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Those desert sands Reel Life, Real LifeBy Rick Horowitz
Break out the popcorn (and the caffeine), and get ready to hunker down for the duration. How much duration? Think of it this way: If you were celebrating your 75th, wouldn't you go on for a while? Of course you would. Now consider this: We're not talking about you. We're talking about Hollywood. Plenty of duration. This Sunday evening -- assuming a certain war doesn't get in the way -- it's Oscar time. There are plenty of terrific movies and amazing performances up for the biggest prizes this year. But for me, one of the absolute high points of the nearly endless night will come when they present an honorary Oscar to Mr. Peter O'Toole. Seven times he's been nominated for this or that quirkily brilliant acting job, and seven times he's fallen short of taking home the hardware. It's nice of the Academy to try to set things right. I especially like the timing of the award, because it was just a few weeks ago that I paid another visit to the movie that made Peter O'Toole a star: "Lawrence of Arabia," of course, in a gorgeous new print that was showing at one of our local rep houses. I hadn't seen "Lawrence" in years, since before VCRs were invented. And that's OK, too; everybody always says "Lawrence" is the kind of epic movie you just can't watch on a little TV screen. Everybody's right. On the big screen, though, the close-ups -- the flowing robes, the sunbaked faces, those incredible blue eyes -- are right there, right in your face. And those great panoramas -- one speck of a man against a billion specks of Arabian desert sand -- well, they're just breathtaking. And that's the other reason I especially like the timing. A movie about the Arabian desert sand, I mean, and all the various forces trying to control it. British and Ottoman empires and Arab tribes -- and T.E. Lawrence himself, who was just a lowly British officer, but who had much bigger plans for himself, and for all of Arabia. He was going to unite the Arabs, lead them into battle, and then give them -- his word, as I recall -- give them freedom from the Ottoman Turks, who had ruled those lands for years and years. This was during World War I, of course, in the early years of a different century. But I couldn't help seeing all these long-ago events through today's headlines. Are the Iraqi Kurds scared silly by the prospect of Turkish forces invading from the north? There's a reason they're scared. There's history there. Are the great Western powers -- Great Britain then, the United States now -- seduced by the strategic possibilities of the Persian Gulf? The shipping lanes? The oil reserves? Is the Arab world still too fractured to control its own destiny? Can one man's vision remake an entire region, or are there larger forces at work, beyond any man's control? And then there's that moment just before the intermission when Lawrence's superiors, astonished by his early victories but mindful of the vast distances yet to be traveled, and mindful, too, of forces that still lie in wait for him, consider the glorious, perilous assignment he's taken on. "That poor devil," one of them says. "He's riding the whirlwind." And the other responds, "Let's hope we're not!" Ancient history? Current events? You decide. Posted 3/20/03. No
whirlwinds, but plenty of fresh breezes from columnist Rick Horowitz
twice every week. Tell your neighbors!
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Rick Horowitz
