- Actors: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins, Omar Sharif
- Directors: David Lean
- Writers: Michael Wilson, Robert Bolt, T.E. Lawrence
- Producers: David Lean, Jim Painten, Robert A. Harris, Sam Spiegel
- Format: PAL
- Language English, German
- Subtitles: English, Spanish, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Turkish, Danish, Icelandic, Bulgarian, Swedish, Hungarian, Polish, Dutch, Arabic, Finnish, Czech, Greek
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 2.20:1
- Number of discs: 2
- Classification: 12
- Studio: Sony Pictures
- DVD Release Date: 9 April 2001
- Run Time: 218 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B000053W4R
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 7,343 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
In 1962 Lawrence of Arabia scooped another seven Oscars for David Lean and crew after his previous epic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, had performed exactly the same feat a few years earlier. Supported in this Great War desert adventure by a superb cast including Alex Guinness, Jack Hawkins and Omar Sharif, Peter O'Toole gives a complex, star-making performance as the enigmatic TE Lawrence. The magnificent action and vast desert panoramas were captured in luminous 70mm by Cinematographer Freddie Young, here beginning a partnership with Lean that continued through Dr Zhivago (1965) and Ryan's Daughter (1970). Yet what made the film truly outstanding was Robert (A Man For All Seasons) Bolt's literate screenplay, marking the beginning of yet another ongoing collaboration with Lean. The final partnership established was between director and French composer Maurice Jarre, who won one of the Oscars and scored all Lean's remaining films, up to and including A Passage to India in 1984. Fully restored in 1989, this complete version of Lean's masterpiece remains one of cinema's all-time classic visions. --Gary S Dalkin
On the DVD: This vast movie is spread leisurely across two discs, with Maurice Jarre's overture standing in as intermission music for the first track of disc two. But the clarity of the anamorphic widescreen picture and Dolby 5.1 soundtrack justify the decision not to cram the whole thing onto one side of a disc. The movie has never looked nor sounded better than here: the desert landscapes are incredibly detailed, with the tiny nomadic figures in the far distance clearly visible on the small screen; the remastered soundtrack, too, is a joy. Thanks are due to Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg who supervised (and financed) the restoration of the picture in 1989; on disc two Spielberg chats about why David Lean is his favourite director, and why Lawrence had such a profound influence on him both as a child and as a filmmaker (he regularly re-watches the movie before starting any new project). Other features include an excellent and exhaustive "making-of" documentary with contributions from surviving cast and crew (an avuncular Omar Sharif is particularly entertaining as he reminisces about meeting the hawk-like Lean for the first time), some contemporary featurettes designed to promote the movie and a DVD-ROM facility. The extra features are good--especially the documentary--but the breathtaking quality of both anamorphic picture and digital sound are what make this DVD package a triumph. --Mark Walker
Video Description
DVD Special Features
A Making Of Documentary
The Original Theatrical Trailer
A Conversation with Steven Spielberg
Footage from the New York Premier -
Plus 5 other Featurettes, Maps, Text and Photos
DVD Rom - Archives of Arabia
Filmographies from the cast and crew
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The landscape film par excellence,
By
This review is from: Lawrence of Arabia - Two Disc Set [DVD] (DVD)
In some films the landscape is one of the stars. This is the landscape film par excellence. You see, feel, taste and smell the desert as a result of David Lean's stunning desert photography. And that isn't all. This film is an 'embarrassment of riches'. It has an amazingly complex but confident and charismatic central performance from Peter O'Toole as Lawrence and superb supporting performances from Omar Sharif, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, Claude Rains, Anthony Quayle - to name only some of them. That great Shakespearian actor of the 1940s, Sir Donald Wolfit, has a rare big film cameo appearance as irascible General Murray. Its one of his few performances preserved on film. No account of the riches of this film would be complete without saluting the marvellous symphonic score by Maurice Jarre and the wonderfully literate, thought provoking script by Robert Bolt. 'Lawrence of Arabia' is truly one of the handful of enduringly great films and this DVD allows you to enjoy time and again not only the diamond sharp desert photography of the movie itself but also the nostalgia of a well made 'Making of' documentary.
74 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why don't they make them like this anymore!,
This review is from: Lawrence of Arabia [VHS] (VHS Tape)
From the success of Bridge over the river Kwai, David Lean settled on the story of Colonel T.E Lawrence or Ned to his family and friends, with which to once again captivate and entrance his cinematic public. Perhaps Mr Lean did not anticipate the size of the task that awaited him as if had it might have put him off.It was a risk for Mr Lean and his backers, after all this was a story that was surrounded in mystery, controversy and conflicting testimony, with the enigmatic Lawrence at its centre. The times had moved on and audiences were demanding big names and new cinema, David Lean had the big names(Alec Guiness, Jack Hawkins & Anthony Quinn) but the two central characters (Lawrence and Ali) were played by two relatively unkown actors, Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif, a big gamble for any director with such a fantastic story to tell. For the British in the first half of the century, the story of T.E Lawrence was a romanticised narrative, far departed from the hellish western front. He became much more than an intelligence officer in the British Army, he himself knew the power of propoganda and so did his political and military masters, not to mention the editors of papers back in England and the USA, for which Lawrence was a much needed "breath of fresh air" for the depreseive trench warfare reading of the first world war. David Lean's film while not strictly historicaly accurate (depending upon which version of Lawrence's life you believe) is a master piece of cinema. The cinematography is ground breaking and the scale of production magnificent. This means that it feels "real" for the audience. No computer graphics here, so when you see the hundreds of arabs charging into Aqaba with sabres raised, those ARE real actors all charging hell for leather into a town (constructed entirely by Lean's team, another fantastic acheivment). This size of staging has to be admired and works beautifully in the film. Perhaps the fascinating thing about Lean's film is that it does paint a balanced picture of Lawrence. Despite the conflicting testimony of his life and actions by many biographers and Lawrence himself, Lean rightly decided to air those darker sides of Lawrence's war time life along side his projected golden media image. This is summed up beautifully at the start of the film when a British hack asks an American journalist (who had met Lawrence during the Arabian campaign) for a few words after the remberence service for Lawrence at St Pauls. The American journalist gives only complimentary rhetoric (on the record) and then when the hack moves off delivers a cutting slur against Lawrence's character. Perhaps this is why the film works so well, it does not paint Lawrence as a "superman" who is above all vices and cleaner than clean, something American cinema did so well and continues too. Lean presents Lawrence as a great man, nevertheless a man with demons who had a darker side, it shows how he was used to achieve those ends decided by his superiors as much as he used others to get what he wanted. Peter O'Toole is a genius in the role, the cast as a whole all perform so well that you forget that they are actors and they become the characters they potray, this is surely what every actor and director hope to achieve but rarely do they. Lean and Co have created more than a film, its a ripping yarn, a master class in acting, directing, production, editing and casting. This reviewer recommends Lawrence Of Arabia with no reserevations.
48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lawrence of Arabia - Two Disc Set [DVD] (DVD)
I can never understand why people buyy certain titles on DVD when video is adequate. Exercise videos spring to mind! But the masterpiece that is Lawrence of Arabia is one of those films that really benefits from digital technology. Painstakingly restored, the stunning scenery, sensitive soundtrack and sheer self-indulgence of the director overwhelm the viewer into thinking that 4 hours is not long enough! It takes over 2 minutes for Omar Sharif to ride up on his camel, during which time only two or three words are spoken and the camera hardly moves. If this kind of film were made today it would be slashed into a 90 minute action movie. Buy it. It will never be matched.
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