Lawrence of Arabia (Single Disc Edition)

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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

Customer Reviews:

cinematic masterpiece..........2007-09-06

what more can be said about one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces in film history. The kind of film that could never be made today. Peter O'Toole is astonishing, Omar Shariff is mesmerising, Anthony Quinn amazing. The score by Maurice Jarre is legendary. The bigger the screen the better the viewing. There are some cinematic shots here that will literally take your breath away.

Surprising quality.......2007-09-02

The quality of this DVD surprised me. I did not expect such a long movie to come through so clear and sharp when recorded to a single DVD.

there once was Arab glory.......2007-08-21

When I first saw Lawrence of Arabia in 1962 I was 26 years old. I knew very little about the history of WWI or the Arab Middle East. Nonetheless the movie was riveting. Now seeing it again at age 70, with some accumulated knowledge of both subjects, it is truly spellbinding. This has to be one of the greatest films ever; perhaps, the greatest.

Whatever one's political persuasion about the present turbulent Middle East and The West's role in it, one can gain a feeling, an insight into the people and region from this film that simply cannot be depicted in print.

The modern media images we have of Arabs today are as either fat, bloated Saudi royals, ragged street people in a rage, insane suicide bombers, or down-at-heel scrofulous politicians. We hear of a time when there was an Arab "glory" but it is unimaginable given the present sorry state of the Middle East.

It's difficult to conceive of physically fit, courageous, self-reliant Arabs, not merely surviving, but thriving in their natural environs; the vast and unremitting desert. The film imagery of the agile camel rider Omar Sharif and the robust horseman Anthony Quinn is stunning. This is a new perception, that of Arab as athletic, splendid-looking and master of his domain. Sharif as warrior/dreamer and Quinn as warrior/strongman, in the best roles of their lifetimes, will forever change your image of "the Arab."

I've nothing to say about Peter O'Toole's quirky portrayal other than it doesn't interfere enough with the rest of the production to keep this from being the great movie that it is. I think a perfect companion read would be David Pryce-Jones, "The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of The Arabs." HarperCollins 1991.

What, no sub-titles?.......2007-08-20

This was one of my favorite movies years ago, which proves its excellent worth, for there are no women in it! No love interest! And you don't realize it, you don't miss it at all! GREAT movie!

BUT - I won't buy it on DVD unless it has English sub-titles. Otherwise it is of little use to me in my old age! The description of the DVD says nothing about sub-titles; does that mean there are none, or is their lack of mention merely an oversight??

Susan

You can't watch it once.......2007-08-19

So much happens and so much of what happens to him explains the beginning. Very exciting, breathtaking cinematography, music fitting for this epic film

Average customer rating:

cinematic masterpiece...
Surprising quality
there once was Arab glory
What, no sub-titles?
You can't watch it once

Lawrence of Arabia (Limited Edition)
Starring: John Dimech , José Ferrer , Alec Guinness , Jack Gwillim , and Jack Hawkins
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
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ASIN: B00003CXB2
Release Date: 2001-04-03

Amazon.com essential video

Description

Director David Lean follows the heroic true-life odyssey of T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) in this dramatic portrait of the famed British officer's journey to the Middle East. Assigned to Arabia during World War I, Lawrence courageously unites the warring Arab factions into a strong guerrilla front and leads them to brilliant victories in treacherous desert battlefields where they eventually defeat the ruling Turkish Empire.

Customer Reviews:

cinematic masterpiece..........2007-09-06

Surprising quality.......2007-09-02

The quality of this DVD surprised me. I did not expect such a long movie to come through so clear and sharp when recorded to a single DVD.

there once was Arab glory.......2007-08-21

What, no sub-titles?.......2007-08-20

You can't watch it once.......2007-08-19

So much happens and so much of what happens to him explains the beginning. Very exciting, breathtaking cinematography, music fitting for this epic film

The David Lean Collection (Lawrence of Arabia / The Bridge on the River Kwai / A Passage to India)

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Defective Product
Triple Guinness
Great Classics

The David Lean Collection (Lawrence of Arabia / The Bridge on the River Kwai / A Passage to India)
Starring: David Lean
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ASIN: B0000AGQ72
Release Date: 2003-09-09

Amazon.com

Lawrence of Arabia
In David Lean's masterful "desert classic," 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

The Bridge on the River Kwai
Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai achieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre. The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honor, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge, provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project, led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's suspense and forward momentum. Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Kwai moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that survivors of latter-day, high-concept blockbusters might find lulling--Lean doesn't pander to attention deficit disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing remarkable character details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) disappears as only he can into Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact. --Sam Sutherland

A Passage to India
This adaptation of E.M. Forster's mysterious tale of British racism in colonial India turned out to be master director David Lean's final film. Subtle and grand at the same time, Lean's adaptation is faithful to the book, rendering its blend of the mystical and the all-too human with exquisite precision. Judy Davis plays a young British woman traveling in India with her fiancé's mother. While visiting a tourist attraction, she has a frightening moment in a cave--one that she eventually spins from an instant of mental meltdown into a tale of a physical attack that ruins several lives. Lean captures Forster's sense of awe at the kind of ageless wisdom and inexplicable phenomena to be encountered in India, as well as the British tendency to dismiss it all as savage, rather than simply different. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews:

Defective Product.......2007-05-06

I regret that I have to return the Lean collection because the disc of Lawrence of Arabia is defective. And your instruction was to return the entire set. This is not the fault of Amazon but the fault of the manufacturers - Columbia Pictures and Sony. I had purchased an identical DVD of Lawwrence from a local electronics store and discovered that the disc was corrupted shortly after the start of the film's second half. I returned the disc to the store and was given another. It was corrupted in exactly the same place. That's when I ordered the Lean collection from Amazon in the hope of getting an uncorrupted disc of Lawrence. But, sad to say, the Lawrence disc in the Amazon trio of DVDs was also corrupted in precisely the same place. I am in the process of returning the collection in the hope of gaining a refund of the more than $40.00 I paid for the collection.

Triple Guinness.......2005-10-04

BRIDGE shows us a certain kind of international filmmaking when, after the war, big budget British pictures often had to haul in an American star or two to get financing. William Holden is certainly working hard in BRIDGE, but he seems as though he's panting in overdrive trying to keep up with the effortless cool of Alec Guinness and the other British stars. This trend is even more pronounced in LAWRENCE, made at a time when the studios were all in deep crisis and each individual movie had the power to make or break the studio financing it. It was a time of huge gambles, and occasionally one or two of them would pay off handsomely.

Kevin Brownlow's life of David Lean (1996) shows how Lean came to regard Alec Guinness as a sort of touchstone for good luck, using him whenever possible. (He went into RYAN'S DAUGHTER with a foreboding that proved eerily accurate; the picture had disappointing financial results--and in Lean's view he had failed to lure in Alec Guinness and that was the reason). In LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, Lean was faced with the challenge of bringing Guinness into the movie even though he (Guinness) had desperately wanted to play Lawrence himself, and had done so to great acclaim in the play Terence Rattigan wrote for him to showcase his powers in the part (ROSS was the name of Rattigan's drama).

In today's political climate it is sometimes said that Guinness was making a fool of himself trying to play men from different, "exotic" cultural backgrounds, particularly his Indian doctor in A PASSAGE TO INDIA, and many Indians have objected, arguing that there were thousands of authentically Indian actors who might have played the part with more ease than Guinness. When I watch the movie I get a disagreeable feeling when I hear Guinness trying to put over his sing-song voice. It's like a whole volume of Edward Said flooding the screen with "I told you so." It's not that he's a bad actor, but he doesn't convince. He seems to be making fun of South Asian people by mocking their accents, not to mention their skin color. Same with LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, though not so bad. It's a thorny question and I have no answers, only to observe that Guinness was one of those proud men who think they can play anything--and mostly they're correct.

Great Classics.......2003-12-12

This is one of the best collections I own. If you love all the classic movies, definitely go for this one!

Lawrence of Arabia (Superbit Collection)

Average customer rating:

cinematic masterpiece...
Surprising quality
there once was Arab glory
What, no sub-titles?
You can't watch it once

Lawrence of Arabia (Superbit Collection)
Starring: John Dimech , José Ferrer , Alec Guinness , Jack Gwillim , and Jack Hawkins
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B0000AGQ6Z
Release Date: 2003-09-09

Amazon.com essential video

Customer Reviews:

cinematic masterpiece..........2007-09-06

Surprising quality.......2007-09-02

The quality of this DVD surprised me. I did not expect such a long movie to come through so clear and sharp when recorded to a single DVD.

there once was Arab glory.......2007-08-21

What, no sub-titles?.......2007-08-20

You can't watch it once.......2007-08-19

So much happens and so much of what happens to him explains the beginning. Very exciting, breathtaking cinematography, music fitting for this epic film

Lawrence of Arabia - The Battle for the Arab World

Average customer rating:

Lawrencemania!!
Nothing New Here.
Outstanding, insightful, balanced
Excellent supplement to Hollywood Classic
Some History, Many Lies of Omission, and Pro-Arab Propaganda

Lawrence of Arabia - The Battle for the Arab World
Starring: Michael Maloney , George Pagliero , and Nadim Sawalha
Director: James Hawes
Manufacturer: Pbs Home Video
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ASIN: B0000BWVND
Release Date: 2003-10-21

Description

An exploration into the man behind the film-inspired myth, from both Western and Arab perspectives. Thomas Edward Lawrence, a 24-year-old British spy, was a figurehead in the Arab struggle for independence. In 1916, he united Arab tribes and led them in a war against the Turks who ruled over them for 400 years. The consequences of his successes and failures sowed the seeds of conflict that continue to plague the troubled region even today.

Customer Reviews:

Lawrencemania!!.......2007-08-07

This is a great & quite long documentary about Lawrence detailing his activities when he helped the Arabs create an uprising against the Turks during WWI. It was shown nearly 10 years ago on The History Channel for those lucky enough to have seen it.

It covers pretty much of his known life in detail from when he was a boy & then was assigned as a map clerk in Cario as a Captain & later of course his tragic death on his motor cycle.

From the asking price it looks as if it's becomming quite rare & who knows when they'll shown it on TV again for free?

Nothing New Here........2006-04-26

This is a poorly produced program and looks like it was made on a very low budget. I'm very surprised that PBS would put their name to this shoddy piece of work. After seeing Ken Burns Civil War and Mark Twain, was this the best they could come up with for Lawrence Of Arabia? Ken Burns, where are you? We need you to do a proper program on Lawrence. What really amused me was the two phoney "Tribal Historians" they had commenting on Lawrence's activities over 80 years ago. They sit there with their head garb on and mumble away while we get a voice-over..Where did they get these two jokers from? How much did they get paid to sit there? Another let down is the lack of actual film footage of T.E. Lawrence. It does exist and more of it should have been put in. Instead we get some modern day actor who looks like Lawrence riding along on a camel and with many closeups of his face as he ponders his situation. I'd much rather watch Peter O'Toole. Anyway, if your interested in the real facts of Lawrence Of Arabia, suggest you read some of the excellent web sites on the subject. I sat (fell asleep) through this only to learn that Lawrence was an excellent military leader who told the Arabs anything they wanted to hear as long as it benefited Britain in their quest to control Arabia. Too much of the program is devoted to Lawrence being a homosexual. His sexuality is a curiosity to many I suppose but why go on and on about it? Unfortunately as far as television documentaries on Lawrence Of Arabia go, apparantly there is only this one. After seeing this I will stick to watching the excellent movies about him..

Outstanding, insightful, balanced.......2004-03-15

This skillfully done documentary was a nice surprise. I expected either hero worship or irresponible debunking. Instead what I got was a very thoughtful examination of Lawrence's remarkable career. Interviews with historians, biographers, bedouins, military experts and others give it a real sense of authenticity. The reenactments are well produced, historically accurate and tasteful. The existing film footage of the real Arab Revolt is used very well. This complicated man is given the detailed examination his monumental achievements and tragic failures demand. It's good to see the shallow, poorly researched and politically motivated attemps at debunking Lawrence (i.e. David Fromkin and Desmond Stewart) have not sucessfully obscured the truly remarkable adventure that was his life.

Excellent supplement to Hollywood Classic.......2004-03-14

I just watched (again) David Lean's 1962 classic followed by "Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle for the Arab World"... The new documentary is superb & a wonderful supplement to the theatrical movie, adding depth & context as well as presenting fascinating newsreel footage... It is interesting to compare the history of historians to the "history" of Hollywood... (In this case, it must be said that the commercial film makers acquited themselves very well indeed... Surely a rare, if not unique, event...)

The story told is essentially the same one in both the theatrical movie & the factual film, although the former is "larger than life" & the latter covers the entirety of Lawrence's life including the scholarly prequel & disturbingly bizarre & socially marginal sequel to the war years... The reenactments in the documentary are very carefully done & not intrusive or melodramatic... The "talking heads" offer a variety of perspectives: western & mid-eastern, academic & political, even a pair of "tribal historians" & a 106 year old Arab eye witness! Some of the comments of the former Jordanian Foreign Minister may grate on the viewer as biased, but I certainly didn't detect any anti-Semitism on the part of the film makers (anti-Zionism, yes!) & the "expose" of Lawrence's homosexuality is hardly that: The possibility is suggested along with the proviso that we will probably never know for sure...
I doubt that a documentary of this kind can be much better done than this one is.... All in all, I was so impressed that I've bought the DVD so I can watch both Peter O'Toole's immortal performance AND the real McCoy!!

Some History, Many Lies of Omission, and Pro-Arab Propaganda.......2004-01-26

If you know something about the real history of the Middle East, this DVD will supplement it with some interesting old pics of Lawrence and scenes from the region. But the authentic old movies and pics of Lawrence are few, recycled too often, and the movie with Peter O'Toole gives a much better reproduction of the main events. Lawrence's homosexual affair with a young Arab man is exposed, and he comes off as a brilliant but dysfunctional human who got along better in a society where women were made invisible. It also misportrays the Arabs as having a major role in the military defeat of the Turks when in fact their roles were episodic at best, with the major credit due to Allenby, save for the capture of Al Aqabah, which was brilliant. The Arab army of Faisal never amounted to more than around 1,000 Bedouins with maybe 3,000 Ottoman former prisoners who joined them, and was plagued by chronic tribal feuding and desertions en-mass at critical times. They were held together into an alliance only by massive quantities of British gold, which Lawrence was regularly supplied with to buy their loyalty. If the Turks had offered the gold, they would have just as easily gone with them. The O'Toole movie about Lawrence more accurately shows this side of things. Not a word is mentioned about these facts in the PBS DVD "documentary" however, nor that one major complaint of the puritanical Arabian warriors against the Turks was their more secular nature -- even before Attaturk, they were "going West". Nor that much of the fight also was about having "my King" instead of "your King" as the Big Boss. The Arabs simply wanted to replace the Ottomans, but retain the same old gigantic territory and method of authoritarian rule. The British did promise a lot to many different parties in the Middle East, being exceedingly desperate to save Europe from the scheming Kaiser, whose plans for domination had killed millions on the Western Front. But the Arabs eventually got nearly everything they wanted, though (thank goodness) not the single giant Arab State flying the banner of Islam. The whole DVD seems to pivot upon what they did not get - Israel - and the Arab "historians" interviewed use the story of Lawrence as yet another weapon against Israel. No mention is made of the large populations of Jews in Palestine and Baghdad at the time, nor of Arab Christians, nor how they also fought against and suffered badly under the Turks and so were demanding some justice and autonomy in their regions, nor any of the other competing interests within the region which the authors of the Treaty of Versilles had to cope with. The only thing that mattered to the Arabs, and to Lawrence also it appears, and to the producer of this flick was, that the Arabs didn't get EVERYTHING. So small historical facts like the quick Arab rejection of the Peel Commission offer by the British -- which was to give nearly all of Palestine to Arabs, to be run by Arabs under presumably Muslim Law, restricting Jewish immigration totally, but allowing the existing Jews to remain living there -- are never mentioned. The fact is, the Arab leaders were tribal Kings with no interest in democracy or humanistic social freedoms or justice. The British and French in Europe knew this, but Lawrence, so captivated by sand dunes and his young male lover, was blind as a bat, and like the authors of this film, could not see that after the throwing out of the autocratic Turks, many people in Palestine - notably the Jews, Christian Arabs and those influenced by French culture, simply did not want to live under some new King or dictator, with a continuance of Mullahs lording over everyone, maintaining dhimminitude and grinding women down into the dirt. This PBS propaganda is not recommended for the historically naive, or for children, unless you want to glorify Lawrence's blindness and lifestyle, and once again to misportray Western democratic influences as "bad". My suggestion is to read "A Peace to End All Peace" by David Fromkin who covers this chapter of Middle East history and "Lawrence of Arabia" with great objectivity.

Average customer rating:

Barely worth $8.00
SKIP THIS ONE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

The Making of "Lawrence of Arabia"

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ASIN: B0000B1ODB
Release Date: 2003-09-23

Customer Reviews:

Barely worth $8.00.......2003-11-24

If a DVD is selling for only $8.00, you know that it must be pretty slim on production values and material. This supposed "making of" DVD certainly falls into that category.

The video is nothing more than a collection of old "making of" featurettes that are found on the 2-disc delux edition of Lawrence. Although interesting, they are not overly informative and are quite repetitive in what is discussed. Aside from this public-domain productions, you also get the film's trailer. Big deal.

To legitimize this release further, the producers also created two "documentaries" on Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif that are about as uninteresting and flaccid as you can find. I've seen high school video productions that are more thorough and interesting than what is presented on this disc. On top of that, you have a video introduction that is so appallingly bad that it is laughable. (The "emcee" even has the nerve to say the hackneyed phrase "so, sit back and relax and enjoy the show" not once but twice!!)

Who should get this disc? Well, if you didn't purchase the deluxe edition of Lawrence and only have the Superbit Edition, then this might be a decent purchase. If you are looking for a thorough discussion of the making of Lawrence of Arabia, save your money you won't find it here.

SKIP THIS ONE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.......2003-11-03

This dvd is only about 15 minutes on behind the scenes of Lawrence of Arabia. The bulk of this dvd is biographies of Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif including all the films each did and summaries of THOSE films. Ends with film clips of director David Lean and summaries of THOSE films. Very disappointing as I bought it for Lawrence ONLY. You have been warned.

Average customer rating:

Breathtaking dvd transfer - highly recommended
Torn Apart Between Two Worlds : Lawrence's story.
One of the Greatest Films Ever (Region 2 DVD)

Lawrence of Arabia [Region 2]

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Lawrence of Arabia (Single Disc Edition)

ASIN: B00005B3OT

Customer Reviews:

Breathtaking dvd transfer - highly recommended.......2007-01-08

Buying home theatre releases of "Lawrence of Arabia" has become something of an obsession with me over the years. I bought a tape of the restored version in 1992, then, 5 years later, I bought a "35 years anniversary" edition that in addition to the film itself featured a short documentary named "Wind, sand and star - the making of a classic". Needless to say, I also bought the long-awaited dvd release (in fact, I bought the 2-disc-release as well as a French 3-disc-release). I can full-heartedly recommend any of the dvd releases I know - both picture and sound are breathtakingly good and reveal details I never noticed in all the years that went by until the dvd release. Much, if not all, of the additional material is worth your while; although one cannot help noticing O'Toole's absence in all material of recent date. Nevertheless, superior quality of sound and picture make this dvd release of "Lawrence of Arabia" one of the best-loved discs in my personal collection.

Torn Apart Between Two Worlds : Lawrence's story........2006-12-01

This film is a well deserved 7 Oscar winner. A huge production effort, 10 M dollars in 1962 was a record. To fully appreciate this opus, you should see it in a theater, no doubt, but if that is not possible don't miss it. VHS or DVD will allow you to taste many of the great features of this movie.

First: a gathering of actors performing in an unusual high level: Peter O'Toole as Lawrence, Omar Shariff as Sheriff Ali, Jack Hawkins as General Allenby, Anthony Quinn as Auda abu Tayi, Alec Guinness as King Feisal.
Not only those performances are outstanding, lots of secondary characters are also paramount: the two kids that followed Lawrence, Michael Ray as Farraj and John Dimech as Daud; the uncredited Turk soldier that holds Lawrence while he is whipped, gives an unforgettable expression, in a scene that takes no more than three minutes; the first Bedouin guide to Lawrence (Zia Mohyeddin); the British officers showing their elitist attitudes; almost all performances are remarkable one way or the other.

Second: the music score of Maurice Jarre with some remarkable compositions that remain as a trade mark of the movie.
The more than beautiful photography from Freddie Young (with an extended career that include more than 130 films), desert pictures are overwhelming, both winning Oscar.

Third: the film director, David Lean (also Oscar winner), conducts with the same allure mass battle scenes and intimate dialogues between Ali and Lawrence, Feisal and Lawrence amongst other. No doubt he influenced the generalized high quality actor's performance.

Fourth: the story is a forceful recreation of a critical war period with its political implications (still unresolved after almost 90 years). The intimate description of Lawrence divided loyalties: to Arab Cause and to British Empire. Of Lawrence's spiritual suffering: he was an intellectual and a mystic thrown in the middle of a bloody war conflict and having to lead human beings to death, suffering and destruction. Lawrence's internals contradictions: he enjoyed killing a man; afterwards, he was incapable to refrain his vengeance desires and lastly his failure to fulfill his promises. All this kaleidoscopic emotions are shown by Peter O'Toole with a compromise rarely seen; he gives real flesh and blood to his historical character.

There are some minor historical inaccuracies (poetic licenses may we say?), King Feisal is shown as an elder man; in reality he was only a couple of years older than young Lawrence. Peter O'Toole was (approximately) 6 feet high (or 1.80 meters) and Lawrence was (approximately) 5 feet 3 inches high (or 1.65 meters), this is in a way minimized by how O'Toole managed his corporal demeanor.
An unforgettable film!!!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

One of the Greatest Films Ever (Region 2 DVD).......2006-09-05

It is difficult to describe one of the greatest films of all time. This film may even be the greatest film of all time. Such sweeping statements are difficult to defend because opinions are exactly that. Yet, this movie has much going for it that make it a must for any greatest films list, and makes the top of mine.

Let us begin with the peripherals. At a time when sets were common, this movie was filmed entirely on location. The desert scenes are all real. I believe the interiors were all real buildings, though I can not verify that. The music, most especially the theme, is unbelievable. The soaring violins are well matched to the expansive desert vistas, stretching away into infinity. The Arabian deserts are as immense as the American west. Also important were the costumes, which were highly detailed and apparently authentic. Each and every aspect of this movie was so exceedingly well executed that it approaches perfection. In one of the DVD extras Peter O'Toole mentions that he was expecting to be filming this movie for five months, and instead ended up filming it for two years and three months, one indication of the care and complexity required to create this film.

If you have yet to buy this movie, then please do two things. First, if at all possible for your region, buy the two-disk DVD with the marvelous extras. The black and white documentaries are short but interesting. The interviews provide insight into those involved with the film. Second, buy the biggest television set you possibly can, and be sure you watch this movie in wide screen format. You miss too much with full screen. In fact, the optimal way to watch this movie is to have a surround sound system and an HDTV set up for wide screen format.

The movie itself is a classic of classics, the story of an English map maker in service to his country. Bored by what he is doing, he wants to see some action. Soon he does, but the action changes him. The movie is about how T. E. Lawrence grows from an idealistic young man to a battle hardened man who discovers that he likes killing, and yet is repulsed by it. The movie also proclaims that T. E. Lawrence was one of the principals involved in Arab independence and the movie is about some of the seminal moments in the uniting of many Arab tribes. The movie also provides as much information about Lawrence's psychology as it does about his actions, because his psychology, from being able to put out a match with his bare fingers to calling for the elimination of a fleeing column of Turkish troops with the taking of no prisoners, provides insights into the complex psyche of the person of T. E. Lawrence.

The battles are exquisitely executed. The fights are extremely well choreographed, and I admire the stamina and dedication of the hundreds of people involved in the creation of this movie as they created this movie in desert temperatures. Given the care that is taken with safety in modern films, I believe this movie would be extremely difficult to film in the same way today.

Ultimately, the art, the story, the locations, the music, the script, the costumes and the action all come together to create an incredibly compelling and realistic story of T. E. Lawrence. This movie is a must-have for a collector of great films.

Charlie Rose with Peter O'Toole (December 19, 2000)

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose with Peter O'Toole (December 19, 2000)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose, Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

General | Educational | Genres | DVD | Video

ASIN: B000HBL7MM
Release Date: 2006-08-15

Description

A conversation with actor Peter O'Toole on aging, acting, his movie roles and being voted Oldie of the Year.

Charlie Rose with Peter O'Toole (May 6, 2002)

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose with Peter O'Toole (May 6, 2002)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose, Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

General | Educational | Genres | DVD | Video

ASIN: B000HBL50G
Release Date: 2006-08-15

Description

Peter O'Toole speaks to Charlie for the hour. He reflects on work in his earlier career, including on the film Lawrence of Arabia, and talks about his new role on television in The Education of Max Bickford.

Charlie Rose with Peter O'Toole (August 1, 2002)

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose with Peter O'Toole (August 1, 2002)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose, Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

General | Educational | Genres | DVD | Video

ASIN: B000HBL4J8
Release Date: 2006-08-15

Description

A conversation with actor Peter O'Toole on aging, acting, and his movie roles.

DVD:

DVD

DVD