Lawrence of Arabia

Here's a classic I probably never would have rented, but thanks to Netflix I've now seen it. For starters, this movie is 3 hours and 47 minutes long so either be ready to camp out on your couch for a while or take a break at the intermission. For those that didn't know, this movie stars Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and Anthony Quinn. I'm always surprised in older movies when they get actors to play characters whose nationality and/or ethnicity is completely different from their own. In other words, there were white British guys pretending to be Arabs here. This was a wonderful movie - even though it was long. I know some people will be turned off by it just because of the length. This is an epic story about an officer in the British army that is stationed in the Middle East. Lawrence is really looking out for the Arabs and is pretty much disgusted with the way his fellow countrymen treat these people. The timeframe for this film is back when England was still trying to colonize the world. Some of the Arabs didn't accept him because his skin was white and some of the Brits didn't accept him because he dressed like an Arab. There were even several times where he was treated quite poorly by men of lesser rank in the British army because he wasn't wearing his uniform and they assumed he was a 'bloody wog'. This film reminded me of other movies and books I've read in the fact that someone tries to be a human and reach out to another people group. They do amazing things that most couldn't ever dream of doing because of their unwillingness to see other people as fellow human beings. Why is it that people are always striving to be better than somebody else? Dances with Wolves is one movie that came to mind as being similar. I'm sure you can come up with others. If you're into movies you should definitely see this one. It's said to be one of the classics and I'd have to agree. This is one of those movies on the same plane as Spartacus.