Lawrence of Arabia

Rating:
Summary: Top ten of all time.
Review: This motion picture is one of the grandest motion pictures of all time, one that is meant for a home theater library to be veiwed many times over and still enjoyed every time.

Rating:
Summary: One of the two greatest movies ever made is awesome on DVD!
Review: IMHO, the two greatest movies ever made were Lawrence of Arabia and Apocalypse Now (which is simply stunning in its Apocalypse Now Redux version!). I got this nice two-DVD collection from my wife as a gift and it is a joy to see Lawrence of Arabia in widescreen format, with Surround Sound. It's just stunning. The audio is phenomenal and the visuals are simply stunning. When Lawrence walks across the Sinai and enters the British Garrison is Arab garb, the impact is stunning and the sound is so sterling you can hear ice cubes clinking in glasses. I've skimmed over the so-called "bonus material," which is OK, but I really don't care for that stuff all that much. I want THE MOVIE, and in its widescreen format it is simply breathtaking! I had the movie on VHS and the DVD simply blows it away! Want 3-plus hours of pure pleasure? Then get this DVD, make sure you have your DVD player hooked up to a good sound system, find a nice comfortable chair, and disappear into the desert of World War I...

Rating:
Summary: The Best Ever, Peroid
Review: This picture is why we see movies. It is big, it is larger than life, and Sir David Lean took the art of motion pictures to its logical pinnacle with this movie. Every "big" movie aspires to tell its story on the same scale as Lawrence of Arabia, that is why it is a classic

Rating:
Summary: Don't read the book before seeing the movie
Review: The old expression that the book is always better than the movie is oh! so true! The less you know about T. E. Lawrence, the more enjoyable this movie is. Unfortunately, I have recently been reading both about Lawrence (both biographies about him as well as his own masterpiece, SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM). There is always controversy regarding the extent to which the accuracy of the presentation of a historical figure should impact one's assessment of a work of art. Unfortunately, I did find myself enjoying this film vastly less on a reviewing of it after actually knowing something about the subject matter.

Even after having looked somewhat into Lawrence's life, there are many things to laud in the movie. It is unquestionably one of the most beautiful films ever made, with inconceivably gorgeous cinematography, one of the great musical scores in movie history, and one magnificently epic vista after another. In no movie is the desert as beautiful and as alluring as in this one (just as Lawrence's own SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM is the great paean to the desert, excepting only Charles Doughty's great classic TRAVELS IN DESERTA ARABIA, which Lawrence took as his literary model). And while there are some unfortunate casting decisions (at this point in history, one is always disappointed to see non-Arabs playing major Arab roles), Peter O'Toole dominates the screen in every shot in which he appears, with the most piercing blue eyes one can remember. He is perhaps a tad too good-looking. One is reminded of Noel Coward's quip to O'Toole, "If you'd been any prettier, it would have been Florence of Arabia."

But if you have read about Lawrence or read Lawrence's own book, certain things will disappoint on a reviewing. First, one is disappointed by the presentation of Lawrence himself. Although Peter O'Toole is unbelievably charismatic as Lawrence, he is on physical grounds terribly unqualified for the role. One of the central factors in Lawrence's life was his height: he was so short he had enormous difficulty getting into the military, only managing it after several high level friends pulled strings for him. Great care was taken to disguise Lawrence's height, but the guess is that he was between 5'3 and 5'6, and probably towards the shorter figure. O'Toole is a long, lean 6'3. Despite some rough physical resemblance, O'Toole's height seriously hurts his ability to portray Lawrence accurately.

I was also somewhat disappointed, upon reviewing, that the gigantic complexity of Lawrence's personality was not better reflected onscreen. This is probably inevitable. Lawrence was easily one of the most complex personalities of the 20th century. Even after having read a pair of biographies, I feel that I know next to nothing about him. His feelings about the Arabs, his attitudes towards the conflict he was involved in, his goals for himself in the Arab peninsula after the conflict, his masochistic asexuality (he deplored being physically touched by any human being, male or female, yet took delight in his ability to absorb enormous physical brutality, sometimes asking people to beat him with their fists in later life), and, perhaps most of all, his strange relationship to his own fame. After the Arab conflict, he retreated first into the RAF and then into the Army as anonymous private under a fictitious name (in the army becoming Private T. E. Shaw, the "Shaw" homage to his friend Charlotte Shaw, wife of George Bernard).

The movie also contains many historical inaccuracies, but this is more forgivable in that Lawrence's own book contains perhaps even more inaccuracies. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it contains many embellishments and exaggerations.

Still, this is a great movie. If you don't know much about Lawrence, see the movie before learning more about him. You'll love the movie a great deal more if you do.

Rating:
Summary: A rare gem of movie-making, about a man who was rarer still.
Review: To this day T.E. Lawrence is something of an enigma. Nevertheless, this wonderfully done movie was a huge undertaking that had almost as profound effect on Peter O'Toole as the actual events did on Colonel Lawrence. Rather than trying to wow the audience with the perfidious nonsense that is the stock and trade of contemporary filming making, the movie sticks fairly closely to Lawrence's own accounts of his escapades in the desert - which, themselves have occasionally been brought into question.

I agree that the big screen helps enthuse the viewer to a greater degree than watching Lawrence of Arabia on the tube, but the daunting conditions of the story come through nevertheless, and that is more important than mere sensory titillation. Lawrence was both a studied and frustrated man, who by most accounts never quite accepted himself. These are the seeds of both greatness, as well as failure, and clearly T.E. Lawrence was profoundly familiar with both. His early triumphs at organizing the nomads of the desert to defeat the Turks set the stage for even greater exploits, many of which played into the hands of his vulnerabilities.

If the movie viewer isn't familiar with the history of the Middle East in the early 20th century, much of this tale will go unappreciated. Be that as it may, Lawrence's military exploits are studied even today - and many, many a modern special operations soldier would recognize the techniques he used to organize, train, equip and deploy indigenous tribesmen against the unprotected flanks of a more experienced and better equipped professional force. Regrettably, the fact that he was so far from friendly support also played into his rather egocentric weaknesses. And it has been proposed by more than one commentator that some of Lawrence's most harrowing, and unsuccessful, exploits had little to do with military necessity, but rather more to do with satisfying some hidden inner conflict.

Lawrence of Arabia is a great movie that, being true to the original story, drags in spots and has a rather anticlimactic ending. However, if a modern viewer listens carefully, rather than just lapsing into sensory titillation mode, it is fairly easy to detect many of the frustrations that are continuing to bubble to the surface in that troubled area of the world.

Rating:
Summary: Epic yes, Great movie... well no.
Review: I can not understand all the gushing over this movie. After seeing Bridge On The River Kwai, I was expecting this to be more in that vain. Gallant British troops overcoming great odds, led by a brave commander named Lawrence. What I got was a 4 hour bore fest of how a somewhat unstable man rose to the rank of Colonel. Give me Gunga Din or Zulu over this any day. On the plus side, Columbia / TriStar has done a great job on releasing this DVD. The print is in excellent condition, and the extras are many. But, like I mentioned, this isn't a movie to have many repeat viewings.

Rating:
Summary: Jarre's Classic Score Properly Remastered
Review: When deciding about the music score for his film LAWRENCE OF ARABIA director David Lean came up with an interesting idea. He asked two classical composers , Benjamin Britten and Aram Khachaturian, to jointly do the score. Both had also worked in film scoring. At the last minute Cold War politics intruded that prevented the Armenian/Soviet Khachaturian from taking part. On the recommendation of a few friends Lean decided to give a listen to a little known young French composer. He liked what he heard and the rest is film history.
Maurice Jarre produced a score to fit the film. It is epic, sweeping, mysterious and exotic with its use of Arab percussion . A touch of Saint-Saens and Messiaen may come to mind but as influences not imitations. The various lp issues of this score have all suffered from eratic sound from track to track. LAWRENCE AND THE BODYGUARDS for example had about a third less volume than
the other tracks. Happy to say that the engineers have done a very fine job in clearing up some of the sound quirks including putting the volume up in the above mentioned track. This issue also includes a few minutes of music left out of the original release. This is a score that can still take your breath away; even more so on this remastered cd.

Rating:
Summary: 1988 Restoration found wanting
Review: The Lawrence of Arabia boxed set released by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment is based on a 1988 restoration of the film. This version omits some of the very best scenes from the original picture; specifically, the long, tense, horse & camel charge on Akabar. The "1988" version only has about a 30 second mish-mash of footage from the original picture. There are also other shorter, less dramatic, but "arguably" important scenes missing from this version.

I only saw the movie for the first time in 1991. A restored version was being played in Austin, TX and a friend insisted that we simply had to go see it on the big screen. Needless to say, I loved it. But, my absolute favorite part was the charge on Akabar. When I bought the video, I actually fast-forwarded through to see the "charge"?! Imagine my suprise when it was not there. If you can find a more complete version than the one TriStar currently has available, I heartily recommend buying it instead of this current release. I wish I had.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps his best
Review: This film, sweeping in its grandeur and subtle in its portrayal, tells the story of T.E. Lawrence in the desert campaign of World War I. It is perhaps the best film David Lean ever made, and certainly one of his most complex. The DVD is rich in supporting materials.

Rating:
Summary: Epic in every respect
Review: This is a nicely put together DVD, with some attractive extra features. As for the movie itself, well it has a haunting atmosphere and is vast in its scope and portrayal of Lawrence. My last viewing was over two nights. Half way through my attention was beginning to wain and I watched the second half the following night and my enthusiasm was rekindled. It's a movie that has you thinking about it for a day or two after seeing it. I found myself trying to analyse the main character and asking myself whether I actually enjoyed the movie or not. This is a stunning movie, but it's not for everybody.