David Lean is one of cinema’s finest directors and Lawrence of Arabia is one of his masterpieces. Lean masterfully uses wide shots to establish how different the world is that Lawrence is entering. Early in the film we see multiple times a wide shot with a man in the distance looking only as big as a spec on the screen that you have to really search for in order to find. Two specific shots that stand out is when Sherif Ali enters from the horizon like a mirage in the heat waves, and the other is the British officer waiting on Lawrence in the echoing caverns. You literally cannot see the man until he moves. Even then he is nearly indescribable. Lean composes images in this manner to show that Lawrence, the outsider is not accustomed to the ways nor the people of the desert. This is shown to us when Taraf doesn’t need binoculars to see approaching men that Lawrence cannot see with his bare eyes.
It’s also important to note Lean’s editing style in this film. He uses dissolves in order to go from an intense and or kinetic moment to one that is still. By doing so Lean creates an emotional quality that can tangibly be felt when watching the scenes transition. Another famous cut is from Lawrence’s matchstick to the rising sun in the desert. Lean achieves so much with one simple cut. He is able to relate the symbolism of the match that has been built in from the story early on to portray the nature of the desert and also give us an understanding that the desert will be painful just like the matchstick, but Lawrence will endure anyway.
Lean also shoots violence in a particular manner. When there are battles we see bloodshed, bullets and swords flying. But when someone is killed in an intimate setting Lean doesn’t show the violence. This allows the imagination of the audience to create what it will thus the experience will be different for every viewer as Lean is working on their worst fears in these moments. We see Lawrence must kill the man he rescued from the desert, he also loses one of his servants in quicksand and shooting a young man that has been injured in order that the enemy doesn’t torture him. Finally, we watch Lawrence be beaten in a close up so as we don’t see the torture. We are only given the traces of blood seeping through Lawrence’s uniform many scenes later to reveal how bad the beating was.
Lean’s film is a master class in composition. He uses the foreground and background with complete efficiency, as is seen beautifully when the Arab council meets in Damascus. Lean chooses to stay in wide shots with men speaking in the front of the frame and then answered with someone in the background and the eyes naturally shift on to the person where the attention should lie. Lean has created a masterpiece because of his ability to capture the depth of a composition in a frame, to ignite feeling in the audience based on what they see on screen and he tells a story of the desert, a dead place with so much vibrance that life springs forth from the screen.
