Great Date!

Jasen and I had a great date last night. We went to the Terrace Theater, which is an independent movie house. They get all the best art/independent films and all the different movies you can't find anywhere else. They've been running "Lawrence of Arabia" for the last few weeks and we went and saw it last night. I am SO glad we did! First off, Jasen got to see the Terrace (I had been there previously for a British film Jasen wasn't interested in) and he really liked it. They have cool candy, wooden-backed chairs, small-ish sized theaters, and beer and wine! Anyway, I was glad that Jasen liked it as much as I did.

I am really glad we got to see the movie the way it was intended: on the big screen. Because I just recently finished a book on Gertrude Bell, who is sometimes called the "female Lawrence of Arabia," I've been anxious to see this epic film. There is just something about seeing a movie like that on the big screen. Jasen and I both agreed that it wouldn't have had the same affect if we had seen it on our little TV at home. Yes, our TV is still pretty small!

Again, because of my recent readings, I've been really curious to see how Lawrence was portrayed. First off, Peter O'Toole looked nothing like Lawrence. And there were somethings in my Gertrude Bell book that were left out about Lawrence. From her perspective, he was much less "happy-go-lucky" pompous and much more "the rest of y'all are stupid" pompous, if that makes sense. He was smart, but knew it in a not-so-nice way. I thought the movie kind of glazed over that.

We both laughed at Obi-Won Kenobi playing King Faisal with a horrible beard and fake nose. Anthony Quinn's nose was even worse!! Omar Sharif was great, though.

Also, curious that the movie made little mention of the work people like Gertrude Bell also did in the area of Arab revolution.

Some of the parts of the movie, Jasen laughed out loud because it reminded him of his time in Iraq. There are some things about Arabs that are still very true; they haven't changed much from the early 1900s to now. For instance, toward the end of the movie, Lawrence is trying to get them to council themselves. Good luck getting two warring tribes to agree on anything! Especially if their disagreements go back centuries! They'd rather watch the whole city of Damascus burn rather than help each other.

Again, Jasen just kept laughing and at one point had tears in his eyes because we're trying to make them like us but we KEEP ignoring one big fact: ARABS ARE NOT LIKE US!!! No matter how we've tried throughout the years (Crusades, Lawrence of Arabia, etc.), it hasn't happened yet. Still we try to make them like us. Wonder if we'll ever stop? Wonder why we care? Jasen in essence said "Once a Bedouin, always a Bedouin."