A Dangerous Man – Lawrence After Arabia (TV)
Picture: C Sound: C
Extras: D Film:
C
Outside of sheer remakes
or sequels, if you are going to make a follow up movies there is one thing that
is quite clear. Not only should you be
fully aware of the previous material, but you better be able to offer something
in order to bring continuity to the material.
I certainly would not advise anyone trying to go above and beyond the
greatness of certain films that have been made over the course of cinema and
without a doubt one of them being David Lean’s epic masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia (1962). That film alone brings new meaning to the
word visual filmmaking and on an epic scale that put motion picture filmmaking
into a new world. Add to that, the industry
was forever changed in the way that cinema was looked upon from a large-scale
viewpoint.
That brings us to A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia
(1990) starring Ralph Fiennes as the bright eyed Lawrence, who would have made
a good candidate for a young Lawrence back in 1962, but that role was played to
perfection and established by Peter O’ Toole and any other portrayal of the
title character seems ridiculous now.
What happened with Lean’s epic is that he put these large than life
events into a film that in and of itself was larger than life, therefore
creating a standard that cannot be reached by today’s attempts.
While this may be an Emmy
Award winning program and it does have some very fine highlights, including
Fiennes performance, it just does not meet up to the reputation that we have
administered to Lawrence. While this
follows the events after he rose through the British ranks to lead the Arabs
into battle over Turkish rule, the grandiose nature of his life cannot be fully
realized here.
Released through BFS, the
film is presented in its full frame TV aspect ratio, which looks very dated,
even only being a few years old. The
tape source is very analog in origin and demonstrates a lackluster quality overall. Colors are messy and detail is problematic
throughout. Considering that this is
going for a look it has to compete with Academy Award winning cinematography
(not to mention probably the best camerawork in the past 50 years) from Lawrence of Arabia, which was shot in
the large 70mm format! The Dolby Digital
2.0 audio is either stereo or mono, but either way its mono coming through two
channels, meaning anything stereo here is barely so. Almost entirely dialogue based the audio
works just fine with nothing stellar enough to beg for a larger mix
anyway.
For History buffs, this
might be a nice companion piece to have in addition to Lawrence of Arabia, but
for true cinema buffs, stay far away from this!
You will just end up laughing at its attempt to be a continuation to the
story, which will only make you thirst for Omar Sharif to pop on screen.
- Nate Goss
