Reception
Upon its release, Lawrence was a huge critical and financial success and it remains popular among viewers and critics alike. The striking visuals, dramatic music, literate screenplay and superb performance by Peter O'Toole have all been common points of acclaim and the film as a whole is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. Its visual style has influenced many directors, including George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, who called the film a "miracle".
The film is regarded as a masterpiece of world cinema and is ranked highly on many lists of the best films ever made. The American Film Institute ranked the film 5th in its original and 7th in its updated list of the greatest films and first in its list of the greatest films of the "epic" genre. In 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 1999 the film placed third in a BFI poll of the best British films and in 2001 the magazine Total Film called it "as shockingly beautiful and hugely intelligent as any film ever made" and "faultless". It has also ranked in the top ten films of all time in a Sight and Sound directors' poll. Additionally, O'Toole's performance has also often been considered one of the greatest of all time, topping lists made by both Entertainment Weekly and Premiere.
However, some critics—notably Bosley Crowther and Andrew Sarris—have criticised the film for an indefinite portrayal of Lawrence and lack of depth.
Read more about this topic: Lawrence Of Arabia (film)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)