Lawrence of Arabia - Two Disc Set [DVD]

What can be said about this landmark piece of cinema that hasn't already been said? David Lean's masterpiece among a peerless body of work is presented here in a stunning remastered 1080p transfer, with a suitably beefed-up DTS-HD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. This is probably as close as home viewers are going to get to Lean's original vision of the audacious British officer who united Arabia's disparate tribes to fight off the invading Turks during World War I. Seriously, this film looks better than any 50+ year-old film should look, with a warm film grain, bright, colourful highlights and satisfyingly deep blacks. Add career-best performances from Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif and you have one of the greatest screen epics ever made.Audio options are the original English track and a Spanish dub, while the subtitles are in English, Hindi and Spanish. Unsurprisingly for a movie with a running time of nearly four hours, the majority of the bonus features are bundled on a second blu ray disc. A must for lovers of the movie, these include an hour-long 'making of' documentary, featuring archive interviews with some of the key players involved in the film, including David Lean himself, a wonderful 20-minute featurette from 2009 with Peter O'Toole reminiscing over the film's production, and a short segment with Steven Spielberg, who declares Lawrence of Arabia to be his favourite film of all time. Can't argue with that. Essential.

Approaching such a revered milestone of cinema, I was reluctant for two reasons: The first reason it's LONG - did I really want to give up that much time to watch an old film that might not live up to the hype? The second is that 'biographical' pieces can be dull, especially if produced in a more 'twee' era.I needn't have worried on either account. While I'll recommend that you save it for a Sunday or a Bank Holiday simply due to the size of the film, which comes with it's own Intermission break, this is no dry, fusty hero-worship piece. The Blu-Ray transfer is spectacular, and although you can tell it's an older film, it's very clear and amazingly good looking. The scenery photography on its own led to several jaw-drop moments of genuine, rare awe. But between that scenery there's a story.Lawrence isn't held up as a flawless hero but a playful, flawed egotist - one with great military guts and a mountain of determination and self belief - which bordered on the self-eulogising and nearly a messiah complex. The British are surprisingly portrayed the way that the CIA tend to be portrayed in modern movies; shifty types with a moral superiority complex who think the end justifies the means and aren't afraid of throwing their men to the wolves, but with the occasional touching moment of comradeship. The Arab characters also come off better than in many later films, being shown some degree of respect by the story as victims of cultural expectations and tradition as much as victims of exploitation by the Turks and the British. Alec Guinness gives a layered performance of Faisal, Omar Sharif fills his supporting role with fiery personality and pride, and O'Toole is mesmerising as the soldier who feels a fish out of water with his own people, but comes into his own in the desert. It's decently full of action and spectacle as well, from the striking attack upon Aqaba to saboteur attacks and the massacre of a convoy of Turkish foot-soldiers that the film is brave enough to paint as nothing but the results of blood-lust and Lawrence's temporarily unbalanced psyche - an unbalance that may be down to wartime sexual abuse that's heavily hinted at in a key scene. Overall, it's an astonishingly brave film - brave for its pacing which insists upon bouts of patience to soak up the astounding vistas and cultural moments in between the politics and violence, brave for casting two little known performers in lead roles, and brave for its controversial and fascinating plot details. This is certainly not the fuzzy, watered down museum piece you may have been taught to expect. A breathtaking piece of British cinema.

This is an awesome film, and the visual quality of the 4k remastered version is absolutely stunning. It is an incredible story, wonderfully told, and despite being nearly 4 hours long, my teenage boys and I were gripped the whole way through. The sound quality isn't quite up to the level reached with the imagery, but the music is still magnificent and really immerses you in the atmosphere of this remarkable time. This is possibly one of the finest films ever made. It is even more impressive given that it dates from 1962, long before CGI, and the only way to represent hordes of warriors swarming into battle was to have real hordes of warriors doing just that. Overall, this deserves to be in anyone's collection and is just the thing for when you want to be carried off into a totally different world of heroes, triumph and disaster - the consequences of which we very much live with today.

Having first viewed this film in the cinema when it first came out, I found it difficult to believe how it has stood the test of time. The visual quality was truly excellent as a consequence of the restoration process. It was also somewhat uncanny to view the plethora of predominantly British movie stars whom I recall from the fifties and sixties, as true-to-life as I remember them.A truly great film, beautifully presented, with a powerful hint of nostalgia for those, such as myself, who recall having seen it the first time around.