One rarely sees characters filmed from anything closer than a medium shot, and usually the background is stuffed to overflowing with garish art direction. Everything feels static and wooden. But in "Lawrence," Lean keeps his frames constantly alive by juxtaposing huge landscape shots with extreme close-ups of actor faces. In one especially brutal scene, after a battle that results in the slaughter of many people, the action cuts to a close-up of O'Toole, looking panicked and crazed, gripping a bloody knife in his hand as if he's reluctant to drop it, obviously both disturbed and titillated by the carnage he just witnessed. It's moments like that, not just an impressive battle scene but a character's reactions to the results of that scene, that sets this film apart from other standard epics.
I have always found David Lean a compelling story teller with his images as well as the dialogue. Here, the images are so beautiful, powerful, and vast that they never leave the memory. They become part of our visual language. Who doesn't get thirsty when the Nefud is being crossed? Whose heart is touched when Lawrence comes out of the Sinai into the officers club with the boy? Who doesn't feel a mix of blood lust and revulsion in the battle scenes - especially at the train and the slaughter of the Turks on the way to Damascus?
