Don’t be silly, People

The 1962 movie “Lawrence of Arabia” by David Lean is an all-time favorite. Peter O’Toole is superb as T. E. Lawrence and the cinematography is epic. It’s one of those movies that appears on practically all “Top 100 Movies” list.

The wiki notes (click on the image on the left):

“The American Film Institute ranked Lawrence of Arabia 5th in its original and 7th in its updated 100 Years…100 Movies lists and first in its list of the greatest American films of the “epic” genre. In 1991, the film was … selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 1999, the film placed third in the British Film Institute’s poll of the best British films of the 20th century, and in 2001 the magazine Total Film called it “as shockingly beautiful and hugely intelligent as any film ever made” and “faultless”.”

It’s best to watch it on the big screen but these days, given big fat UHD 4K TVs and Doby Atmos surround sound, watching it at home is a pretty good substitute. There are dozens of extremely memorable scenes in that movie, one of them at the very start of the movie. Here, take a look:

“It damn well hurts.”
“Certainly it hurts.”
“What’s the trick, then?”
“The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”

I was reminded of that because Bill Maher referred to another striking bit of dialog from the movie in his show recently on March 11th. It’s the scene in which the character played by Omar Sharif, another extra0rdinarily great actor, appears in the movie:

(It’s a very low definition clip. I’ll try to get a better version.)

“Sherif Ali, so long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.”

Here’s a bit of dialog that I like:

Murray: If you’re insubordinate with me, Lawrence, I shall have you put under arrest.
Lawrence: It’s my manner, sir.
Murray: Your what?
Lawrence: My manner, sir; it looks insubordinate but it isn’t, really.
Murray: You know, I can’t make out whether you’re bloody bad-mannered or just half-witted.
Lawrence: I have the same problem, sir.

Alright, now let’s get to Bill Maher’s rant:

I like Maher’s rants. He’s very talented. However, he’s a dyed-in-the-wool lefty with all sorts of loony ideas about climate change and other idiocies. But I do agree with him on a serious matter: we both love the Religion of Peace. He did a great job on Ben Affleck. Here’s Maher and Sam Harris before Affleck the Freak jumps in.