Lawrence of Arabia (Single-Disc Edition)
by David Lean
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, Omar Sharif, Peter O'TooleDirector: David Lean
Brand: O'TOOLE,PETER
Producer: David Lean
Producer: Jim Painten
Producer: Robert A. Harris
Producer: Sam Spiegel
Writer: Michael Wilson
Writer: Robert Bolt
Writer: T.E. Lawrence
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Georgian (Subtitled); Chinese (Subtitled); Thai (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Subtitled
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.20:1
Running Time: 216 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-04-03
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of Lawrence of Arabia (Single-Disc Edition)
Movie Review: Beautiful myth-making film on T.E. Lawrence
Summary: 5 Stars
The acting, music and cinematography of Lawrence of Arabia is absolutely brilliant. It's little wonder it was an award-winning film and remains a huge favourite. Unfortunately scriptwriters and directors sometimes take the liberty to distort historical accuracy for the sake of telling an adventurous tale about extraordinary people.
Such is the case with Lawrence of Arabia. While the film does indeed follow the exploits of T.E. Lawrence in the Middle East during WWI, it must be noted that some characters are merely composites or fictional players used to create a story. Geographical details and events are contrived and sacrificed for the sake of storytelling. Even his brother, A.W. Lawrence on viewing the film in 1962 said, "I should not have recognised my brother."
Case in point, the words and actions of characters Dryden, Colonel Brighton, Sherif Ali and Jackson Bentley (not altogether Lowell Thomas) are constrained neither by historical fact nor specific plausibility; they are mere poetic license for screen writer Bolt's narrative more than anything else.
The film suggests Lawrence was an oddity, exploited by the British and Emir Feisal for their political ends. In reality Lawrence was not the unwitting tool portrayed in the film. He had been closely involved in these issues as early as 1915. He probably had a more salient view than Allenby of British-Indian, French and Arab political objectives. In actual fact, Lawrence was a key adviser to Feisal, both during the Arab Revolt and at the Paris Peace Conference. Lawrence also devised a map of the Middle East demarcating separate countries for Armenians and the peoples of present-day Syria, Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia in another state, based on tribal patterns and commercial routes; the map is presently on display at the Imperial War Museum in London.
Another mistaken point in the film is that when Arab tribesmen went home with their spoils of war, Lawrence's Revolt afterwards operated under smaller Arab forces. This is not so. As the Revolt spread north, it took on tribal forces previously unused. The Hauran forces long known to be available, and finally called out in the last stages of the campaign, increased the Arab army to a far larger size.
The film also projects the Arab Revolt as an meaningless victory. On the contrary, it had significant impact. The French and British Imperial Government in India feared its consequences would fan the flame of independence movements in the Middle East and elsewhere. With the British endorsement of the Revolt, it ushered in the respectability of nationalist rebellion and undermined imperialism, which Communists and President Wilson in his Fourteen Points had already addressed. Without the success of the Revolt and Britain's support for Hussein's cause, transition from Turkish Ottoman rule to the French and British Mandates in Syria and Iraq would probably not have been as smooth. Without the Revolt -- and Lawrence's involvement in it -- Arab acquisition of self-government in these countries would have quite possibly taken longer than it did.
Even the inference that Lawrence was homosexual is baseless. Those who knew him well have stated adamantly that he was not. In T. E. Lawrence: The Selected Letters to a homosexual man, Lawrence wrote that he did not find homosexuality morally wrong, yet he did find it distasteful.
As for the Ottoman commander (played by Jose Ferrer) whom Lawrence accused of whipping and sodomising him in Deraa, the Bey went on to lead a blameless post-war life without a trace of scandal. Modern biographers have also questioned whether the incident actually occurred. Firstly, there's a problem with the chronology of Lawrence's account, whose subsequent sex-life after Deraa revolved around male flagellation or masochism and a rigid programme of physical rehabilitation. Secondly, Lawrence's own statements and actions concerning the incident have contributed to the confusion; while he mentions it in Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph he removed a page from his war diary covering the event in question.
Despite the many, many historical falsehoods about Lawrence and the events surrounding his campaign in the Middle East portrayed in Lawrence of Arabia, I still love David Lean's film for its epic grandeur, Maurice Jarre's sweeping score and Peter O'Toole's superb performance. I suppose had it not been for these factors, I and many viewers would probably never have been introduced to Lawrence, let alone be interested in him or the Middle East. Having said that, I rate the film five stars for artistic merit; however, for its historical content, I give it 1 star. Sorry, facts cannot be rewritten.
As for the quality of the one disc DVD, which this review is based on, the wide screen format is sufficient for projecting the breathtaking panorama of the desert. The price is ideal too. If you want to wait and see more depth and clarity, I would imagine a Blu-Ray DVD would be the disc to get in the future.
Summary of Lawrence of Arabia (Single-Disc Edition)
David Lean's splendid biography of the enigmatic T. E. Lawrence paints a complex portrait of the desert-loving Englishman who united Arab tribes in a battle against the Ottoman Turks during World War I.There's no getting around a simple, basic truth: watching Lawrence of Arabia in any home-video format represents a compromise. There's no better way to appreciate this epic biographical adventure than to see it projected in 70 millimeter onto a huge theater screen. That caveat aside, David Lean's masterful "desert classic" is still enjoyable on the small screen, especially if viewed in widescreen format. (If your only option is to view a "pan & scan" version, it's best not to bother; this is a film for which the widescreen format is utterly mandatory.) Peter O'Toole gives a star-making performance as T.E. Lawrence, the eccentric British officer who united the desert tribes of Arabia against the Turks during World War I. Lean orchestrates sweeping battle sequences and breathtaking action, but the film is really about the adventures and trials that transform Lawrence into a legendary man of the desert. Lean traces this transformation on a vast canvas of awesome physicality; no other movie has captured the expanse of the desert with such scope and grandeur. Equally important is the psychology of Lawrence, who remains an enigma even as we grasp his identification with the desert. Perhaps the greatest triumph of this landmark film is that Lean has conveyed the romance, danger, and allure of the desert with such physical and emotional power. It's a film about a man who leads one life but is irresistibly drawn to another, where his greatness and mystery are allowed to flourish in equal measure. --Jeff Shannon
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