Extras: Main Featurette: "The Making of Lawrence of Arabia", Four
other Featurettes, A Journey with Lawrence, Trailer, A Conversation with Steven Spielberg, Footage from the New
York Premiere, Advertising Campaigns, Filmographies, Texts and Photos, DVD-ROM content (Archives of Arabia)
Director:
David Lean
(The Bridge on the River Kwai, Brief Encounter, Doctor Zhivago, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Great Expectations, Hobson's Choice, In Which We Serve, Lawrence of Arabia, Oliver Twist, A Passage to India, Ryan's Daughter,
The Sound Barrier, Summertime)
Producers:
Robert A. Harris and Sam Spiegel
Screenplay:
Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson
(from original writings by T.E. Lawrence
Music:
Maurice Jarre
Cast:
T.E. Lawrence: Peter O'Toole
Prince Feisal: Alec Guinness
Auda abu Tayi: Anthony Quinn
General Allenby: Jack Hawkins
Sherif Ali: Omar Sharif
Turkish Bey: Jose Ferrer
Almost 40 years after the original cinema release - and ten years after the director's death - Lawrence of Arabia
arrives on the format it deserves in the complete 219-minute director's cut.
T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) is dead. No, I'm not spoiling any part
of the plot as the film begins - after the sumptuous overture - with Lawrence
going for an ill-fated spin on his motorbike, but he will be remembered for
the work he carried out during World War I as a British officer in uniting two
warring Arab factions against the ruling Turkish empire in a true-life story.
The magnificent cast of old-time stalwarts includes Alec Guinness,
Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins and Omar Sharif as Sherif Ali, who first
appears in the oft-shown scene where he approaches Lawrence and his Bedu friend.
I say 'oft-shown' because it's frequently used as an example of why the full
widescreen ratio is always required.
David Lean's film is a hugely-entertaining one most of the time, but
one that requires viewers of great patience as it does go on for nearly four
hours. In order to maintain the quality as best as they can, Columbia have
divided the film up into two parts. Disc one contains some DVD-ROM extras
and the film's first 134 minutes, ending with the word "INTERMISSION"
emblazoned across the screen. The second begins with the score from said
intermission and the final 85 minutes, as well as the rest of the supplemental
material. Note that the overtures during the start, intermission and end
all play without images adorning the screen, which was at the request of the
late director.
A film company's favourite words, "Digitally Remastered", are always
employed when an old film is taken and spruced up. The anamorphic Super
Panavision widescreen ratio of 2.20 looks mostly fantastic, but there is
shimmering during some daytime scenes including an early sunrise across the
desert, plus later when Omar Sharif first appears to Lawrence, as
alighted to earlier.
The average bitrate is 6.7Mb/s, occasionally peaking above 9Mb/s.
Dolby Digital 5.1 has been provided in English, German and Spanish. Whether
it's planes flying overhead Lawrence (disc 1, chapter 10), Maurice Jarre's
rousing score or the throbbing motorbike engine, ridden by Lawrence in the
post-opening credits sequence, such aural moments give great pleasure, but the
dialogue can seem a little tinny on occasion. The main featurette does
explain that some lines of dialogue were re-recorded for this director's
cut.
"How long is that bloody Pizza Hut delivery guy going to take?"
The first extra is the 62-minute featurette, The Making of Lawrence of
Arabia, blending non-anamorphic film clips with interviews with many
surviving cast and crew members. This featurette was rated certificate 12,
hence the reason why the entire package was upped from a PG.
A Journey with Lawrence is a well-produced chronological sequence of
events for the man, allowing you to click on a particular time period or
place where he went in order to find out more information. An anamorphic
16:9 widescreen Trailer looks a little ropey in terms of quality but at
five minutes long, it's certainly the most lengthy one I've witnessed to date.
A Conversation with Steven Spielberg is an 8½-minute monologue
with clips from the film mixed in. The 70-second Footage from the New
York Premiere is like an old-age Pathe news item. Very dark and lacking
in visual quality, but an absolute must for the die-hard collector.
Advertising Campaign runs for five minutes and portrays how the film
was too long at first before being shortened and turned into more of an
actioner. It wasn't until 1989 before the entire director's cut was restored
to its full glory. Filmographies are also included for the entire
cast and crew.
Four additional featurettes, totalling a shade over 17 minutes, are here, taking
in Maan, Jordan: The Camels are Cast; In Search of Lawrence; Romance of
Arabia; and Wind, Sand and Star: The Making of a Classic.
For such a long film, Columbia have treated us to 56 chapters and subtitles in
a massive 19 languages :
English, German, Spanish, Arabic, Dutch, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Bulgarian,
Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese,
Turkish and Swedish.
The menus are all animated and scored with excellent swipes inbetween of
a dusty sandstorm sweeping across the screen with horses being ridden
appearing as a clever visual effect within.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
