish the record or diary he's sure to have kept of his daily experiences during the Lawrence restoration).

Lastly, so I can't be accused of straying too far from the thread, I hate to admit that I've never completely warmed to 'Doctor Zhivago' (this sounds like heresy coming from a dyed-in-the-wool Lean fan). I could only hack the first part when watching the Blu-ray last week (of course I've seen the movie umpteen times and have it in every format). The story is so depresssing, the mood never lifting right from the beginning scenes with Guinness (I can understand the poster who said he was scared of the Guinness character as a child) and of the funeral. Nothing good happens to anybody and there's a constant sense of foreboding. It's a movie I just have to be in the right (happy and secure) mood for. None of this is to take away from its brilliance as a piece of movie-making. Lean could make a film of the telephone directory and it would be brilliant.

 

[24fpssean]

Lean himself said that Zhivago as a novel was second rate, but that it afforded some wonderful visuals. The novel is agony to read. The film is agony to get through for me as well, but oddly I return to it over and over every couple of years; perhaps the visual storytelling is what I like watching (except for that god awful dissolve in the middle of the Komorovksy/Pasha/Lara conversation in the cafe, which eventually even made Lean cringe). And it is true, it is a better film the older one gets.


Lawrence is a beautiful canvas but Lean's earlier films have an immediacy, an economy of storytelling, that is so refreshing even now. I like Lawrence as a masterpiece, but I now find myself impatient with its long plodding narrative. Part II is glorious for me because it moves fast, it has the quick decisive cutting that makes Lean's early films so tight, so sharp. Part I and Part II are almost like two different films - Part I is much longer and more fluid, long long tracking shots, heavy-handed dramatic pauses. Part II moves rapidly, cuts quickly, and uses economy for dramatic effect. Perhaps this is why I consider Passage his most his deepest, most profound epic out of the last Big Five he made. No tub-thumping scenes, no visual parlour tricks, just simple, poetic mapping out of the psychology of the story. Subtle and grand and nuances - and under three hours!


That, of course, doesn't mean Bridge and Lawrence and Zhivago and even Ryan's Daughter aren't great films. I just know them forwards and backwards and they no longer offer me the complications that something like Passage does.

 

[benbess]

Originally Posted by PaulaJ

BenBess -- Lawrence of Arabia (the movie) skips over the entire post-war experiences of Lawrence's life, which includes attendance at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, his writing of Seven Pillars and the various printings (a knotty subject), his near mental breakdown several years after the war, his enlistment into the RAF (twice) as an airman, his work in the RAF testing speedboats intended for rescue of pilots and air crew downed in water, the never ending renovations he made to his small home at Clouds Hill, Dorset, his writing of The Mint -- and much more.


Also Lawrence in real life knew much earlier about the Sykes-Picot agreement than shown in the movie and his knowledge that the French and English intended to dupe the Arabs and carve up the Middle East between them was the cause of much inner conflict and guilt.


Some of this later post-war period is treated in the 1992 TV movie A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia, starring Ralph Fiennes as Lawrence and Alexander Siddig as Prince Feisal (both very fine performances) which is out on a rather fuzzy DVD. It's not entirely accurate either but no biopic ever is.


Lawrence of Arabia is the greatest epic ever made (IMHO) and I anxiously await its appearance on Blu-ray but it's an introduction to the subject and definitely not a historical treatise. Jeremy Wilson, author of the authorized biography of T.E. Lawrence, posted a very long scene by scene description of the movie contrasted with the actual historical record. You can find this information at http://lawrenceofarabia.co.uk/ Click on "David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia" under "Analysis."


The real T.E. Lawrence was a fascinating individual -- even more so than in the film. Which is saying something, since Lawrence, as played by Peter O'Toole, is mesmerizing.

PaulaJ: Thanks so much for this! Very interesting. What do you think is the best bio of the real Lawrence? I enjoy reading long biographies sometimes...

 

[marsnkc]

Ben,


I waited for Paula to respond to your question but I guess she's busy. The bio you want is the one she mentions in the penultimate paragraph of her excellent post that you quote, i.e. the one by Jeremy Wilson.

I've had it sitting by my sofa - largely unread - for more years than I care to admit (the introduction of home theater put paid to a lot of my reading - long hours at work made it difficult to fit everything in, but that shouldn't be an excuse). Ditto Seven Pillars. I'm sorry to admit that I find the beginning chapter(s) of Pillars a dry read so it joins Joyce's Ulysses ('the greatest novel never read', as the saying goes) as a book that I take a crack at every so often and give up too early on. I wish I could discipline myself to just stick with them. I've no doubt that once one gets past the topographical descriptions in Pillars things liven up. I envy those of you who've read either texts.

 

[benbess]

I'm continuing to watch this at a slow pace.


Great production design, imho. They really built much of a city for this, didn't they? I'm getting the Brownlow bio of Lean to find out. Thanks to the person who recommended that book.


The nude statues in the restaurant and theater seemed a bit over the top. I think they were emphasizing the themes of lust vs. love, but it seemed a bit more than you generally see at that kind of place. But maybe it was different in the corrupt upper classes of Russia at the time? I don't know...


The film sure gives you a feeling of a cold winter, even if it was fake snow for most of it...

 

[24fpssean]

Yes, they built Moscow on a plain in Spain, as well as Varykino (where it actually did snow at one time). The Brownlow bio is wonderful and is big enough like 70mm.

 

[benbess]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean

Yes, they built Moscow on a plain in Spain, as well as Varykino (where it actually did snow at one time). The Brownlow bio is wonderful and is big enough like 70mm.

Sounds great. Should arrive via amazon in a few days.


Franco lured quite a few productions to Spain, didn't he. I wonder what kinds of deals he gave.


I know he had his army built stuff for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, like the bridge and the cemetery, at low cost...

 

[Robert Harris]

Quote:

Originally Posted by benbess



Sounds great. Should arrive via amazon in a few days.


Franco lured quite a few productions to Spain, didn't he. I wonder what kinds of deals he gave.


I know he had his army built stuff for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, like the bridge and the cemetery, at low cost...

Keep in mind that Lawrence had scenes in Almeria.

 

[24fpssean]

Akaba is over there. It's only a matter of going.

 

[marsnkc]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean

(Sorry, couldn't resist that, especially on an RAH thread. MFL is another one of my 'obsessive' favorites I/we have to thank him for, and another that was almost lost us. I'm looking forward to that coming to BD almost as much as LOA).

 

[24fpssean]

Ha!

 

[benbess]

Was just dragged by my kids and my wife to the "epic" Prince of Persia. There's actually a good deal of talent involved in this movie, both in front of the camera (Ben Kingsley) and behind it, but more than 90% of the talent is wasted, imho. Most of it watches like a videogame, even thought they pathetically try to get a few poetic David Lean-like shots in there. The end was better than the rest, but basically the whole thing was kind of rotten. Epic movies in general have gone downhill, I think. I do like LOTR more than I should, but other than that I'm hard pressed to think of another epic that I really love in this century like I love Lean's films...


I do like Dr. Z, maybe because it's kind of depressing. No action adventure saving the world stuff, just a sensitive, intelligent, accomplished man in a difficult time making choices as he can. He's no action adventure hero. Remember the early scene where he doesn't even save or protect the woman shot down in the street? He binds her leg, but then is persuaded by his uncle (?) to let the corrupt and evil army take over. I'd bet my lunch that wouldn't happen in a big budget blockbuster epic today....Today it would star Tom Cruise, and he would protect her and shoot up those army baddies plus a whole lot more...It would be Indiana Jones and the Russian Revolution.


(And I do like Raiders and have watched it many times since it first came out, and so I've contributed to the problem--just as I did by buying four tickets for Prince of Persia today.)

 

[24fpssean]

Have had to see PoP here at work several times as part of marketing, etc., and each time I wore down the enamel on my teeth just grinding them. I know all films can't be great, or even good, but COME ON! Seven reels of dissolves??

 

[RobertR]

Originally Posted by benbess


The film sure gives you a feeling of a cold winter, even if it was fake snow for most of it...

I kept noticing the lack of visible breath in the "cold" scenes.