Lawrence of Arabia restoration

1988 restoration

Robert A. Harris supervised the 1988 photochemical restoration.

2011 restoration

Grover Crisp supervised the 2011 digital restoration, scanned at 8K resolution.

A longer shot from Lawrence that was also taken in the desert showed a series of fine concentric lines near the top of the frame in a pattern reminiscent of a fingerprint. These, Crisp explained, are cracks in the film emulsion caused by its melting in the desert heat and then healing over. The lines have always been there in the negative and result in an unusual rippling artifact when viewing the movie, but until now there hasn’t been a way to fix it. “We’ve never been able to see this kind of detail before—it’s always been kind of submerged,” he says. “But now, with this 8K scan, it’s more obvious.” Sony commissioned a third party to develop software to minimize or eliminate this distracting artifact for the restored version, which is due out on Blu-ray and in theaters later this year.