LAWRENCE OF ARABIA Screens September 21st at The Tivoli – ‘Classics in the Loop’

“No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing.”

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA screens Wednesday September 21st at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

“Greatest biopic ever”…”Genius in 70mm”…”A Miracle of a Movie”…

All these statements were said somewhere about director David Lean’s LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and it’s understandable. It was some kind of madness to make a movie like this in 1962. Working in the middle of desert for such a long time, those extraordinary ways of cinematographer Freddie Young, and working with that huge number of actors (and camels).

But it all worked. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is more than a glorious, expensive, old biopic movie. It’s just the ultimate movie about desert. I can feel the rays of the burning sun of Arabia desert every time i watch the movie, even if I’m watching it on a small screen. Okay, the script by Robert Bolt works because it doesn’t try to solve the mystery about Lawrence. At the end of the movie we still don’t know much about this guy. Compare it with another biopics that try to tell everything about the character they are depicting. Lawrence keeps the mystery and looks fresh every time you see it, just like CITIZEN KANE.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is one of those movies that define what great acting is. Some legendary actors play some legendary characters. Peter O’Toole shines all through the movie and shines eternally for the rest of cinema. If this was his one and only movie he still would be one of the greatest screen actors ever. Still, Alec Guinness may be the best of the best here. The way he shows the founder of Saudi kingdom is just unforgettable, funny and awesome all at the same time. Omar Sharif is excellent too as the macho Arabian who falls for Lawrence and Anthony Quinn arguably plays the ultimate wild, uncivilized man.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is the perfect big-screen movie experience. It’s overlong there are almost no women in the movie and it leaves many questions unanswered. It’s one of those very special works of art in the history of cinema that will always be praised and you’ll have the chance to experience it in all its big-screen glory when it screens Wednesday night at the Tivoli.

Here’s the rest of the line-up for the ‘CLASSICS IN THE LOOP’ film series:

Sept. 28                LA DOLCE VITA

Oct. 5                    THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956)

Oct. 12                  GONE WITH THE WIND

Oct. 19                  SEVEN SAMURAI

Oct. 26                  DOCTOR ZHIVAGO