LAWRENCE OF ARABIA: Blu-ray (Columbia/Horizon, 1962) Sony Home Entertainment
BEST PICTURE -
1962
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by
night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was
vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on
their dreams with open eyes to make them possible.”
- T.E. Lawrence
Few movies in
the history of film-making can justly be labeled as classics; fewer still as
cinema art. That David Lean’s Lawrence
of Arabia (1962) has endured as both for almost sixty years is a testament
to Lean’s prowess as a storyteller and Peter O’Toole’s formidable merit as its
enigma of the desert sand. Strange that the film, like T.E. Lawrence himself,
should exist in a curious sort of vacuum for which no superlatives seem
adequately in summarizing its greatness. Lawrence
of Arabia is a huge thing. But the immensity of its cultural impact goes
well beyond its visual grandeur, spectacularly lensed by Freddie Young, the
lyrical sweep of Maurice Jarre’s quixotic score or even the minutiae built into
the misadventures of its protagonist, political intrigue, wed to penetrating
melodrama; all of it seamlessly woven into Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson’s screenplay.
No, there is a foreign kinetic energy at play herein, refracting the excellence
from these prisms to shed new light on the piece as a whole. It isn’t simply
that Lean has created a handsome road show (although he most certainly has),
well thought out, evenly paced and principally crafted, employing all the
intrinsic intensity of a seasoned bard with fascinating tales to tell. Like the intangible jabs of pleasure derived
from hearing a sublime poetic verse read aloud by a great orator, Lawrence of Arabia provides an intoxicating
elixir, sending its vast tributaries to quench our hearts, minds and yes, even
our souls with its perennial ingeniousness.
Lawrence of Arabia is perhaps the definitive example
of Lean’s showmanship at its zenith; an undeniably romanticized valentine made
by one man about another, the latter larger-than-life, and, whose egotism was
no less unctuous. And, like T.E. Lawrence, as complex and perplexing a portrait
of cavalier heroism both in front of and behind the camera that, sadly, is no
more. Lean’s penchant for bold visual
compositions makes Lawrence of Arabia
not simply the stimulating masterwork it has remained all of these long years,
to be marveled at with renewed humility and undiluted appreciation, but a
nearly indescribable piece of exquisite celluloid perfection. That all of Lean’s
luminosity and transcendence might have been lost to the ages after Lawrence’s world premiere, through
years of neglect and improper storage, multiple edits and limited theatrical
and television reissues, nauseatingly interrupted by commercials, was a
disaster narrowly averted when film preservationists, Robert A. Harris and Jim Katz
undertook the monumental task of resurrecting Lawrence of Arabia from the dead in 1988. Then, of course, the work
was limited to exhausting archival research for a usable print master on which
to perform a process of reconstruction and thorough photo-chemical restoration.
Although Harris and Katz were hampered by Columbia’s lack of archival fine
grain preservation masters, they were infinitely blessed in having David Lean –
very much alive and sincerely eager to contribute invaluable insight on the
making of the movie. The director even joked that it took Harris and Katz
nearly twice as long to salvage Lawrence
of Arabia from the ashes as it did for him to originally shoot it in the
Nefu. Indeed, Lean had endured his own private war for almost three years in
the inhospitable heat and sand, searching for the essence of a man who, in
Lawrence’s own words was “enfranchised,
untamed and untrammeled by convention”.
Lean found his
enigma in Peter O’Toole – a relatively unknown Brit-born actor capable of
infusing the filmic Lawrence with an impeccable grace and incurable vanity.
O’Toole inhabits the character so completely – both physically and from within
- that it is astonishing to consider just how close he came to not getting the
part. In fact, Albert Finney had been first up and had even screen tested for
the part. But O’Toole, with his piercing blue eyes, is the quintessence of that
paradox, never entirely known or appreciated; neither by those who stood at
arm’s length of the real Lawrence or by the millions who only saw him through
the miracle of old B&W newsreels. Yet, O’Toole is Lawrence; the actor, inseparable from his alter ego. For the
part of Sharif Ali, Lean made another inspired casting choice in Omar Sharif; a
dark and statuesque star of Arab TV. Sharif had never appeared in a major
motion picture before, nor was he at all certain that he wanted to. Sharif, who
had regarded his own fame as quite satisfactory, was cajoled by his agent to
fly to London and meet David Lean at the Dorchester. The meeting was fortuitous
to say the least; each man becoming quite spellbound by the other. Lean, who
could be very aloof when dealing with actors, bestowed his hawk-like precision
on Sharif, guiding his performance with such an intuitive understanding that
Sharif would forever regard this experience as the highpoint in his movie-making
career. Perhaps Lean agreed, evidently enough to cast Sharif in the title role
of his subsequent epic, Doctor Zhivago
in 1965.
The rest of the
cast was rounded out by an impeccable roster of superb character actors: Arthur
Kennedy as sycophantic photographer, Jackson Bentley, the urbane Claude Rains
as wily politico, Mr. Dryden, Donald Wolfit as irascible Gen. Murray, earthy
Anthony Quinn - lusty Auda Abu Tayi, Jose Ferrer as an ‘implied’ bisexual
Turkish Bey, and, Jack Hawkins as stoic Gen. Allenby. For the pivotal role of
Prince Feisal, Lean turned to his resident ‘good
luck charm’; the consummate chameleon, Alec Guinness. Lean and Guinness –
both craftsman in their own field – had a mutual tempestuousness for what each
perceived as the other’s meddling in their stylistic creativity and work
ethics. Yet both were to benefit from their association and perhaps
begrudgingly knew that, without the other, their contributions remained half as
good. Whatever the crux for this minor unpleasantness, Lean and Guinness shared
as much public regard and mutual respect for each other. This too would endure
until Lean’s passing in 1991. Lean once claimed that directing ought to be a
very selfish pursuit. “The more a film is
one man’s vision, the better.” Indeed, Lean’s capabilities on Lawrence of Arabia extended far beyond
the reach of any of his contemporaries. Many had tried to tell T.E. Lawrence’s
story, but to no avail. Lean, not only conquered history, but managed the coup
to give us a facsimile of Lawrence, so uncannily pure and investigating, it
easily has since eclipsed the memory of the real man it sought to emulate. In
retrospect, Lean seems particularly engaged, able to pluck the minutest detail
from his character study and extol its inner tumult in relief from the broader political
canvas at the epicenter of the action; interpreting even the landscape in pure
cinematic terms and in ways that continue to tantalize and corrupt our senses
with an extraordinary amalgam of stark realism and profound visual
majesty.
Lean’s
reputation as the leading purveyor of big screen epics would be forever
cemented with this sweeping fictionalization. Working from Lawrence’s private
journals, diaries and public writings, the screenplay by Robert Bolt (and, an
unaccredited Michael Wilson) challenged the mysterious circumstances
surrounding Lawrence’s death. From this springboard, Lean probes the legacy of
a man whose legend was shrouded in speculation and never satisfactorily
explained away by the historical record. In many ways, conceiving the tale as
one gigantic flashback, serves to obscure what little facts are actually known
about T.E. Lawrence, while simultaneously heightening and preserving his
mythology. Indeed, the real Lawrence was a master manipulator of his own
personal publicity as political propaganda. Remarkably, although many studios
(including RKO and MGM) had toyed with the idea of doing a bio-pic on Lawrence
since the mid-1930s, no film project ever went beyond the preliminary stages
until David Lean began more concrete negotiations to secure Albert Finney to
play the part. Screen tests were made. And although Finney looked the part, and
was a consummate actor besides, there was something in his performance that
utterly displeased Lean. Finney was trying to embody the man rather than
suggest the enigma. He had grounded his
performance in too much realism. His Lawrence was a man, not a myth. Yet, there
was very little reality in Lawrence's life story to go on. What was required to do justice to Lawrence
was something else; a bottling of his spirit, that elusive absence of the flesh
and sinew for a Godlike creature of his own design.
After some
consternation, Lean turned to Peter O’Toole for the plum opportunity. O'Toole
had one immediate advantage: he was a virtual unknown to audiences outside of
Britain. Better still, he looked more like Lawrence than Finney, and perhaps startling
as close to Lawrence as the real McCoy in his flowing white robes and
headdress. But O'Toole was also a highly competent actor who, like Lawrence,
possessed something of that inner self-appointed charm and pomp without the
grating arrogance to carry off the part. Fittingly, the Bolt/Wilson screenplay
begins with Lawrence’s death. He loses control of his motorcycle on a lonely
English country road. From the resplendence of his thought-numbing state
funeral, we regress to a basement map room in Cairo where Lawrence (Peter
O'Toole) is a somewhat socially backward and generally disenchanted British
officer. He is plucked from this interminable obscurity by Mr. Dryden (Claude
Rains) a subversive politician, and sent into the desert to ‘observe’ the
brewing entanglement, collectively earmarked as the ‘Arab revolt’ - much to the
strenuous objections of Colonel Brighton (Anthony Quayle) who regards Lawrence
as little more than a defiant, and not terribly bright upstart.
Given the
opportunity of a lifetime as special envoy to Prince Feisal (Alec Guinness),
Lawrence’s defiance of mother England and the hidden agenda of its political
overseers in making the Arab nation a principality overseen by the British, is
counter-intuitive to his orders from Gen. Lord Edmund Allenby (Jack Hawkins).
But it ingratiates him to Feisal, who also has ulterior motives in supporting
Lawrence’s seemingly impossible quest to unite the warring Arab factions into a
single army equipped to ward off the Turks. To this end, Lawrence brokers a
fragile truce between Feisal’s Sharif Ali (Omar Sharif) and the lusty Auda Abu
Tayi (Anthony Quinn). Ali’s innate skepticism of Lawrence is unfounded and
gradually subsides, particularly after Lawrence challenges the precept “nothing is written” for those who have
the courage and conviction to pen their own destiny. After conquering the
Turkish stronghold at the port city of Acaba, once thought of as an impregnable,
Lawrence gains Ali’s respect and becomes his trusted confidant. Unfortunately,
Lawrence’s newfound popularity goes to his head. He becomes careless in his
self-importance – a move that results in the death of Farraj (Michael Ray); an
orphaned peasant he took under his tutelage earlier. Sometime later, Lawrence
is captured and taken before the Turkish Bey (Jose Ferrer) where he is
brutalized and sodomized. A shattered man, whose thirst for revenge now supersedes
his desire for a peaceable victory, Lawrence transforms the Arab revolt into a
private bloody war, bent on the complete annihilation of the Turkish forces.
His noblest
intentions in tatters, Lawrence watches in disbelief as the fragile truce he
helped to forge between the various Arab factions unravels into an unruly
rabble bickering and fighting among themselves until British forces intercede and
reestablish control in Cairo. Lawrence confesses to Allenby he has bungled the
entire affair; then, confides an even more startling realization - he is on the
verge of a nervous breakdown. Brighton, who can only now fathom what the
clarity of Lawrence’s own ambitions has wrought, and furthermore, how it too
has been sacrificed for Feisal and Allenby’s benefit of establishing an Arab
republic, watches as the one-time noblest champion of its cause is quietly disavowed
by both sides. Lawrence is retired with full honors from the Army and shipped
back to England where, as the audience already knows from the prologue, a tragic
finality awaits. In these final moments, with Lawrence driven through the
desert via escort, passed by a caravan of camels on one side - a symbolic
reminder of the past he is leaving behind, and a motorcyclist on the other, the
ominous harbinger of imminent death, the immensity of Lawrence’s tragic brief
span on earth is elevated to that of an elusive mirage. Like Sharif Ali’s first
appearance in the story – materializing as a shimmering spec on the horizon –
this penultimate triage of images rising from the Nefu, resurrect the essence
of a lost dream that the current Lawrence, demoralized and with his reputation
in ruins, cannot appreciate for the full breadth in its meaning.
David Lean’s subtlety
extols the poignant tragedy in this moment for the rest of us, and in it, Lawrence of Arabia achieves an
indefinable preeminence as perhaps the most intricate and impassioned, yet
largely fictional bio-pic ever put on film.
Arguably, Lawrence of Arabia
is the most perfectly realized epic - ever. Undeniably, it remains a visual
feast, breaking new ground with Anne V. Coates’ editing techniques borrowed
from the French New Wave (the blowing out of a match, cut directly to the sun
rising in the east, just one of the most inspirational visual highlights). Lean
tirelessly toiled under some of the harshest conditions to make Lawrence of Arabia a masterpiece.
Indeed, Lean often worked best under such inhospitable circumstances – setting up
a makeshift ‘town’ where cast and crew lived while shooting in the desert. Even
native, Omar Sharif found the heat oppressive. It melted the unprocessed film
in its metal cans, forcing cinematographer, Freddie Young to pack the reels and
the camera in ice between takes. That Lean was unable to screen dailies also
put a strain on composer, Maurice Jarre, who basically had to write his entire
score for the picture without seeing so much as a shred of film first. What
proved inspirational to both actors and crew was Lean's never-waning zeal and
exuberance, often fueled by some inspirational discussions, long into the night,
around a campfire, after a hard day's shoot.
Lawrence of Arabia is one of the truly grand events from
the sixties; a Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth and tickets sold
out months in advance. Alas, shortly after the world premiere, all prints were
drastically cut to satisfy exhibitor’s requests for more nightly viewings.
Although Lean returned to make these initial trims, the film continued to be pared
down without his approval thereafter, resulting in various release prints that
in no way accurately reflected the director’s original vision. For decades
thereafter, Lawrence of Arabia continued to play in various venues and revival
houses, with audiences never quite knowing which cut they were about to screen;
the excised material thought to have been discarded long ago. Mercifully, some
thirty years into the future, restoration experts, Robert A. Harris and James
Katz discovered virtually all of the missing footage had survived. Together
with Lean and Anne V. Coates, Harris and Katz reassembled Lawrence with a strict
adherence to Lean’s shooting script notations. The absence of whole audio
portions necessitated the return of surviving principle cast members to dub in
their lines of dialogue, with the late Jack Hawkins’ part eventually recorded
by another actor, and rather convincingly too.
Lawrence of Arabia - the restored version - was given
an ambitiously mounted road show reissue in 1988, at an epoch when such revivals
were virtually nonexistent. Lawrence played in only the major
cities across the U.S. and Canada. But the picture’s re-emergence on the big
screen proved to be much more than a reintroduction of the movie, as originally
intended, and brought back from the brink for newer audiences to appreciate. It
also served to shed much needed light on the establishment of a national film
registry, dedicated to the preservation and restoration of celluloid art. The
video cassette and Laserdisc evolution put Lawrence of Arabia on the home video map as one of Columbia's top
sellers. It also proved to the studios that 'old movies' had a shelf life well
beyond their original theatrical expiration date. Alas, Sony Home Entertainment’s
various releases of Lawrence of Arabia
on home video since 1988 have been rather depressingly second rate. The first
on DVD, fitted in a lavish cloth encasement now out of print, suffered from
some color-timing issues and edge enhancement that belied all of the fine
efforts Harris and Katz had put into their restoration. Several years later,
Sony tried again, this time with Harris overseeing the efforts and color
fidelity greatly improved. Unfortunately, the edge effects remained in place.
Worse, Sony had also inexplicably chosen to chop and spread the new transfer
across 2 discs – not at the intermission (this, after all, would have made
sense) but roughly six minutes into its second half after the entr’acte.
When Sony
debuted the Blu-ray format in 2003 all of its discs contained a screener
showing the briefest of clips from Lawrence
of Arabia. Indeed, Lawrence was the primary reason I became
an early adopter of the Blu-ray format. But shortly thereafter, Sony announced
too much work was needed to get Lawrence
of Arabia up to speed for hi-def, and within months, the title ceased to be
seen in their Blu-ray advertising screeners. In 2014, the long-awaited moment
finally arrived. And we, who had waited for so long to see Lawrence of Arabia as David Lean intended, could breathe a sigh of
relief. For here was a home video presentation so breathtaking, sumptuous and
remarkable, it easily revealed all of the attributes of 70mm large
gauge film at a glance. I can forgive
almost any delay in a deep catalog release if the results are well worth it.
And Lawrence of Arabia on Blu-ray
has been worth all the time out to ensure it came to Blu-ray looking as grand
and as elegant as seen during its opening night splendor. This 1080p transfer
reveals a startling amount of fine detail and film grain looking indigenous to its
source. Colors pop. Flesh tones exhibit superior tonality. One can see thread
count in close ups of uniforms and creases in leather boots. The 5.1 DTS soundtrack
yields indescribable clarity; dialogue sounding natural, Maurice Jarre’s score,
inspiring. There is absolutely nothing to complain about herein. This is the
definitive experience of David Lean’s greatest epic.
The limited
edition of Lawrence of Arabia plays
host to a myriad of treasures: including an 88-page book, informatively written
by Jeremy Arnold with a preface by Leonard Maltin. It is packed with glossy
B&W and color stills and quotes from Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg,
Peter O'Toole, Robert Bolt and others. Each box contains an authentic 70 mm
film frame – very classy indeed. There are four discs in this set: the first, houses
the entire feature film and a picture in graphic track that provides
fascinating factoid info on the making of the film. Discs 2 and 3 are loaded
with extras – disc 3 only available in the ‘Limited Edition’ set. Disc 2 has
nearly a half-hour of new reflections from then, 80-year-old Peter O’Toole
(whom we lost in 2013); the hour-long ‘making of’ that was a part of the 2000
DVD, 9-minutes of Steven Spielberg, affectionately waxing about the impact of
the movie on his own career, four vintage featurettes, totaling roughly 20-minutes,
newsreel footage of the New York premiere, and a barrage of advertising junkets
– stills, trailers, and other materials created for the subsequent re-issues.
Disc 3 contains,
perhaps, the most coveted and widely anticipated extra of the lot; the 7 min.
balcony scene between O’Toole and Jack Hawkins. At the time of the ’88
restoration this scene was left on the cutting room floor because all of
Hawkins’ dialogue needed to be dubbed and afterward was deemed as sounding not
terribly convincing by Lean. We also get 8 min. of Martin Scorsese’s thoughts
on the film, and a fascinating featurette on restoring Lawrence in hi-def. More
vintage newsreels and featurettes follow. And then, there is “In Love with The Desert” – a superb
tribute, hosted by production assistant, Eddie Fowlie who waxes affectionately
for 84-minutes about the times he and Lean spent making magic amid the dunes. The goodies top out with brief archival sound
bites from William Friedkin, Scorsese, Spielberg and the late Sidney Pollack –
whose expertise, wit and film-making prowess I must admit, I greatly admire and
even more deeply miss. The last disc in this set is a CD of the definitive film
score, including two tracks never before heard. This is the way to properly
honor a classic movie score – not with those damn CD samplers that Warner Home
Video seems so intent on whetting our appetites with on their ‘deluxe’ edition
Blu-rays of Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin’ in the Rain et al. Re: Lawrence’s
CD – it is a phenomenal listening experience not to be missed. Audiophiles: you
are in for a real treat. Bottom line: Lawrence
of Arabia is a must have. There is really nothing more to be said, except if
you do not already own this, you should. Movies of this caliber are rare. Today,
they are all but extinct. This Blu-ray gives cause to rejoice. Very – very – highly recommended!
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
5+
EXTRAS
5+
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