Lawrence of Arabia (1962), a biographical war drama film, directed by David Lean and depicting the Arabian adventures of Thomas Edward Lawrence, a British army officer, especially his campaign against the Turks during the First World War, is regarded as one of the most celebrated epics in the history of cinema. However, apart from being a biopic and an adventure movie, it also used the desert as a stage to depict a spectacular epic story of a larger-than-life, idealistic adventurer, a superb character study of a compelling cult hero, named Lawrence, his emotional struggles with the violence innately connected to war, his identity, and his divided allegiance between Britain and his new-found comrades within the Arabian desert tribes. The story of the film is not all about violent battle scenes or display of cheap melodramatic emotions, but it also suggests that Lawrence acted less out of patriotism than out of a practical need to reject conventional British society and identify himself with the wildness of the Arabs. Nevertheless, widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Lawrence of Arabia was selected by the United States Library of Congress in 1991 for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The film opens at St Paul’s Cathedral, London for the memorial service of Thomas Edward Lawrence, who died in a motorcycle accident, where it becomes evident from the questioner of a reporter that several influential Britons have reservations about him and rather dislike him. The story of Lawrence, a misfit Lieutenant in British Army headquarters in Cairo, begins when he was instructed by Mr. Dryden of the Arab Bureau to go to Arabia and meet Arab statesman Prince Feisal, a leader of the Arab Revolt against the Turks, allied with Germany, to assess his aims and chances in the matter. However, during his journey, Lawrence becomes outraged, as well as dismayed, when his Bedouin guide is killed for drinking water from a well belonging to a rival tribe led by Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish, an advisor of Feisal. Nevertheless, Lawrence met British Colonel Harry Brighton, adviser of Prince Feisal in his revolt against the Turks, who wanted him to retreat and help the British to defend the Suez Canal. However, Lawrence conceived a different plan, and he insisted on Feisal to launch a surprise attack to conquer the Turkish-held port of Port Al-ʿAqabah by approaching it from land, where it is unguarded. But Feisal had his doubts about the plan, as Aqabah is protected from land attacks by the harsh and seemingly impassable Nefud Desert, in addition to the local Turkish enforcer, Auda Abu Tayeh, nicknamed the Desert Falcon. He, therefore, assigned only fifty men to Lawrence, who started his mission with those fifty of Feisal’s men and Sherif Ali, along with the hired teenage orphans Daud and Farraj as his attendants, without Brighton’s knowledge.

During the perilous journey through the deadly desert, Lawrence won the hearts of his men, as he took the risk of retracing his steps to find and rescue one of his men called Gasim, who fell behind, when the grateful Sherif Ali rewarded his heroism by replacing his British army uniform with the traditional Arab robes. Later, Lawrence also succeeded in persuading Auda Abu Tayi to switch sides and join his men by promising him a Turkish gold hoard, and the united force succeeded in capturing Port Al-ʿAqabah. But unfortunately, along their way back to Cairo, Lawrence lost Daud, his teenage attendant, drowned by quicksand.

Back in Cairo, perplexing the British officers with his Arab clothes, Lawrence reported all about his achievements and insisted that Farraj be treated with the same respect as a coveted British officer, to which General Edmund agreed and promoted Farraj to the rank of a major. Thereafter, despite Sherif Ali’s advice to slow down, Lawrence started guerrilla warfare against the Turks, along with his Arab allies, when Farraj was injured in one of the raids, and Lawrence had to kill him to save him from being captured and the consequent torture by the Turks. However, as luck would have it, Lawrence himself was captured by the Turks in Daraa, a city in southwestern Syria, when he was tortured and humiliated, stripped and ogled, prodded and beaten and implied sexually abused, which broke his spirit and made him shaken and humbled.

Mentally distressed and broken in heart and spirit, Lawrence returned to Cairo, after relinquishing command of the Arab forces to Sherif Ali, and sought to cease his service in Arabia, when he was provided with a band of mercenaries, and .was persuaded by General Allenby to lead an Arab assault on Damascus. Lawrence agreed, as he thought that the Arabs' conquest of Damascus before the British would establish their demand for an independent Arab state. However, before reaching Damascus, his army massacred a column of retreating Turkish troops in revenge for their having sacked the Arab village of Tafas, and then conquered Damascus before the British. Although Lawrence insisted that the Arabs run the city without British support, the Arabs were too disunited to govern. As a result, Prince Feisal discarded Lawrence's dream of Arab independence in exchange for British support, and Damascus came under the British. As Lawrence returned to Cairo, the British Force promoted him to Colonel and ordered him to go back to England. However, before leaving Damascus, he kept on looking longingly at the departing Arabs, as his car was passed by a motorcyclist.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962), which took nearly three years to complete, and famous for its ravishing desert vistas, was shot on locations in Jordan, Spain, and Morocco. Considered by many to be the masterpiece of David Lean, it is a cinematic men's film, with no stars, no women, no love story, and not much action either. With a running time of nearly four hours, it is a superb character study of a compelling cult hero, who exhibits homo-erotic tendencies in his relationship with Sherif Ali, a dark personal nature, and an obsession with Arabia itself. The film, embellished with magnificent colour cinematography and poetic imagery of the desert, was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning seven, including Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. In addition to that, it also earned six Golden Globe Awards, which apart from Awards for Best Picture and Best Director, also include the Best Supporting Actor Award for Omar Sharif for portraying the role of Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish, and an Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Peter O'Toole, for his performance in the role of Thomas Edward Lawrence. However, the performance of Anthony Quinn as Auda Abu Tayeh, the dramatic score of the film, created by Maurice, and the stunning cinematography by Freddie Young, were also highly acclaimed by the critics.

Interestingly, the original 1962 premiere version of Lawrence of Arabia was 222 minutes long, but as it was thought to be too long, subsequently it was trimmed down by 35 minutes by the distributors from Lean’s final cut to make it a film of 187 minutes. Much later, two film restorers named Robert A. Harris and Jim Painten, discovered the original negative of the film in Columbia’s vaults, carelessly kept inside crushed and rusting film cans, which included the trimmed portion of 35 minutes of footage of the original film. With the determination to restore the film to its 1962 premiere version, which was longer than the version seen in general release, they worked under the direction of David Lean, and in 1989, restored the version of Lawrence of Arabia that included the retrieval and reconstruction of the lost footage to its original premiere length of 222 minutes.