Editing Lawrence of Arabia (film) (section)

=== Restored director's cut ===
A restored version was undertaken by [[Robert A. Harris]] and Jim Painten under the supervision of David Lean. It was released in 1989 with a 216-minute length (plus overture, intermission and exit music). Most of the cut scenes were dialogue sequences, particularly those involving General Allenby and his staff. Two scenes were excised—Brighton's briefing of Allenby in Jerusalem before the Deraa scene and the British staff meeting in the field tent—and the Allenby-briefing scene has still not been entirely restored. Much of the missing dialogue involves Lawrence's writing of poetry and verse, alluded to by Allenby in particular, saying "the last poetry general we had was [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Wellington]]". The opening of Act II existed in only fragmented form, where Faisal is interviewed by Bentley, as well as the later scene in Jerusalem where Allenby convinces Lawrence not to resign. Both scenes were restored to the 1989 re-release. Some of the more graphic shots of the Tafas massacre scene were also restored, such as the lengthy panning shot of the corpses in Tafas and Lawrence shooting a surrendering Turkish soldier.{{citation needed|date=June 2023}}

Most of the missing footage is of minimal import, supplementing existing scenes. One scene is an extended version of the Deraa torture sequence, which makes Lawrence's punishment more overt. Other scripted scenes exist, including a conversation between Auda and Lawrence immediately after the fall of Aqaba, a brief scene of Turkish officers noting the extent of Lawrence's campaign and the battle of Petra (later reworked into the first train attack) but these scenes were probably not filmed. Living actors dubbed their dialogue and [[Jack Hawkins]]'s dialogue was dubbed by [[Charles Gray (actor)|Charles Gray]], who had provided Hawkins' voice for several films after Hawkins developed throat cancer in the late 1960s.<ref>{{Cite news |date=25 November 2012 |title=Lawrence of Arabia – review |url=http://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/nov/25/lawrence-of-arabia-review |access-date=29 November 2022 |website=The Guardian}}</ref> A full list of cuts can be found at the [[IMDb]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/alternateversions |title=Alternate versions for Lawrence of Arabia (1962) |website=imdb.com |access-date=1 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180125150431/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/alternateversions |archive-date=25 January 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Reasons for the cuts of various scenes can be found in Lean's notes to Sam Spiegel, Robert Bolt and [[Anne V. Coates]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://davidlean.com/fun/fun/leannotes.html |title=Director's Notes on Re-editing Lawrence of Arabia |publisher=davidlean.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100307024557/http://davidlean.com/fun/fun/leannotes.html |archive-date=7 March 2010}}</ref> The film runs 227&nbsp;minutes (216 minutes of proper film plus 11 minutes of overture, intermission, and exit music) in the most recent [[director's cut]] available on Blu-ray Disc and DVD.<ref name="Runtime">{{cite web |title=Lawrence of Arabia |url=https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/lawrence-of-arabia-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0ynzy4mdq |website=[[British Board of Film Classification]] |access-date=10 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008151919/https://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/lawrence-arabia-3 |archive-date=8 October 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>