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Lawrence of Arabia - The Battle for the Arab World

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This PBS documentary uses old newsreels, many modern reenactments, and interviews with T.E. Lawrence's biographers and with British and Arab historians to tell the true story behind the legend of Lawrence of Arabia. We learn of Lawrence's background and the archeological interests that first took him to the Middle East when he was 20 years old. Then, as World War I raged in Europe, Lawrence returned to the Middle East, where his knowledge of the region's culture and language would help him advance British efforts against Turkey, which by that time had allied itself with Germany. Lawrence became instrumental in securing British support for the Arab Revolt against the Turks and served as the Revolt's strategic and technical advisor and one of its soldiers in arms. It was Lawrence who conveyed to the Arabs Great Britain's promise of self-rule in exchange for their efforts in driving the Ottoman Empire from the Middle East. With Great Britain's assistance, the Arab Revolt was successful. But Britain had brokered the Sykes-Picot Agreement with France behind the backs of its Arab allies, which would place the region under British and French mandates. Britain would later violate its promise to the Arabs again with the Balfour Declaration. T.E. Lawrence, back in Britain after the War, did all he could to convince the powers that be to award the Arabs independence as promised, but succeeded only halfway. He spent his last years trying to make himself anonymous.

"Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle for the Arab World" presents both Arab and British understandings of Lawrence's role in the formation of the modern Middle East. It asserts that Britain's betrayal of the Arabs after World War I and its subsequent carving up of the region for its own convenience is at the root of many of the Middle East's problems today. Historians of both cultures are in agreement on this point, and on most points. And it is interesting to note the similarities between the political situation in the Middle East today and that of nearly a century ago. Although the actions of the colonial powers undoubtedly created longstanding problems in the region and engendered hostility toward Western nations, the Arab ideal of a single unified Arab nation was probably a pipe dream. Arab factions had issues between themselves that would have made an economically and politically unified Arab nation the stuff of utopian fantasy. Still, this documentary is a good easy-to-digest primer on what shaped the Middle East's political boundaries and why. And it's an interesting story of a fascinating but enigmatic man, Lawrence of Arabia, a legend in his own lifetime and in ours. Recommended viewing for those interested in understanding some of the background of the current crises in the Middle East.

The DVD: There is a very short "making of" documentary that is shown in widescreen but appears to have been filmed full screen, so the images look slightly stretched. And there is an interview with director James Hawes. Watch them if you're interested, but there really isn't much to them. There's no need to regret it if you missed the bonus features.

This skillfully done documentary was a nice surprise. I expected either hero worship or irresponible debunking. Instead what I got was a very thoughtful examination of Lawrence's remarkable career. Interviews with historians, biographers, bedouins, military experts and others give it a real sense of authenticity. The reenactments are well produced, historically accurate and tasteful. The existing film footage of the real Arab Revolt is used very well. This complicated man is given the detailed examination his monumental achievements and tragic failures demand. It's good to see the shallow, poorly researched and politically motivated attemps at debunking Lawrence (i.e. David Fromkin and Desmond Stewart) have not sucessfully obscured the truly remarkable adventure that was his life.

I just watched (again) David Lean's 1962 classic followed by "Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle for the Arab World"... The new documentary is superb & a wonderful supplement to the theatrical movie, adding depth & context as well as presenting fascinating newsreel footage... It is interesting to compare the history of historians to the "history" of Hollywood... (In this case, it must be said that the commercial film makers acquited themselves very well indeed... Surely a rare, if not unique, event...)

The story told is essentially the same one in both the theatrical movie & the factual film, although the former is "larger than life" & the latter covers the entirety of Lawrence's life including the scholarly prequel & disturbingly bizarre & socially marginal sequel to the war years... The reenactments in the documentary are very carefully done & not intrusive or melodramatic... The "talking heads" offer a variety of perspectives: western & mid-eastern, academic & political, even a pair of "tribal historians" & a 106 year old Arab eye witness! Some of the comments of the former Jordanian Foreign Minister may grate on the viewer as biased, but I certainly didn't detect any anti-Semitism on the part of the film makers (anti-Zionism, yes!) & the "expose" of Lawrence's homosexuality is hardly that: The possibility is suggested along with the proviso that we will probably never know for sure...
I doubt that a documentary of this kind can be much better done than this one is.... All in all, I was so impressed that I've bought the DVD so I can watch both Peter O'Toole's immortal performance AND the real McCoy!!

Beautiful cinematography and I loved all the original newsreel footage dotted amongst the reenactments and interview snippets. It brought the whole story to life for me. Saw it years ago on television in Canada and really enjoyed it. Recently bought a copy for a friend of mine who thought it was excellent too.

This is a great & quite long documentary about Lawrence detailing his activities when he helped the Arabs create an uprising against the Turks during WWI. It was shown nearly 10 years ago on The History Channel for those lucky enough to have seen it.

It covers pretty much of his known life in detail from when he was a boy & then was assigned as a map clerk in Cario as a Captain & later of course his tragic death on his motor cycle.

From the asking price it looks as if it's becomming quite rare & who knows when they'll shown it on TV again for free?

Lawrence of Arabia - The Battle for the Arab World

Truly excellent service. Arrived as advertised and quickly.

Wonderful documentary. Presented the sad story of how the Arabs were tricked into fighting for the British then usurped by the rich Zionists to create the state of Israel.

This is a poorly produced program and looks like it was made on a very low budget. I'm very surprised that PBS would put their name to this shoddy piece of work. After seeing Ken Burns Civil War and Mark Twain, was this the best they could come up with for Lawrence Of Arabia? Ken Burns, where are you? We need you to do a proper program on Lawrence. What really amused me was the two phoney "Tribal Historians" they had commenting on Lawrence's activities over 80 years ago. They sit there with their head garb on and mumble away while we get a voice-over..Where did they get these two jokers from? How much did they get paid to sit there? Another let down is the lack of actual film footage of T.E. Lawrence. It does exist and more of it should have been put in. Instead we get some modern day actor who looks like Lawrence riding along on a camel and with many closeups of his face as he ponders his situation. I'd much rather watch Peter O'Toole. Anyway, if your interested in the real facts of Lawrence Of Arabia, suggest you read some of the excellent web sites on the subject. I sat (fell asleep) through this only to learn that Lawrence was an excellent military leader who told the Arabs anything they wanted to hear as long as it benefited Britain in their quest to control Arabia. Too much of the program is devoted to Lawrence being a homosexual. His sexuality is a curiosity to many I suppose but why go on and on about it? Unfortunately as far as television documentaries on Lawrence Of Arabia go, apparantly there is only this one. After seeing this I will stick to watching the excellent movies about him..

If you know something about the real history of the Middle East, this DVD will supplement it with some interesting old pics of Lawrence and scenes from the region. But the authentic old movies and pics of Lawrence are few, recycled too often, and the movie with Peter O'Toole gives a much better reproduction of the main events. Lawrence's homosexual affair with a young Arab man is exposed, and he comes off as a brilliant but dysfunctional human who got along better in a society where women were made invisible. It also misportrays the Arabs as having a major role in the military defeat of the Turks when in fact their roles were episodic at best, with the major credit due to Allenby, save for the capture of Al Aqabah, which was brilliant. The Arab army of Faisal never amounted to more than around 1,000 Bedouins with maybe 3,000 Ottoman former prisoners who joined them, and was plagued by chronic tribal feuding and desertions en-mass at critical times. They were held together into an alliance only by massive quantities of British gold, which Lawrence was regularly supplied with to buy their loyalty. If the Turks had offered the gold, they would have just as easily gone with them. The O'Toole movie about Lawrence more accurately shows this side of things. Not a word is mentioned about these facts in the PBS DVD "documentary" however, nor that one major complaint of the puritanical Arabian warriors against the Turks was their more secular nature -- even before Attaturk, they were "going West". Nor that much of the fight also was about having "my King" instead of "your King" as the Big Boss. The Arabs simply wanted to replace the Ottomans, but retain the same old gigantic territory and method of authoritarian rule. The British did promise a lot to many different parties in the Middle East, being exceedingly desperate to save Europe from the scheming Kaiser, whose plans for domination had killed millions on the Western Front. But the Arabs eventually got nearly everything they wanted, though (thank goodness) not the single giant Arab State flying the banner of Islam. The whole DVD seems to pivot upon what they did not get - Israel - and the Arab "historians" interviewed use the story of Lawrence as yet another weapon against Israel. No mention is made of the large populations of Jews in Palestine and Baghdad at the time, nor of Arab Christians, nor how they also fought against and suffered badly under the Turks and so were demanding some justice and autonomy in their regions, nor any of the other competing interests within the region which the authors of the Treaty of Versilles had to cope with. The only thing that mattered to the Arabs, and to Lawrence also it appears, and to the producer of this flick was, that the Arabs didn't get EVERYTHING. So small historical facts like the quick Arab rejection of the Peel Commission offer by the British -- which was to give nearly all of Palestine to Arabs, to be run by Arabs under presumably Muslim Law, restricting Jewish immigration totally, but allowing the existing Jews to remain living there -- are never mentioned. The fact is, the Arab leaders were tribal Kings with no interest in democracy or humanistic social freedoms or justice. The British and French in Europe knew this, but Lawrence, so captivated by sand dunes and his young male lover, was blind as a bat, and like the authors of this film, could not see that after the throwing out of the autocratic Turks, many people in Palestine - notably the Jews, Christian Arabs and those influenced by French culture, simply did not want to live under some new King or dictator, with a continuance of Mullahs lording over everyone, maintaining dhimminitude and grinding women down into the dirt. This PBS propaganda is not recommended for the historically naive, or for children, unless you want to glorify Lawrence's blindness and lifestyle, and once again to misportray Western democratic influences as "bad". My suggestion is to read "A Peace to End All Peace" by David Fromkin who covers this chapter of Middle East history and "Lawrence of Arabia" with great objectivity.