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Lawrence of ArabiaRating:
Release Date: 03 April, 2001 Retail Price: $39.95 OUR Price: $29.99 You SAVE: $9.96! Cast: Complete Cast (15 total) |
Lawrence of Arabia Reviews
Lies v. Truth
There is a truism that if a person is caught lying on some matter then that person cannot be believed on other things. This is also true of films.
Lawrence of Arabia tells the story, (essentially 1916-1918), of a known historical figure in a well documented arena of the First World War. Is the film truthful to this figure and this period?
The film opens with the death of Lawrence. He is riding his motorbike (from Clouds Hill Cottage to Bovington) and approaching a slight rise two boys on bicycles appear in front of him in the centre of the road or on the wrong side of the road. Lawrence tries to avoid them and crashes. The film implies the boys were to blame - this is a travesty of the facts.
The crash happened on 13 May 1935, Lawrence died several days later, and an inquest was held on 21 May 1935. The inquest established that the two fourteen year old boys, Frank Fletcher and Albert Hargraves, were riding on the correct left-hand side of the road in single file. It was a relatively straight part of the road with a couple of dips and Lawrence came up fast behind them (he was probably doing around 50mph without a crash helmet) and in attemting to brake he hit the rear bike and was thrown over the handle bars. The cause of the crash was clear - Lawrence was riding too fast - speed kills.
Winston Churchill once described Lawrence as the biggest liar of them all. The film should be seen from this perspective - that it depicts events from the viewpoint of a person who cannot tell the truth; the film follows Lawrence's account of the Arab campaign described in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom - a book that is subject to much historical questioning. The film also distorts other events - like the crash.
Of course this is precisely what films are about - the depiction of fictional characters and events!!
The two boys (now old men) were interviewed in 1991 for a book. It is a pity that they were not asked about the crash scene in the film.
An All-Time Classic
Lawrence of Arabia has always been one of my favorite movies and with extras packed onto the DVD along with DVD quality makes the movie that much better. I highly recommend the movie to any David Lean fan.
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