David Lean's 'Lawrence of Arabia' (1962) | Patreon #63

This is a free sample from our conversation on David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962), the sweeping desert epic that looms large over George Lucas’s vision for his Star Wars saga as a whole. We dig into the film’s imperial critique, Peter O’Toole’s mesmerizing performance, and how Lean turns scale into a tool of psychological storytelling. For the full episode head to our Patreon at the link below.

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Episode Transcript

(00:14):
The hello, welcome to the Extra Credits Plus of David Lean's
Lawrence of Arabia. I'm Trey.
I'm Kelsey. So this is the next installment
of our number one Boy movie Club, our monthly series on
Patreon, where we're pairing oneof our living plus deep dives
with a foundational classic thathelps inspire and shape the

(00:35):
modern films that we're covering.
And today, ahead of our Star Wars Attack of the Clones
breakdown, we are going into Anakin's worst nightmare, which
is a vast sun scorched desert with one of the most famous, I
think, most hotly debated epics in Hollywood history.
And a film that deserves a deep dive, honestly.
But this is the first time we'veseen Lawrence of Arabia.

(00:56):
Yeah. And I'm shamed to admit it
because I know how powerful of an influence this is on so many
of my favorite film makers today.
Like Daniel Villeneuve, for example, who talked about this
movie and this filmmaker a lot during Dune Press over the past
five years. Definitely, but I mean, I always
my least favorite thing about people who like movies is when

(01:18):
they're like, you haven't seen this movie and it's like a
judgement. Like, yeah, there are so many
movies to to be seen. That's the point of the number
one boy series. So yeah, I'm I'm glad that we
watched it because yeah, there are so many visual inspirations
for like so many sci-fi movies that we love, right?

(01:38):
I mean, Dune, obviously, and we can talk like more about that
too, like even specifically withthe story being an inspiration
for Dune. But I think, you know, we both
love Prometheus. We are OK.
Yeah, I. Was waiting very big fans.
Of Prometheus. And Alien Covenant and we will

(01:59):
die on that hill. And this is David's favorite
movie. And David is one of our favorite
characters in cinema. In sci-fi, favorite villains?
Yeah. Favorite villains?
I'll say. Yeah, definitely.
But you know this is his favorite movie, so checking it
out for him. Michael Fassbender certainly
watched Peter O'Toole. A.

(02:22):
Lot for that David performance. What's hilarious about really
Scott Prometheus? He's like, I'm not going to be
subtle at all. I'm just going to show David
watching Law Lawrence of Arabia the trick.
William Potter is not worrying that.
It's not minding. Not minding that it hurts.
So yes, Lawrence of Arabia, a epic that didn't just inspire

(02:43):
Dune. It didn't just inspire Star Wars
inspired. I would say very strangely like
modern and contemporary science fiction and fantasy, but I say
strangely just because Lawrence of Arabia as a movie is a four
hour historical drama. Yeah, yeah.
With some humor and and obviously mostly tragedy, but it

(03:04):
is like a drama, like a kind of talkie movie that takes its time
in the desert. Yeah, but what is sci-fi if not
like historical fan fiction? Do you know what I mean?
It's like, it's basically like, let's take the themes of like,
dictatorships or like white Messiah figures and let's put
them in, you know, this heightened world to kind of look

(03:27):
at the dystopian reality of what's happening in our world.
So I feel like the historical drama is like almost a key part
of a lot of sci-fi films that welove at least.
Yeah. And you know, this movie is
rooted in a real history of an Arab revolt during World War 1.
And I think then it it brings a lot of stakes to the filmmaking

(03:48):
and the the storytelling. And certainly for an audience
back in the 60s and still today,when you watch this movie, it
provokes conversation for peoplethat are watching it together or
just by yourself. I'm sure you're like studying
what how this movie was inspiredand what by what events and
which countries were taken over by Britain or France.
And you're trying to wonder like, what is what are these
tribal conflicts exactly? Who do these people become?

(04:10):
What nations are they today? There's a lot of, I think,
interesting conversation that this movie leads to because it's
set in such a grounded reality and pulling from real events and
real people. But I think what you said is, is
right on. There is a sort of distance with
sci-fi that it does feel like fan fiction for for boys
usually, even though it's for everyone.

(04:31):
But like, it does feel like people trying to say what they
want politically in the Dune verse, in the Star Wars verse,
whether it's Frank Herbert, Denivel Nov, Ridley Scott or
George Lucas getting to say whatthey want without actually
having like these stakes of totally being grounded in
reality. So I do credit David Lean at the
top here for making a movie likethis in the 1960s.

(04:52):
And the politics are really interesting and complex and
sometimes murky, but sometimes very progressive.
So we're going to get into all of that.