enthralledBoth of them were pretty amazing. Sharkins, I think, would vouch that the combination sort of bent my brain, since I spent some time afterward babbling on the phone with her - I wanted to let her know Xiombarg was ok, since she'd made a special run down from Everett to return my cat carrier.
I'm not going to say much about Lullaby except that it's good - it's the most cohesive of his novels, stylistically. He mentioned that it was the first one he'd written as a "full time writer rather than a guy stealing time from work", and I think it shows. Also the events of the particular story he is telling flow more smoothly of themselves, as well.
Lawrence of Arabia completely overwhelmed me, in a good way. To be honest, I had been waiting to see it until I could see it at a venue comparable the Cinerama - I have had the opportunity to watch it on the small screen several times, but I put it off. It was worth it.
I came out of the theatre and immediately felt there were too many people around. That's what I get for spending four hours in the desert. Really, that's what it felt like, that I'd just returned from an actual expedition there myself.
Then, of course, there are the actual politics of the story, which are even more interesting in light of the tensions between Iraq and
I have to mention that the Cinerama folks did things properly - meaning they played the overture before both halves of the movie over the closed curtains, then went right to the film; no ads, trailers or anything else. It was really interesting - I was struck by how particularly 1960s the recording sounded. I don't know if it was how they miked things, or mixed them, or if it was particular limitations of the technology of the time, but to me many recordings made in the early 60s have a definitely diagnostic aural signature to them. It might even be simply stylistic, but I don't quite think so. It was particularly obvious to me while sitting and listening with no visual distractions. It was also interesting to see how much it discomfited people to have music without the curtains opening immediately and images pouring forth - the air of confused anticipation was almost palpable.
If I had a habit of falling in love with movie stars I'd almost certainly have a terrible thing for Peter O'Toole as a result of this film.
