Lawrence of Arabia: Possibly the Greatest Film of All Time?

Some movies stick with us – be it for their stories, their characters or the actors who performed and brought all the other elements to life. The same goes for movie directors. One such film that inspired a great number of film-makers of our time is The Lawrence of Arabia, an epic which follows T. E. Lawrence, a British Lieutenant, in his journey as a liaison between the Arabs and the British in their fight against the Turks.

The Lawrence of Arabia won 7 of the 10 Oscars it was nominated for, and by doing so, cemented its position as one the most extra-ordinary pieces of cinema out there. What made The Lawrence of Arabia so special? Each film-maker has their own set of reasons for loving the movie, check all of them out below:

Steven Spielberg, director of renowned films such as Jaws, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan first watched The Lawrence of Arabia in a small theatre in Phoenix, Arizona when it released back in 1962, but was late to realize how big an impression the film left on him. “It pulverized me,” He told Laurent Bouzereau, a film historian and documentary film-maker, during an interview. The experience of sitting through Lawrence of Arabia left Spielberg stunned, speechless and hungry for knowledge – he wanted to learn how such magnificent films were made. The movie effected Spielberg so greatly that he even went out and bought the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack conducted by Maurice Jarre and performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He played it repeatedly over the course of several months after watching the film. Having grown up in a desert city such as Phoenix, Spielberg stated that he felt something similar to a kinship towards T. E. Lawrence’s story.

Spielberg idolized David Lean, the director of “The Lawrence of Arabia(TLOA)”, and dreamt of meeting him someday – and when that day actually did arrive, the experience of meeting the director of his favorite movie did not disappoint Spielberg in the slightest. Since watching The Lawrence of Arabia, Spielberg had often wondered how some of the shots in the film were achieved.

“There was a scene is the film in which camels treaded on the sand for three quarters of a mile. How do you erase those foot-prints? How do you set up for take-two?” Spielberg had enquired Lean upon meeting his guru face-to-face, to which Lean had answered, “That is how you end up shooting a film for 285 days.”

To Spielberg, Lean’s intellect and wide-spread knowledge about history, current events and film was intimidating and his directorial skill, masterful. The Lawrence of Arabia can be credited as the movie that inspired Spielberg to start making movies. Even till now, Spielberg always goes back and watches TLoA before embarking on a new project – to him, this movie serves as a reminder of all the reasons why he fell in love with films and film-making in the first place.

Spielberg was part of the restoration team of the movie, as was Martin Scorsese, the director of The Wolf of Wall Street, The Departed, Goodfellas, Silence (and many more). Well-known for his gritty and meticulous film-making style, Martin Scorsese is considered to be one of the best directors of our time. While working on the restoration of The Lawrence of Arabia, Scorsese told Time Magazine that Lean had created one of the most beautiful films ever to be made. His own Last Temptation of Christ was inspired from TLoA.

Another director for whom The Lawrence of Arabia served as an inspiration was James Cameron who is best known for Titanic, Aliens and The Terminator. According to Cameron, TLoA greatly stimulated him to create Avatar.

“It owes a lot to good, old-fashioned, adolescent adventure storytelling like David Lean’s The Lawrence of Arabia,” claimed Cameron, when talking about Avatar.

The picture that you see above is one that contains a list of David Fincher’s favorite movies. The handwriting on the paper is his own. As a teenage boy, Fincher had scribbled the names of the films he loved best – films which ultimately led him to become a film-maker who went on to make critically acclaimed films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, Alien 3 and Gone Girl. In Fincher’s opinion, The Lawrence of Arabia is everything cinema ought to be. It is one of his most beloved movies to watch – as proven by the picture above – and he loves to go back to it whenever he lacks inspiration.

If you look carefully, you’ll see that there is always a pecking order. Some of the very best directors of our time were inspired by David Lean and his work, and they tried to embody whatever they took away from The Lawrence of Arabia in their own creations – movies which now inspire a whole new generation. It a cycle – the cycle of awe-inspiring cinema.

N.B – The directors and films in this article have not been listed down in any particular order.