Lawrence of Arabia (Collector's Edition)

Now we must pay our respects to T.E. Lawrence, known to most of the world as Lawrence of Arabia. But you don't need to visit London or the desert or Arabia to get a sense of T.E. Lawrence -- all you really need is a DVD player or, better still, movie theatre!David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia is simply one of the most extraordinary films ever made on the topic of human armed conflict. This film was released in 1962 and was awarded seven Oscar awards including best Director and Best Picture.The picture begins with Lawrence's senseless and premature death on a motorbike and then moves to his burial at St. Paul's in London. Here a visitor to London will find his tomb along with those of other champions of human liberty -- The Duke of Wellington and Lord Horatio Nelson to name but two.T.E. Lawrence was an Oxford-educated archaeologist (an assistant at the British Museum's excavation of Carchemish on the Euphrates) who was living in the Middle East at the outbreak of the First World War. He joined British intelligence and served in the Arab division. The Allies were frustrated by the appalling slaughter that was taking place in the trenches of the Western front. Millions of lives were lost for the sake of mere yards of territory. The Allies longed to come up with some kind a flanking strategy that could lead to victory.The decrepit Ottoman Empire ("the sick man of Europe") had allied itself with the Central Powers (Austria and Germany). Winston Churchill, who was the head of the Admiralty at the start of the Great War, won support for the Dardanelles campaign which attempted to knock the Turks out of the war. The French and British landings at Gallipoli proved to be a disaster and Churchill was forced to resign.The allies next strategic idea was to help stir up an Arab revolt against the Turks. They needed someone who was fluent in Arabic, who could cultivate and influence the Arabs in aid of Allied strategic objectives. They needed someone who could 'go native'. They found their man...T.E. Lawrence.Lawrence was a not merely a soldier, a master of espionage and a statesman -- he was a gifted poet. He starts his famous Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph: The Complete 1922 Text thus..."Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances, For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven. By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars. We were a self-centered army without parade or gesture, devoted to freedom, the second of man's creeds, a purpose so ravenous that it devoured all out strength, a hope so transcendent that our earlier ambitions faded in its glare."The film Lawrence of Arabia simply could not be made by today's filmmakers. Steven Spielberg has estimated that his favorite film of all time would cost in the region of $285 million to produce today while the original production cost was $12 million. This film is too well-written, it has no digital special effects, the pacing is sluggish by contemporary standards and it has no love interest (nor a single spoken female line). It does feature a brilliantly costumed cast of thousands which included soldiers from the Royal Jordanian and Royal Moroccan armies. The clean but brutal desert itself is a major character in the film along with Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Claude Rains, Jack Hawkins and Alec Guinness.Lawrence of Arabia was, in a sense, the First World War prequel to David Lean's The Bridge On The River Kwai. It portrays the sacrifice of youth and innocence in the ravenous maw of institutionalized industrial warfare. It chronicles the outward ascent of Lawrence leading the Arabs to glorious victory over the Turks and his inner descent into near-madness and barbarism. The boyish scholarly Lawrence of the film's opening scenes will be corrupted by war and sadistic torture into becoming a bloody-minded warrior who screams out, "No Prisoners!" in his final attack. The tale of Lawrence mirrors one of the Great War's other warrior/writers -- Manfred Von Richthofen. In his book Der Rote Kampflieger, Von Richthofen starts out taking his dog up for joy rides in his plane and ends as a cold-blooded killer of allied pilots before meeting his own untimely end.The film's plot is a coming of age tale set in the Arabian desert. The film is simply a meditation on the transforming power of warfare. The purity of desert sand is mixed with the blood of hot youth. Consider the eloquence and profound truth of Prince Feisal's (Alec Guinness) speech uttered to a retreating Lawrence from the film's conclusion:"We drive bargains. Old men's work.Young men make wars, and the virtuesof war are the virtues of young men.Courage and hope for the future.Then old men make the peace.And the vices of peaceare the vices of old men.Mistrust and caution.It must be so.What I owe you is beyond evaluation."With so many films out there today that are a pure waste of time, why not take the time to see or revisit Lawrence of Arabia -- a timeless classic film made by a master craftsman with a stellar cast which continues to be reverberate to this day.If you love Lawrence of Arabia, you may also like America Invades: How We've Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth by Kelly / Laycock Italy Invades

There is no other word to describe the experience of viewing the 2012, 5Oth Anniversary, Blu-ray edition of Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean Great epic. For TV viewers, though, it requires the largest screen your money can buy, for this epic was made at a time when no VHS, laser, or DVD were even envisioned. For those lucky to have seen it in the large screen, either in its initial release (as I have), or the 1989 re-mastered, "Director's Cut," then the general release in select theaters, even the new Blu-ray edition will not do. But it is the best compromise possible, for the 4-disc version offers so much extra material, not available in the best biographies and critical works on David Lean's works. For those already familiar with the the 2008 Collector's Edition, on David Lean's 100th birthday, of "Lawrence of Arabia" and the not so different in contents than the 2000 leather-bound box 2-disc edition by Columbia Pictures, the new 2012 Sonny Picturesd Blu-ray 4-disc edition will easily fill some of those gaps with lively narratives and comments from the likes of Peter O'Toole, at 80, Martin Scorsese, or Eddie Fowlie. There is plenty here to enjoy. The "coffee-table" book is distinguished for its stunning, high definition stills of the adventure in the desert, and the many quotations from the likes of Steven Spielberg's, Robert Bolt, and many others, while the essay by Jeremy Arnold and and the Preface by Leonard Maltin provide good information, if not for the Lean scholar, to whom details of production are familiar, but to the general reader who wishes to be informed on the production of this giant project that took more than two years to complete. The book features the actual notes from from Maurice Jarre's theme of "Lawrence," reviews from the time the epic movie was released (1962), and a sources/bibliography section that mentions such important works by scholars on Lawrence as Robert Morris's and Lawrence Raskin's "Lawrence of Arabia," and Adrian Turner's "The Making of Lawrence of Arabia," along with works by Kevin Brownlow, Sandra Lean, and Gene D. Phillips.But the real bonuses come in the high definition Blu-ray edition of the movie, based on the recent work of the Sonny Pictures Technologies studios. Disc #1 features the film, all in one disc,stunningly clear, in the proper aspect ratio of the original of 65mm original negative, painstakingly restored after many months of work in the Sonny labs. Disc #2 opens with a contemporary narration of Peter O'Toole, whose memory at 80 seems to be flawless, and his sharp wit adds to the variety of recollections of the epic adventure of filming. O'Toole pays tribute to Lean as a great director and leader as only he can; adding that he could have been great no matter what he had chosen to do. The rest of Disc #2 contains familiar material from the two previous editions, Adrian Turner narrating "The Making of Lawrnce of Arabia," with Norman Spencer and Omar Sharif adding recollections of the venture of their own. Disc #3 is the real treasure trove for both collectors of trivia, film buffs and scholars. First, is the feature showing the "Deleted Balcony" scene, narrated by Anne V. Coates, the original editor of the film, who also helped Lean and Robert Harris to put together the 1988 version of the restored film. She explains that the balcony scene is placed there only for "historical" purposes, since the voice of Jack Hawkins, who was dead at the time (1988), could not be recovered. This is the famous "seduction scene," where Allenby persuades Lawrence to resume his campaign to take Damascus,a vital piece that explains Lawrence's sudden change to reverse his decision after the Derea indident, where he was tortured. The next feature is an impression by Martin Scorsese, who gives his insights about Lawrence's enigmatic personality, as Scorsese only could. Next s is an analysis by Sonny executives involved in the Blu-ray edition of the film, Chris Cookson, President of Sonny, Grover Crisp, vice-president, and Scott Ostrowski, digital colorist. Wipes show the difference between previous picture quality and the undeniable clarity of the Blu-ray version they produced. The disc contains other features, the most endearing of which is a 120-minute recollection of Eddie Flowlie, made in 2000 (and thence not in high definition) the Lean prop-man and factotum, who travels to Jordan, Spain and Morocco, in the actual spots the film sequences where filmed. It is informative and fun to watch and hear.There is also a disc with Maurice Jarre's music, where the entire composition is recorded. Yes, the 4-disc edition costs--perhaps too much at $67 (down to #57 since), but, for me, it shines, and I got my money's worth.