Rating: 
Summary: Otherness
Review: The movie is all about T. E. Lawrence. So? Well, the result is a movie centered around the discourse of what Edward Said has defined as "Orientalism". If you re-watch and re-examine the movie within the the framework or Orientalism taking into account such things as the representation of the Arab as the Other, T.E. Lawrence as the Agent for the creation of the Arab identity, the horde depictions, the lack of ability to articulate on their own, the all important negative representation of the Turks the picture will take on a new meaning. Let us examine each topic one by one.The pivotal character of Auda abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn), with such memorable lines as: Auda Abu Tayi: I am Auda Abu Tayi! Does Auda Serve!
Crowd: No!
Auda Abu Tayi: Does Auda Abu Tayi serve!
Crowd: No!
Auda Abu Tayi: [to Lawrence] I carry twenty-three great wounds all got in battle. Seventy-five men have I killed with my own hands in battle. I scatter, I burn my enemies' tents. I take away their flocks and herds. The Turks pay me a golden treasure, yet I am poor! Because *I* am a river to my people! Lawrence: My friends, we have been foolish. Auda will not come to Aqaba. Not for money...
Auda Abu Tayi: No.
Lawrence: ...for Feisal...
Auda Abu Tayi: No!
Lawrence: ...nor to drive away the Turks. He will come... because it is his pleasure.
[Pause]
Auda Abu Tayi: Thy mother mated with a scorpion. What do we read? I read that Auda is in effect the representative Arab leader (purposely placing aside the Sherif Ali role played by Omar Sharif) who is a shallow tribal overlord whose primary motivation is money, who leads a band of faceless and greedy Arabs. Despite the claims to the contrary, Auda does not come "for his pleasure" but for the promised gold. Later, upon realization that he had been duped by Lawrence, Auda proceeds to make a new agreement with the same on the promise - but this time with English gold. Does this really give the Arab agency? No. Is the Subaltern speaking here? No. Is this Bolt and Lean restructuring and confirmation of Arab stereotypes. Absolutely. What were they thinking? Another curious aspect of the movie is that Lawrence is the only agency the "Arabs" (a notion which he singlehandedly creates) and is the prime mover - no, the only mover. The movie plays out yet another dangerous stereotype of the Arab who cannot think, create, nor motivate himself - they need Lawrence. The Arab needs outside agency to create himself. Don't you find that just a bit ironic? If this was your only encounter with the Arab world you will have hitherto been convinced that the Arab is motivated solely by money and cannot articulate the creation of a state - much less even cares about it. The depictions of the Arabs on Camels and the horde of mercenaries will linger as the dangerous and mysterious Arab and he is beginning to be unmasked. However, this chimera and those I mentioned above serve to reinforce false stereotypes and leaves the Arab as the Other. Lean and Bolt try to effect an out through the characterization of Feisal as the Same: Prince Feisal: Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution. However, he is always remote, always aloof and always between his elite guard of black clad Bedouin. Mysterious, always mystery. It does not work. What in effect David Lean has accomplished is a classic of modern cinema shrouded in seductive of the mysterious Orient, in epic scale and proportion coupled with music to accompany the grandeur -- what we are really left with is the dehumanizing of the Arab and the escalation of T. E. Lawrence to the status of Messiah. What about the encounter of Lawrence of the Turks - what message did that leave you with. If anyone is really a victim in this movie it is not the Arabs but the Turks. Are they lurking about as is suggested with homo-erotic suggestion and potential for violence. What about Turkish complexity, culture and agency. Lean could have placed a counter to this representation or left it out altogether. The object is not to finger point as that leaves us within the framework of colonialism and further away from a much needed liberation. We can take up the unfinished project of Frantz Fanon, move away from the politics of blame to a politics of liberation - but only through analysis. As much as was I was seduced by the movie for the longest time, a revisit has allowed me to gain perspective and see it thus. All this however, does not detract from the great cinematography and does not detract from its greatness and that is its greatest weakness. Miguel Llora
Rating: 
Summary: "Uniqueness"
Review: On making Lawrence, Mr. Lean knew that "the thing that makes this a very exceptional picture are backgrounds and the "uniqueness" of the strange atmosphere put around the story. Audiences have seen good scenes and good characters before, but haven't seen what is shown in the first half of this picture".
Wonderderful locations in Jordan had been left by Mr. Lean for the second half of the film, including Petra, with Lawrence ridind through it, the crossing of Sinai, and few others.
But sadly, producers and others involved with the film decided to put an end to that, and as result we got this second half of the film with "wrong" exteriors (Spain and Morocco), and viewers denied of being with the "uniqueness of the strange atmosphere" throughout the entire film.
Rating:
Summary: A Top DVD for Collectors
Review: This is one of the top movies I never get tried of seeing. I
already had the VHS verion, but words can't express what a big
difference seeing this movie on DVD. There are so many extras
with this Collector's Edition especially on how the movie was
made etc. I think that I watched this part about five times the
same day that I receeived my DVD. Once again this movie is tops
in my eyes.....00
Rating: 
Summary: Lawrence the Enigma
Review: One of the things that might characterize this film and the supplemental materials is nobody really understands T.E. Lawrence. This collectors DVD is full of documentaries and newsreels offering almost no insight to the man and all ask the question Who was T.E. Lawrence? He is after all an educated man who had no love for the people to whom he did belong, the upper- class English, and chose to live and command a people for whom he had even less respect and did not belong. He was in the end a man with his own ideas who had the initiative to prove himself right and an ability to sell his image to the press that made him cut such a heroic figure.
T.E. Lawrence was a British soldier sent into the desert who takes it upon himself to convince the disjointed and feuding tribes and Arab factions into uniting against the Turks. The task is impossible as the Arabs have never been united. But by leading a group of hard headed tribes on a long brutal trek over the sands of the "Devil's Anvil" he proves to other tribes who have never seen such madness that this man can do the impossible. He gains many followers and takes over a key city from the Turks on his own. Now out of uniform and wrapped in Arab garb he returns to the British command who now also believe maybe this man can accomplish anything. His prestige grows among the Arabs and he is built into a hero by the British press. His press and continued successes inflate his own self-image to the degree he also believes he is no mere man. He is a demi-god of sorts and learns to relish his power of life and death over his followers. What follows in the film seems almost inevitable.
It is interesting to watch the story of Lawrence of Arabia as not about Lawrence but as story of modern Arabia. Arabia has continually rise to the verge of greatness then suddenly crumbles again into power grabbing and devisive factions that undo the possibility of progress for its people.
Lawrence of Arabia is a big movie. Bigger than an ordinary TV screen can contain. So the larger the screen you can watch it on the better. This is the restored version and while it is as good as you will ever see it. It is not an especially good restoration. Compared to other restorations like My Fair Lady they only did a so-so job. But still this is a nice DVD. The supplemental materials seem abundant but probably not as wonderful as the package indicates. Much of the material is merely promotional shorts about the film's Hollywood success and material on Lawrence himself leaves more questions than answers. But occasionally you can spot where some of the inspiration for the film's spectacular images were derived.
Rating:
Summary: Just another review
Review: Peter O Toole. No wonder his film career took off! This is an awesome film. You must see the scene where Peter O Toole drinks Lemonade in the Officer's Club. "He likes your lemonade." If you like Peter O Toole in other films, you will know exactly what I mean. This is a film to rent on a rainy long weekend. Savor ever moment!
Rating:
Summary: Surely one of the best films that exist...
Review: Lawrence of Arabia was surely one of the best films that exist and one of the best I've seen. It is pretty long, but you can't fall asleep watching this. It looks like Braveheart in many ways and it's even better. The acting of Peter O'Toole was unbelievable and the other actors did an excellent job too. The backgrounds looked good and there were so much good messages and influences in this film. It is considered as an important film in the history of movies...and it is!!! The whole thing is simply stunning, brilliant!!! I think everybody should spend a couple of hours of his life to watch it. If you liked Braveheart, The Ten Commandments, it is for you. Most people who have a real interest in films have watched it, but if you want to introduce yourself to great cinema, maybe you should start with this...or with the AWESOME The Shining. Watch Lawrence of Arabia ...AWESOME FILM!
Rating:
Summary: SAND
Review: I saw this movie as a kid and hated it. This July in the $%&$#! desert at 115 degrees outside, I watched it three times in one week. My husband thought I was nuts. There are no women in this movie, save a few chador-clothed wives/concubines and there might have been one dancer. Despite that, I think it's terrific. I have decided I am entirely in love with Omar Sharif. I wanted to crawl into his tent and never leave. My husband really likes the motorcycle scene at the beginning. The movie is endlessly fascinating, full of hand-to-hand combat, water struggles, Anthony Quinn, and Alec Guiness as smooth Prince Faisal. I saw the restored footage VHS edition from our city library and want to buy it. It is fully about men living as men. I have to pity the Turks, though. They are so demonized and that prison scene is gruesome. Another reviewer caught that one as well.
Rating:
Summary: A model historical epic - dark, satirical, perversely humble
Review: 'Lawrence of Arabia' is more than just a large-scale desert adventure - it's not David Lean's fault he spawned the detritus of modern cinema in the shape of Spielberg, Lucas and their offspring. Like his best epics, it is a thorough, ironic, viciously satiric look at different types of Englisheness, and at the cynical legacy of colonialism. It is a dismantling of the myth of T. E. Lawrence - any heroic successes are either filmed from a distance, minimised by context or not shown at all; triumph is usually quickly followed by bathos or defeat; we see how the myth is created and exploited, how much the man differs from, and fails to live up to, it. It is a film full of classical irony Lawrence himself might have appreciated - a man who nearly kills himself trying to save a man he must later execute; a man who wants to escape one class-ridden society that would dismiss him as 'illegitimate', only to see his dreams destroyed in a land where class differences are murderous. Lawrence, though coming from an opposite viewpoint, is a close relative of Colonel Nicholson in 'Bridge on the River Kwai', a man whose very English faithfulness to a code turns him into a traitor and murderer. The first, longer part of 'Arabia' is especially magnificent, daring the audience to submit to its pace, to feel the monotonous vastness and unknowability of the desert. By focusing on shadows, the swirls of sand bordering the immovable smoothness of dunes, the phantom introduction of Ali, the supernatural power of dust-storms, Lean captures the spiritual sense inherent to Lawrence, and hostile to the narrow-minded bureaucracy of the Army and Empire; these shots, and the many sequences where huge armies become tiny patterns against the awesome desert geometry, seem closer to abstract art than the pomp of the usual historical epic. So rich and detailed is the first half, that Lean seems to have gotten bored, and the second is a mostly dispiriting sequence of noisy, cluttered crowd scenes that is much closer to Lucas and Spielberg, with barely an interesting, never mind beautiful shot. Of course, this could simply be replicating the growing disillusion of Lawrence himself.
Rating:
Summary: "When God Made You a Fool, He Gave You a Fool's Face"
Review: The line I always remembered best, from David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia", is said neither by nor to the eponymous Lawrence played by Peter O'Toole. No, it's Anthony Quinn to Anthony Quayle, only two of the remarkable cast assembled for this desert epic tale. Who else is in this film? Besides O'Toole, Quinn, and Quayle, try Omar Sharif, Jose Ferrer, Claude Rains, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, and Arthur Kennedy. How can you miss with a cast like that? Dead on perfect, every actor. The audience is left by and large to decide for themselves whether Lawrence was a mystic, a fanatic, a rogue, a meglomaniac, or anything else that comes to mind. We see his start, from an obscure British army officer merely delivering a message to Prince Faisal to a commander of an arab army sweeping the Turkish Empire back as World War I rages in the Middle East as well. Here's a movie that really is a feast for the eyes, as nearly every few minutes there's an incredible shot of desert caravans or looting armies or a triumphant Lawrence ego-tripping out as he parades atop a derailed train. "Lawrence of Arabia" made the careers of both O'Toole and Sharif, and deservedly so. If you haven't yet seen this granddaddy of all epics, hoist yourself onto a camel and hunt it down.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: Lawrence of Arabia was probably a person who fabricated most of his legend. Or at least this is what Aldington in a rather nasty biography would have us believe. Lawrence according to his own legend is meant to have helped he Arabs revolt against the Turks during the First World War, and thus lessen their ability to resist the British armies which moved up from Egypt to Syria. Aldington suggests that the Arabs did not become much involved in any military activity whatever and that what Lawrence wrote in his book the Seven Pillars of Wisdom was a lot of tall tales. Despite all of this the film although being a bit of pro Lawrence propaganda is one of the most brilliant visual spectaculars of all time. This was achieved long before the days of computer animation and without the use of models or any other tricks of the directors trade. It is best on the big screen with high quality speakers playing its remarkable sound track. The performances made the careers of the principle actors Peter O'Toole and Omar Shariff. Despite the fact that it is a very long film watching it one never has a moment of boredom and the time simply flies.
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