THE DESERT CROSSING
STEVEN SPIELBERG on LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
When I was in my teens, Lawrence Of Arabia opened in Phoenix, Arizona, and I went with my parents. It was a swanky theatre with 70mm projection and stereophonic sound, and the loge-style seating in the smoking section would rock back and forward as you sat back in your chairs. But Lawrence Of Arabia never gave me the chance to test how the chairs worked, as I sat bolt upright for the entire film. Then came the scene as Lawrence and Sherif Ali and 50 other true believers cross the Nefud desert.
It was a prolonged sequence through every variety of arid landscape, much like the desert that surrounded that hometown Phoenix audience. That desert crossing cast a spell on me. Yet the first thing I noticed was how quiet the audience was and how few cigarettes were being lit as the sun bore down on the riders, most notably Gasim, who had fallen off his camel in the night and was trekking toward the rising furnace of a sun. Lawrence, risking everything, rides back for him as the sun grows in size until it looks like the whole audience is going to be sucked into it.
Then there is a jarring cut to camels and riders drinking from a great oasis and the tension is drastically broken. When the sequence ended, dozens of people in the audience suddenly rose
to their feet and left the theatre. I didn’t understand what was happening. We had all watched one of the greatest moments in movie history and people were walking out… including my father.
The film continued to play, and by the time Sherif Ali burns Lawrence’s uniform many began to return… all of them laden with beverages. You could hear the crushed ice swishing inside their containers. Cokes and 7 Ups by the arm-loads! That sequence had dehydrated 800 people, many of whom rushed to the oasis of the concession stand to quench their thirst. I haven’t witnessed anything like it since.