David Lean’s great epic biography of T.E. Lawrence — the enigmatic British war hero who melded warring Arabian tribes into a massive WWI fighting force — is perhaps the most physically beautiful of all war films. It’s a sophisticated, romantic vision of the psychologically scarred, class-torn, sexually ambiguous Britisher as unlikely battle hero, set against a backdrop — the Saudi Arabian deserts — of almost awe-inspiring beauty.
As Lawrence, the young unravaged Peter O’Toole heads a brilliant cast. O’Toole (replacing Lean’s first choice, Marlon Brando) plays the role compellingly, as a mix of bold adventurer and obsessive, possibly self-destructive aesthete. White-robed, rapt Lawrence is recklessly in love with the desert’s emptiness and sweep, with his battle companions like Omar Sharif’s Sherif Ali, and perhaps with bloodshed as well. (The remarkable supporting cast includes Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Arthur Kennedy as brash Jackson Bentley — an American newsman modeled on Lowell Thomas — and Anthony Quinn as the gusty desert patriarch Auda Abu Tayi: “I am a river to my people!”)
But it is Lean’s incredible desert sequences that make this movie such a heart-stopper, an adventure spectacle that grips the mind and ravishes the eyes. Lean, O’Toole and writers Robert Bolt and (uncredited) Michael Wilson keep Lawrence a fascinating riddle. But one thing we always understand, while watching this masterpiece, is his love of the desert: the vast burning spaces, the arena of adventure and pain.
– “Lawrence of Arabia” (star) (star) (star) (star) (David Lean; 1962). Noon, Saturday, The Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave.; 773-871-6604 (also noon on Sunday)
This week’s other alternative film screenings include:
FRIDAY
– “Yellow Earth” (star) (star) (star) (star) (Chen Kaige; 1984). The great breakthrough film by Kaige (“Farewell, My Concubine”), in which an idealistic Communist soldier in 1939, before the revolution, encounters a primitive mountain village family while on a folk song search. Unthinkingly, he inspires dangerous desire and discontent in the daughter. (Chinese, subtitled) 6 p.m., The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbus Drive at Jackson Boulevard; 312-443-3737.
– “One and Eight” (star) (star) 1/2 (Zhang Junzhao; 1984). A hair-raisingly violent war movie, based on fact, about the “last stand” of a group of prisoners during the Chinese-Japanese war. (Chinese, subtitled) 7:45 p.m., Film Center (also 4 p.m. Saturday)
– “Interview With the Vampire” (star) (star) (star) 1/2 (Neil Jordan; 1994). Jordan’s drenchingly macabre and madly beautiful film of Anne Rice’s cult vampire best seller about a bloodsucker cursed with a conscience and his two-century struggle with murderous mentors and fiendish fellows. Full of lyrical perversity and show-biz homoerotic subtext: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas play the vamps like eternal hunk rock stars. 11 p.m., Cineplex Odeon Navy Pier IMAX 3D Theatre, 700 E. Grand Ave.; 312-644-IMAX (also 11 p.m. Saturday; 9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday)
SATURDAY
– “Through the Olive Trees” (star) (star) (star) 1/2 (Abbas Kiarostami; 1992). The third installment of Kiarostami’s “Iranian Trilogy,” “Olive Trees” is a deceptively simple film about storytelling, truth and illusion. Based on an incident that occurred during the shooting of “And Life Goes On” — a romantic conflict between two extras — it is simultaneously real and artificial, recollection and tall tale. (Persian, subtitled) 11:30 a.m., Music Box (also 11:30 a.m. Sunday)
– “Five Empty Cartridges” (star) (star) (star) (Frank Beyer; 1960). Tense, highly dramatic war movie about a seemingly doomed detachment of five International Brigade members (including 31-year-old Armin Mueller-Stahl) in the Spanish Civil War, trapped in the mountains. Their officer dead, the quintet try to work their way through enemy lines to water and safety, while carrying a crucial message hidden in five blank cartridges. Very exciting. (German, subtitled) 6 p.m., Film Center
– “The Big Lebowski” (star) (star) (star) (Joel and Ethan Coen; 1998). Dig it. The Coen Brothers’ funny, shaggy version of a Raymond Chandler-style mystery story, set in a brilliantly observed slice of modern L.A. Jeff Bridges is “The Dude,” a ’60s layabout, in Dutch because his name, Lebowski, is the same as a local rich guy with woman and money troubles. John Goodman and Steve Buscemi are Dude’s Vietnam vet and surfer buddies. 6:45, 9 and 11:15 p.m., Doc Films, Max Palevsky Cinema, Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th St.; 773-702-8575
– “Naked Among Wolves” (star) (star) (star) (Frank Beyer; 1963). A moving and exquisitely complex tale of man’s capacity for humanity, played out during the last weeks of World War II. A 3-year-old boy is smuggled into a Nazi death camp, where the prisoners risk their lives to keep him a secret from the SS. Directed with great precision by Beyer and scripted by Buchenwald survivor Bruno Apitz. (– John Petrakis) 7:45 p.m., Film Center
– “Shake Hands With the Devil” (star) (star) (star) 1/2 (Michael Anderson; 1959). Set in 1920s Ireland, and focusing on the stormy relationship between a dedicated Dublin doctor who is also a hardened IRA revolutionary (James Cagney) and the Irish-American medical student he tries to convert to the cause (Don Murray), this is one of Cagney’s best later vehicles and one of the best Hollywood films about the Irish “Troubles” after John Ford’s “The Informer.” Shot on location, with Michael Redgrave, Dana Wynter and Cyril Cusack. 8 p.m., LaSalle Theatre (in the LaSalle Bank), 4901 W. Irving Park Rd.; 312-904-2507
SUNDAY
– “Swan Song” (star) (star) 1/2 (Zhang Zeming; 1985). Unusually frank examination of the political persecution of artists in modern China, centering on a “politically incorrect” composer of classical music and his lifetime battles with intransigent authorities. (Chinese, subtitled) 2 and 6 p.m., Film Center
– “In the Wild Mountains” (star) (star) 1/2 (Yan Xueshu; 1985). Interesting portrayal of shifting political attitudes in the provinces: divergent farming philosophies force two rural couples into unplanned mate-swapping, with unpredictable results. (Chinese, subtitled) 4 p.m., Film Center (also 6 p.m. Tuesday)
WEDNESDAY
– “Seven Samurai” (star) (star) (star) (star) (Akira Kurosawa; 1954) Seven leaderless samurai band together under the leadership of wise warrior Kambei (Takashi Shimura), to protect a peasant village from the yearly raids of a vicious bandit group. By almost universal consent, it is Kurosawa’s masterpiece, the greatest battle movie ever made and a pinnacle of post-WWII international filmmaking. With Toshiro Mifune in his best role as crazy samurai wannabe Kikuchiyo. (Japanese, subtitled) 12:15 p.m., Harold Washington Library Center Auditorium, 44 S. State St.; 312-747-4875
Also showing (not reviewed):
– “Seven Songs for Malcolm X” (John Akomfrah; 1993). Intimate and sympathetic documentary portrait of the mercurial, tragic ’60s black political leader. 7:30 p.m. Friday, Chicago Filmmakers Kino-Eye Cinema, Xoinx Tea Room, 2933 N. Lincoln Ave.; 773-384-5533
