Last night I saw “Lawrence of Arabia” for the fourth time in my life, and the second time in a theater. The last time I saw it was in 2012 just before I started working for the publishing company. I was in awe then (and now) and just how otherworldly and vast the desert looks in the movie. The second half of the movie didn’t interest me that much, but I made a point of paying attention to Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif this time around, and the second half I found much more interesting this time around, especially in light of what’s happened with me over the last seven years.
For one thing, Lawrence (O’Toole) begins the movie as a very British soldier, who believes in British values. When he meets Sherif Ali (Sharif) he criticizes Ali for murdering his guide and curses Arabs as “a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous and cruel.” They need to be taught British values, he thinks, but when he sees Col. Brighton (Anthony Quayle) trying to do that with Emir Faisal (Alec Guinness) he has second thoughts.
Peter O’Toole plays through many of these early scenes where he “betrays” Britain for Arabia as ironic and it’s clear that his Lawrence is doing this all for show – he freely admits that the Bedouin clothes, which his Arab friends give him as a reward for rescuing Gassim, are for show. He struts around and uses his dagger as a mirror to admire himself. His Arab compatriots take their dress very seriously. As the movie goes on Lawrence returns to his superior officers in Cairo (and later Jerusalem) and changes into a British uniform.
From what I remembered of the movie, I was expecting to see something of a cautionary tale from Lawrence, that war (or indeed travel) can give a platform for someone to act out their worst characteristics, such as Lawrence’s love of violence that he slowly discovers over the course of the movie. It reminded me of the publisher, a Brit who’d lived in Hong Kong for 40 years, and used that distance to indulge in his worst impulses, be it an unrestrained temper, indulging in carnal pursuits, and so on. But what surprised me is that Lawrence (and I could see this through O’Toole’s amazing acting) is aware of these impulses and knows they are wrong. He doesn’t like his enjoyment of violence and is afraid of it. General Allenby (Jack Hawkins) dismisses his concerns and sends Lawrence back into the field because of the great work he’s been doing. I don’t think the publisher had that level of self-awareness.
(it’s worth pointing out that the real T. E. Lawrence hated violence, and was haunted by an incident where he had to execute a man)
There’s a point where Lawrence is captured, raped, and tortured by a Turkish garrison in the movie, which most historians believe never happened. After this happens he has a mental breakdown and asks General Allenby for an ordinary job, making a point of rejecting his Arab characteristics. Allenby takes him into his private quarters and tells him “You are the most extraordinary man I’ve ever met.” And over the course of the conversation Lawrence convinces himself that he is, in fact, extraordinary. Towards the end of the publishing job I felt like the mask slipped from his face and I saw the real him – when he admitted he was mentally ill and he sometimes had manic episodes to escape the usual depressive state he was in. I’m not sure that’s how mental illness works – if I could will myself to be ecstatically happy I would, but I can’t.
One line that stood out for me this time around is when Lawrence recruits a group of brigands and murderers who know nothing of the Arab revolt to act as bodyguards on his way to Damascus. Ali warns him of all this and says “These are not ordinary men,” to which Lawrence replies “I don’t want ordinary men!” This kind of semantic purposefully-missing-the-point game is something I encountered frequently with the publisher, for whom words meant whatever the hell he wanted and the focus of discussion was determined by him, not by anything else.
In Ali, I noticed how he gradually goes from a proudly tribal and uncompassionate man (who kills Lawrence’s guide without a thought) to a would-be politician who rejects (mostly) the cruelty he’s become accustomed to. He (and Faisal) mock the British and American observers to the conflict that they are to be portrayed by them as savage and cruel, as “a little people.” After Lawrence and the Arabs massacre Turkish troops at Tafas, Jackson Bentley (Arthur Kennedy), the American journalist mythologizing Lawrence sees the brutality of what has happened – you can almost see the blood drain from his face as he realizes he’s been promoting a bloodthirsty murderer rather than a noble warrior. He mutters to himself “Jesus wept,” – before it was a rollicking adventure with him exclaiming “Jiminy” to “lesser” acts of cruelty like killing a man with a sword. When I realized I was not actually doing good work at the publishing company, but rather glorifying a small man who only cared about himself and how others perceived him I had something of the same catharsis. Ali mocks Bentley saying “Surely the Arabs are a barbarous people,” as he looks at Lawrence and for the rest of the movie stares at him with contempt – not just for the massacre, but being able to hide from how evil he is because he’s “English” – a “proper, civilized people.” By the end Ali tells Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn) he fears Lawrence – but weeps for him because he knows Lawrence fears and hates himself.
How can Lawrence love himself after what he’s become? After Lawrence leaves Damascus he goes home to Britain and the movie ends. The last thing Auda says to Lawrence is “There is only the desert for you.” Maybe that’s what happened with the publisher – there is only this wild fantasyland for him, and he can’t go back to a normal life.
For me, I guess I will be back in the world – that’s what there is for me. In order to catch myself, that I don’t go crazy, I approach the world with the same reverence and sense of adventure as Lawrence, but not the same feelings of superiority. The world has much to teach me (it has already taught me so much). When I’m out in the world I am my best self.