Professor David Peimer
Lawrence of Arabia, the Film: Colonial Rule and Playing Both Sides
Professor David Peimer | Lawrence of Arabia, the Film: Colonial Rule and Playing Both Sides
- So we are going to start, dive straight in with one of the great, great movies of all time, I think. “Lawrence of Arabia.” I’m sure many people either have seen or know a lot about. And going to focus on a few things. One is obviously the film and some specifics from the film. Then a little bit about Lawrence’s life, which in his short life and what he achieved, which was quite remarkable. Little bit about how he went from an almost obscure lieutenant in the British Imperial Army to this legendary, iconic figure through literally being sensationalised in how he was portrayed in the American and British press globally. And also, I guess most importantly is this idea of the colonial. And obviously, he’s at the height of colonialism in Britain and going out to Arabia as was called at the time, and I’m going to use the words that they used at the time, of course. And that this idea of the colonial officer, the colonial administrator, the colonial, if you like, intelligence expert. We could use the word spy, but it was still coming more into vogue at the time. And this idea of the colonial officer or spy in a way and his sense of split identity, which I think is really so important. And I think we get this in a lot of literature, whether it was a colonial officers or leaders, administrators who went to India, who went to the West Indies, or who went to Africa or North Africa, Arabia, wherever, this sense of how they either played with the creative collisions between their British identity, which is so strong, and being in the imperial army, imperial military, and imperial administration, and at the same time being seduced or romanticising or getting excited or just intrigued and fascinated with the host culture.
You know, we see it in the film “Zulu,” we understand it in the relation between the British and the Zulus. We understand it with the British and India or parts of it. And the same with Arabia. And I think this sense of the coloniser, it’s never just a sort of one dimensional sense of identity. You know, I’m the coloniser and I’ve come to Congo and taken, you know, of course many of those characters. But the fascinating characters are the characters who have something of a split or ambiguous sense of identity allegiances and where they actually lie. And they live in that creative tension, that creative collision between the two. You know, the culture, they’re going out to explore and conquer or help conquer and their home culture as well, which is I think pretty natural and to be expected. And it’s in those precise cracks in identity dynamics that the fascination of a character, the fascination of a plot for a story in a film, in a novel, whatever lies. And I think as humans, these become the iconic figures for us. They’re not just one dimensional, there are multiple shifting identities if we like. So in this way, I know this is a little bit of post-colonial theory, this idea of shifting identities but the reality is, and it’s portrayed so well in the film, in the script, is the sense of it in the movie, which takes it beyond just being an epic adventure story with lots of desert shots and these vast deserts and the blue sky and the burning heat of the sun and camels, it takes it beyond that, and the sensual exciting Arabian robes and so on. It takes it much deeper, of course, than what would be much more cliched or stereotyped.
So Lawrence of Arabia, who is he? What did he become? How is he portrayed? What was his relationship with Jewish people? Which I’m going to talk about as well, which I don’t think many people know about. And it’s a fascinating connection with Chaim Weizmann and Prince Faisal, the main Arab leader he worked with in the Arab Revolt and Chaim Weizmann and how he worked with those two. How he’d also worked with Churchill, young Churchill, and many others. So this is a guy who is central, I would say, to contributing to help shape the Middle East of the times and the Middle East of after. And I’m not saying he ultimately made decisions, of course not, but he is influencing various factions in the British foreign and colonial office at the time. So he becomes a fascinating character for us. Not the ultimate leader, but this influencer in different ways. And what I’m going to ask at the end of today, what remains for today that I think is so exciting and interesting for us to explore that can really echo in our times. The rise and fall of T.E. Lawrence. He is of course, he’s a man who’s seduced by the love of war. He becomes seduced. The beginning, his anxiety to violence and war, he’s very hesitant. He’s an archaeologist. He’s trained at Oxford. He studied history and other things. And he is also a social outcast.
He’s an archaeologist, as quite a few of the others were. He’s an explorer, an excavator, an archaeologist. I’m going to link it a bit with Gertrude Bell, this remarkable lady who we’ll talk about next week. But he comes from that background. And then he’s in the military and he’s in military intelligence, is the key. So he discovers a love and fascination with violence and blood lust in war, which is not there in the beginning. He’s a tragedy of the victorious conqueror who at the same time can identify with the conquered and can identify with the culture, the mysterious, surprising, intriguing, romantic perception of the conquered culture. He’s intellectual because of course he is. And ultimately he’s an outsider and I would say the biggest thing about Lawrence is that he’s a dreamer. And many of these characters have come out of this colonial period who become fascinating in our times, is they are dreamers. Now, some dreamers of course remain dreamers forever and end up watching TV and on the couch. But some who make their dreams a reality. That’s the interesting part to Lawrence as well. And I think all of this is portrayed in David Lean’s masterpiece of a film. The desert is of course the vast canvas this is set up against. The burning heat, those vast long shots which have influenced so many directors since. How to create the mirage in the long shots, the inferno of heat and yet it’s wild and free. There’s a sense, physical sensuality that is romanticised, you can imagine, by the much more regulated and militarised British. There’s the horror of killing and yet there’s the fascination with killing. There’s a sense of what is his destiny, his fate and how he intervenes with choice, the tribal conflict that he’s up against and yet he comes from this first world civilization of the British Empire, the biggest empire the world has ever known.
In the end, later he has to kill his very close friend in a classic of dramatic Oedipal play almost in a way, like “Antigone.” He doesn’t like killing but he says later, “I discovered I enjoy the killing.” He actually says in the film. He likes what he hates, but he also hates what he likes. And that’s not just a clever little line I’m trying to give you, but I think it’s part of the split identity or to put it another way, creative tensions or divisions of identity. Later somebody shouts out to him, a sentry, “Who are you?” And it’s a question to us, just an ordinary British sentry. But he doesn’t have an answer quickly. He is faced with thinking, “Well, who am I? Am I a British colonial officer who’s on an intelligence mission? Am I leading an Arab revolt? Am I an Arab fully? Am I a mixture of both? Do I belong back home in the south of England in a little village or town? Do I belong in London? Do I belong here?” All the headdress and the clothing and the costume, all of that comes in that remarkable scene in the film, who are you? It’s an adventure in the desert. Of course it is. But adventure can just be a boy’s own adventure story. This is way beyond because of the conflicts of identity, of colonial, of imperial, of Britain and the seduction of Arabia for him.
He changes. It’s a film that shows both the political canvas, the vast political canvas of what’s going on between the British in the First World Wars trying to, if not defeat, but limit the power or help the breakup of the Ottoman Empire ‘cause of course the Ottomans are helping the Germans. So anything to help stop the Ottoman Empire will help the British, hence support the Arabs in their revolt against the British. But there’s also the deals with the French, all the political intrigue and I’m going to show some clips of that as well. So we have the vast canvas of political intrigue and we have the fascinating psychological complexity of the individual character. I’m not saying it’s as good as Shakespeare in the writing and the ultimate complexity, but it’s influenced by the Shakespearean approach and the ancient Greek of individual psychology. In the context of the vast canvas of political intrigues, the bigger geopolitical and political games that are going on at the same time. And of course, war being central. It’s a combination of psychology and politics that adds to the fascination and brilliance of the film. He changes from making maps 'cause he’s in the beginning making maps for archaeological exploration and so on to imagining himself as a man who can change the map of Arabia and hence to change the map of the empire itself. He moves from being a clumsy lieutenant to a conquering prince leading Arab armies. He’s a symbol of adventure, obviously of war. He becomes an image. He starts to believe in the image that he makes for himself.
He even says towards later on in the film, “Who will walk with water on me? Who will walk with water with me?” Incredible phrase and it’s not said with irony or wit. It’s said believing. He starts to take on this new identity, which is a fantasy, but it replaces the old identity or can it or does it? And again, it’s that fascinating fault line or multiple identities being played out, which add to the brilliance of the script and the character. I want to say that for me in the essence in the end, Lawrence is a dreamer and romantic. He lives the myth of Lawrence of Arabia, and he understands still his origins as T.E. Lawrence from England. And this phrase for me is the most important from his classic book, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” And he writes, and I’m quoting, “All men dream, but not all equally dream. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, just a dream of the night. But the dreamers of the day, those are the dangerous men for because they act out their dreams with open eyes and they make the dream possible to believe and live.” That’s from the “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” which we all know is his classic book which he wrote. “All men dream, but not equally.” He is a dreamer, he’s romantic, but he understands the difference between couch potato dreamer or sit behind the office dreamer and actually going out there, going wherever and making it happen. That extraordinary thrill and excitement.
And I think he connected with Churchill, Gertrude Bell, so many others who came from that English background of the 1880s, 1890s, early 1900s, who went out into the world and discovered how to make dreams real, but actually make it happen in the spirit of empire and everything that empire involves. 1962 was the biographical adventure film that this was made based on his life and based on the book, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” of 1926. We all know directed by the great David Lean, Peter O'Toole acting T.E. Lawrence, Alec Guinness playing Prince Faisal is very important. And crucially for me, the screenplay is by Robert Bolt, who wrote “A Man for All Seasons” and he wrote the screenplay for “Doctor Zhivago.” And part of the greatness of Robert Bolt is to combine psychological nuance in identity, like I mentioned, against the vast political intrigues of geopolitical politics, or at least national, political and social cultural situations. And Bolt is a fantastic for me, one of the best British writers. “A Man for All Seasons,” “Dr. Zhivago” screenplay, it speaks for itself. To understand the relationship between the two in a play, you work through the character of one to get the bigger picture. The film depicts Lawrence’s experiences in the Ottoman provinces of Syria, Mesopotamia during the First World War, which is important because the British want to support the Arab revolt against the Ottomans so they can at least help the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, which will lessen the Ottoman’s support of the Germans for the First World War.
So all of this is linked up. And his attacks on Aqaba and Damascus. And in the end, not only his struggles with violence and war and killing, but his sense of divided allegiance between the Britain of his birth and the Arabian desert tribes of his dream. That’s to give a little background. The film wins seven Oscars and becomes one of the greatest films. In a recent survey about a decade ago in America, they ranked it the seventh greatest film ever made to give you an example of where this stands in the pantheon of film history. And then in 1935, Lawrence died of a motorbike accident. So short life, very short life, and yet he achieves so much, which adds to the mystique and the remarkable span of his life. I want to show these two pictures and the right is the obvious one, the British Colonial military Intelligence Officer, you know, the hair, the costume, everything. Perfect, clean cut. The other side, the first poster for the original 1962 movie. Dashing, young, sensational, sensual, physical, in the desert, leading tribal armies compared to the cultured, civilised structured military. You can get the difference between the primal and the so-called sophisticated civilised of the two. Okay, if we can go onto the next slide, please.
[Presenter] I deem him one of the greatest beings alive in our time. We shall never see his like again. His name will live in history. It will live in the annals of war. It will live in the legends of Arabia.
[Lawrence] Who is he?
[Tafas] Bedu.
Tafas!
What is your name?
My name is for my friends. None of my friends is a murderer. Come on, men!
[Presenter] For over a quarter of a century, controversy has raged around the name of T.E. Lawrence. No man of our time has drawn upon himself so much praise and so much criticism. “Lawrence of Arabia,” the man torn between two civilizations. “Lawrence of Arabia,” filmed against a canvas of awesome magnificence.
Lieutenant Lawrence is not your military advisor.
But I would like to hear his opinion.
Dammit Lawrence, who do you take your orders from?
From Lord Faisal in Faisal’s tent.
[Presenter] Hailing the birth of a new star, Peter O'Toole as Lawrence of Arabia. What was he really like? This controversial figure who became a legend in his own lifetime.
[Speaker] He was the most extraordinary man I ever knew.
[Speaker] He was a very great man.
[Speaker] He was a poet, a scholar, and a mighty warrior. He was also the most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum and Bailey.
What in your opinion do these people hope to gain from this war?
They hope to gain their freedom.
There’s one born every minute.
They’re going to get it, Mr. Bentley. I’m going to give it to them.
[Presenter] Lawrence and Arabia, together they made history. Now a gathering of international stars unfolds the story. Alec Guinness as Prince Faisal.
The English have a great hunger for desolate places. I fear the hunger for Arabia.
[Narrator] Anthony Quinn as Auda Abu Tayi.
I carry 23 great wounds all got in battle. 75 men have I killed with my own hands in battle. I scatter, I burn my enemy’s tents, I take away their flocks and herds. The Turks pay me a golden treasure, yet I am poor because I am a river to my people.
[Presenter] Jack Hawkins as General Allenby.
I believe your name will be a household word. When you would have to go to the War Museum to find who Allenby was. You are the most extraordinary man I ever met.
Leave me alone.
Huh?
Leave me alone.
[Narrator] Jose Ferrer as the Turkish Bey.
Your skin is very fair.
[Narrator] Also starring Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains, Arthur Kennedy, with Omar Sharif as Ali and Peter O'Toole as Lawrence.
Oh yeah, thank you. This is a picture of the actual Lawrence in 1917. Obviously not the film. But I want you to just show it, these are the old pictures. The costume he’s wearing, everything of the flowing Arabian robes, the headpiece, it just, everything, on the camel. I mean, obviously everything is inverted as authentic to what they wore at the time. He’s completely adopted the identity inside his mind, most importantly, which has led to the costume or the clothing. Every detail in what he’s actually wearing, don’t want to go into it all now but it actually fits what would’ve been, I suppose, the way a prince, an Arabian prince would’ve dressed in 1917. Let’s remember this is during the First World War, a crucial time. And again, just to remind us of the backdrops is the British of course are fighting the Germans, Britain, France fighting the Germans, obviously the First World War without going into detail. And they need to keep the Ottoman Empire minimally at check and hopefully help break it up to stop it supporting the Germans. And so anything that can help that will work through inspiring for them the Arabs to revolt against the rule of the Ottomans in the Arabian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. So the British are playing that game. In addition, and so they bring Lawrence in to help as the military leader and also the military intelligence officer to go out, meet Prince Faisal and to unify some Arab tribes, take the Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, take Damascus, Aqaba, which can become a port so the British supplies can come in through the Port of Aqaba.
And these very important big battles, which all became known as part of the Arab Revolt. So he’s set up purposely by the British to do this. And in return, he’s going to offer all the Arab tribes freedom and independence from the Ottoman Rule. And of course, the British nor the French will rule them after they get rid of the Ottomans. He later then discovers what was called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which was an agreement between a British diplomat from the British Foreign Office and a French diplomat. The two of them had made a deal that at the end of the First World War once they’d beaten the Germans and Austria-Hungarian empire, et cetera, they would have a deal. And Syria, Mesopotamia as was called at the time, or certainly Syria, would be given over to the French. And that’s the crucial thing that comes in later in the film, which Lawrence only discovers much later. So there he is acting on the orders of his colonial masters and the military, gets the Arab tribes together to revolt and fight for independence, freedom, they’ll have it and so on. But in the end, by 1920, the truth is the British have given it to the French, have betrayed Lawrence, betrayed the offer that Lawrence thought they were giving and the Arab leaders thought they were giving them. So they were betrayed. And of course, the French come in and take over Syria, the Greater Syria as it was called at the time. And other parts of the Middle East, which we’ll go into a little bit as well. That’s the background to the vast, the real geopolitical history and story of the times. And inside that, we found the character. And Allenby of course is the main general. We all know that Allenby Bridge in Israel, et cetera. But Allenby was the great British, the important British general in charge of Middle East military affairs for the empire.
Okay, we go to the next slide, please. This is Lawrence in 1919. Okay, another perfect picture. Everything is so well studied and set up for the picture to look completely as Arabian as one can almost imagine in the image. And to show again, this conflict of identities and how he shifts from one to the other, from one to the other, you know, riding different horses in his own personal destiny. If we can show the next slide, please. This is a map which Lawrence presented to the War Cabinet of the empire in London in 1918. And he drew this map himself. So remember, he originally was a map copier or a map drawer going way back to his very early days. And then he imagines himself to be, well, I can influence nations, tribes, groups, geopolitics and draw the map of the future after the First World War even. This is a map he actually presented to the war cabinet in 1918. And you can see how it was imagined, Arabia, Iraq, all these different parts coloured in, which would go to the French, would go to the British and which would become the free independent Arabia that he imagined or dreamed of. We’ll come to the Holy Land in a moment when I discuss more relationship with what was then called of course Palestine in terms of his vision of Arabia. But the fact that he’s right up there to go to the war office, the war cabinet, and present it to show, he comes in as a lieutenant, you know? I mean, that’s a rank, but it’s not anywhere near the middle even, not the top. But this is the image that he has created and the importance of what he’s done.
Okay, then if we can show the next slide, please. This is a picture at the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War. In the front is Prince Faisal. Lawrence is in the picture as well. The main one that he went to, he met quite a lot of Arab leaders, but he identified as a British military officer that Faisal would be the best and most intelligent and able leader of the Arabian armies and the Arabian tribes as they were known at the time, to unify them to go for it. And he helped represent them at the Treaty of Versailles to argue for what he had dreamed of, what I spoke about earlier. This is a picture actually from the Versailles Treaty, the conference, and Prince Faisal in the front there. And Faisal is the one who gets betrayed by the British as well in 1920 and he gets deposed. He thinks they’ve conquered Damascus, but the French come in because of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the two diplomats I mentioned. And Faisal’s kicked out and the French take over the Greater Syria as it was called at the time. So that’s just briefly after the Treaty of Versailles. So there’s all these betrayals that Lawrence feels. He was led up the garden path by his own colonial masters in the army and the empire. Go on to the next slide, please. This is a portrait done by the wonderful British painter, Augustus John of Lawrence. I mean, just one look at it, we cannot help feel. It’s romantic, it’s virile, young, strong, wise, capable leader, intellectual thinker, and yet strong leader.
The chest, the face, the head, everything is perfectly proportioned to show for me a beautifully romantic image of the young leader Lawrence of Arabia, as he’s become known by now already. And here he is with all the headdress, the garb, the costume, everything, the background. He is at the centre, the great iconic in today’s terms, media famous image and becoming so completely iconic Lawrence. Okay, this is an important picture because this would’ve been received by so many in England and America and around the world. These kinds of things going on to help foster the myth and the legend of Lawrence of Arabia. What’s important is that he did actually help persuade these tribes to unite to fight the Turks and the Ottoman Empire and he did also convince them that the British would not betray them, that they would have their home, they would have their freedom, et cetera. And he even challenges General Allenby, which remember he’s the lieutenant at the time, challenges the top rank, the general, the head of the army of the Middle East for the British Empire. Is there another deal going on that I’ve heard of made back in London, the Sykes-Picot agreement in British and French? No, no, no, no, no. All fine. Keep doing what you’re doing, Lawrence. You’re doing great. So these are betrayals that he picks up on. Then what’s also important is this character that we saw in the one clip in the trailer, Jackson Bentley, who was a fascinating American journalist who came to Arabia to take photos that we know now and film Lawrence in action and in costume and sent it all around the world. And it’s Jackson Bentley the journalist who is one of the earliest journalists to understand the incredible power of the media to influence the minds of the colonial nation, England or of course America or wherever else, Europe, anywhere else in the world.
And he creates the iconic image of Lawrence of Arabia and he comes up with the phrase “Lawrence of Arabia.” He sees the sensuality and the physical primal sexuality, virile of the Arabian costume, the flowing robes and all of that and so on compared to the more regulated, highly structured military uniform of the British, et cetera. So these are all important. And Jackson Bentley, who is crucial in the whole story of Lawrence. Everybody needs their PR man. Caesar had his scribes and he used to dictate to his scribes, they became known as Caesar’s diaries. Everybody needs their PR people, their spin doctors, whether it’s just words or whether it’s pictures and words or the internet or the iPhone, whatever, or TikTok today, everybody needs their PR spin doctors around to help foster the image of the great leader. Okay, if we can show the next slide, please. This is Lawrence in 1928. We come from this iconic image media portrayed, almost filmic in its brilliance to Lawrence in 1928 in the south of England, pondering life and the meaning and writing and having finished his great epic, the book “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” Look at the ordinariness of the individual. We just see, I love this because it’s the ordinariness of the dreamer, the romantic compared to those other images I’ve just been showing. And it’s the two, neither is wrong or right, it’s the dreamer and the fantasy and the reality all playing together in the one individual.
And what I call again, the creative clash of identities and shifting between beliefs and systems in trying to find and forge one’s own identity in the end. It’s such an ordinary picture of an ordinary guy. By this time he’s become a consultant to the Royal Air Force. He’s back in England after all his exploits in the First World War and in the Arabia of his times. Okay, what else about the film? In other words, he finished his usefulness and the British sent him back and you’ll see a scene which I’m going to show. They’ll say, “Well, you go back and you’ll be a colonel and you’ll have a first class cabin on the ship and a couple of other perks, good pension, et cetera.” So you know, thank you very much, goodbye. Off you go. So it’s fascinating how the story of all these things takes part, takes place. But without the American journalist, he wouldn’t be the iconic figure, I don’t think, that we know of today. And it’s interesting, Brando was offered the part that Alec Guinness took of, sorry, Brando was offered the part of Lawrence as well, interestingly. But Noel Coward had a wonderfully comic phrase. 'Cause Peter O'Toole, we all know those remarkable blue eyes that look for the camera, everything. And Noel Coward once said, “Well, Peter, if you’d been any prettier, the film would’ve been called Florence of Arabia.” The wit of Noel Coward. Fantastic. So most of the film’s characters are based on historical characters, but they’re not completely. Now the interesting thing is what Robert Bolt brought to the script was not only the political intrigue, but the psychological complexity of Lawrence that I have described already. General Allenby really respected Lawrence and he wrote an endorsement about “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.”
The New York Times after the film came out, “It’s vast, awe inspiring, beautiful. Authentic desert locations, intriguing subject matter,” on and on. The visual style of David Lean in the film has influenced Kubrick, Scorsese. Spielberg called it his favourite film of all time. All of these great filmmakers have studied this remarkable film by David Lean. Of course, Arab revolts and British officers supporting Arab independence against Ottoman Empire. All of this, as I said, happened to quite a few and in novels, “Waiting for the Barbarians” by J.M. Coetzee. We get all these people, these British colonial officers or magistrates or administrators at the frontier and they have to be influenced in that frontier world between what the colonial masters want and the actual battles they’re fighting in war and violence of war, and the cultures which they’re taking over and colonising. And again, that’s the really interesting part that Robert Bolt psychologically puts into the character. And we see the journalist as well that I mentioned. Lawrence met Gertrude Bell, he met Churchill, many, many others. So this whole context, and then again in “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” Lawrence writes that he had to persuade Faisal to not just attack the Ottoman or the Turks as an army against army but used guerilla warfare, which was much more effective. And he persuades Faisal to adopt guerilla warfare tactics, smaller groups hitting and attacking all over, never try and take on the Turkish army in Damascus or Aqaba. And Lawrence then wrote about the Bedouin, or he saw the Bedouins as the most romantic and warlike force.
And interestingly, he wrote, I’m quoting, “The value of these tribes is in guerrilla warfare. They were intelligent, lively, almost reckless, but too individualistic to endure commands or fight in a line or even help each other. It would, however, be possible to make a kind of force out of them.” So he’s completely aware as he’s writing later of what he was seeing, what he had at his disposal, and what he could turn them into to take on the Turks. Allenby wrote about Lawrence, General Allenby. Quoting. “I gave him a free hand and he showed me the utmost loyalty. I had only praise for his work. He was the mainspring of the Arab movement. He knew their language, he knew their manners. Most importantly, he knew their mentality.” One crucial scene in the film is when he’s captured by the Turks in Deraa and he’s tortured. And that begins the change what we might call from the rise to the fall of Lawrence as this romanticising Arabia because his body is so tortured and damaged. So it changes him really completely in the film and he talks about it in his book as well. And that reality of terrible physical torture by the Turks, it almost wakes him out of the fantasy coming back to his original reality, if you like.
Then the guy, Jackson, who is the American journalist who helps create Lawrence and the image of Lawrence everywhere, he then created a stage presentation, this is fascinating to me, which was called “With Allenby in Palestine.” And it was a lecture with dance and music and visuals and images and film, all of it today, we’d probably have an exciting lecture today. We depicted the Middle East as exotic, mysterious, sensuous, violent, which he knew that American and British and European audiences would flock to. It’s that sense of mystery and sensuality and violence and most importantly, the exotic foreigner. And he created the show, the journalist, and it’s opened in New York in 1919, huge hit. And he dresses Lawrence as the Bedouin that I showed pictures of already, which is a public imagination. So he goes to London, the show is a huge hit as well. Plenty money comes pouring in and Lawrence gets a cut. And he insisted Lawrence photograph again in the Arabian dress and all the costumes, more and more pictures. And he gets Lawrence involved as part of the show. I love it. How reality becomes performance. Because both Lawrence and the journalist understand the performative side, the media side, the image side of political leadership and influence and iconic creation of our times, 20th and 21st century. They get it together and he certainly did. And it’s the shows more than anything that made Lawrence a household name. And Lawrence works on the show.
Lawrence in 1920 is also invited by young Churchill to become one of his advisors in the colonial office. In 1936, Churchill wrote, “He saw the visions of the importance of air powers at such an early stage. He was one of the cleanest of our youthful manhood. We owe him a great debt. He was in short a princely gift.” Churchill’s wonderful language. Churchill wrote again, “Lawrence was one of those beings whose pace of life was faster and more immense than what is normal.” He corresponded with George Bernard Shaw who helped him write his book “Seven Pillars,” with Churchill, with Noel Coward, E.M. Forster, Siegfried Sassoon, the war poet, Joseph Conrad and many others. And then finally he writes in “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” “The cabinet got the Arabs to fight for us by promises of self-government afterwards. The Arabs believed in persons, not in institutions. So they saw me as a free agent of the British and demanded from me a written promise they would get their freedom. They believed in me and thought my government sincere. Instead of being proud of what I did, I was bitterly ashamed for we were all betrayed.” He was offered a knighthood, Lawrence, but he didn’t accept because I saw how betrayed, he felt the Arabs had been of his time and of course that he had been himself.
The BBC about a decade ago did a competition of the most influential or greatest Brits and he was voted number 53 of a hundred. Okay, if we could show the next slide please, the first clip. This is from an early clip in the film, which is the waterhole scene. So famous. And you’ll see the mirage and you’ll see the leader coming, the Anthony Quinn character.
Good?
It’s all right.
This is a Harith Well. The Harith are a dirty people.
[Lawrence] Turks?
Bedu.
[Lawrence] Who is he? Tafas!
He is dead.
Yes. Why?
This is my well.
I have drunk from it.
You are welcome.
He was my friend.
That?
Yes, that.
This pistol yours?
No, his.
His?
Mine.
Then I will use it. Your friend, he was a Hazimi-
We can hold it there, please Hannah.
I know.
Okay, so this is one of the most iconic scenes in all film history. And David Lean said, it’s something interesting, sometimes in films set up something which appears almost to the point of boredom and then shock the audience. And we get him relaxed and he’s calm and everything. And you know, Lawrence is taking out his, he’s looking at things and he’s looking at the sand and so on, dressed in the colonial colours very early on in the film. The other guy’s doing the work, et cetera. And then just as we’re about, “God, this is going on, this is too long.” Suddenly we see and then the shot, the killing. And then slowly in the distance through the mirage comes the Omar Sharif character. One of the great iconic films that all filmmakers, Spielberg and many others refer to again and again, this shot itself. How was mirage the created, they had trucks driving round and round in the desert sand, which of course blew up dust and sand, created the mirage effect and we saw what we saw. So this shows the early beginnings of Lawrence and then where he’s going to go to and what he’s going to become as we’ve seen already. Okay, if we can show the next clip, please. This is where he meets the American journalist.
[Narrator] The second half begins not with Lawrence, but with the arrival of Jackson Bentley, a journalist from the United States who has come to Lawrence into a myth, a symbol of the adventure of war.
I’m looking for a hero. Now, I’ve been sent to find material which will show our people that this war is-
Enjoyable?
Hardly that sir, but to show it in its more adventurous aspects.
[Prince Faisal] You are looking for a figure who will draw your country towards war?
[Bentley] All right, yes.
[Prince Faisal] Aurens is your man.
Yes sir, that’s my baby.
[Hannah] That’s the entirety of the clip. Just need you to unmute David.
Okay, thanks. So this scene for me is so powerful and so important. It’s the beginning moment of when the media guy comes in and we see how the icon of Lawrence is going to be created by the journalist who knows exactly what to do. It’s PR, spin doctor, journalist all in one. Okay, if we can go on to the next clip please. Just to show the political intrigue.
Well general, I leave you. Major Lawrence doubtless has reports about my people and their weakness and the need to keep them weak in the British interest and the French interest too, of course. We must not forget the French now-
I told you sir, no such treaty exists.
Yes, general, you have lied most bravely, but not convincingly. I know this treaty does exist.
Treaty, sir?
He does it better than you, General. But then of course, he is almost an Arab.
You really don’t know?
Then what the devil’s this?
It’s my request for release from Arabia, sir.
For what reason? Are you sure you haven’t heard of the Sykes-Picot Treaty?
No. I can guess.
Don’t guess, tell him.
Well now, Mr. Sykes is an English civil servant. Mr. Picot is a French civil servant. Mr. Sykes and Mr. Picot met and they agreed that after the war, France and England would share the Turkish Empire, including Arabia. They signed an agreement. Not a treaty, sir, an agreement to that effect.
There may be honour among thieves but there’s none in politicians.
And let’s have no displays of indignation. You may not have known, but you certainly had suspicions. If we’ve told lies, you’ve told half lies. And a man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half lies has forgotten where he put it.
So it shows the political intrigue of the bigger picture that I was saying as well. That’s Claude Rains who plays the inspector in “Casablanca,” one of the fantastic actors of the times. And then the last clip I want to show quickly is also showing part of the intrigue. After this, Lawrence has done this, he’s conquered Damascus, conquered Aqaba. He’s created all of this and he’s changed his identity. He’s coming back to being colonial, discovers the betrayal and then the last interchange amongst him, the general and the politician and Faisal. Can we show the next clip, please?
[Prince Faisal] My friend Lawrence, if I may call him that. And my friend Lawrence. For how many men will claim the right to use that phrase? How proudly! He longs for the greenness of his native land. He pines for the gothic cottages of Surrey, is it not? Already in imagination, he catches trout and in all the activities of the English gentleman.
That’s me you are describing sir, not Colonel Lawrence. You’re promoted Colonel.
Yes. What for?
[Prince Faisal] Take the honour, Colonel, be a little kind.
[Allenby] As a colonel, you’ll have a cabin to yourself on the boat home.
Then thank you.
Well then, God speed.
There’s nothing further here for a warrior. We drive bargains. Old men’s work. Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men. Courage and hope for the future. And old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men, mistrust and caution. It must be so. What I owe you is beyond evaluation.
If we can freeze it there please. Okay, so this is the last clip I wanted to show. It shows Alec Guinness in a fantastic portrayal for me of Prince Faisal. Two years later after the Treaty of Versailles and so on, he is kicked out because of the Sykes-Picot agreement. He isn’t the king and he’s kicked out of the Greater Syria as it was called at the time. But he did go on to become the king of Iraq at the time, later. Okay, the last thing I want to mention is just briefly Lawrence’s relationship with Jewish people. What’s fascinating is that he set himself up as a mediator between Faisal, who became king of Iraq, and Chaim Weizmann. And Lawrence’s goal was, and I’m quoting Lawrence, “To see the lines of Arab and Zionist policy converging in a not too distant future.” He was pro-Arab, yes, but he was a supporter of the Jewish need and desire for a state completely. Part of this was the influence of a guy called Aaron Aaronsohn and the NILI underground movement, which had been so courageous in the First World War of Jewish young men who had been part of the British helping the British army fight in the First World War. And because he saw that link and he met this Aaron Aaronsohn guy, he set up this connection between Weizmann and Prince Faisal. He organised the first meeting between Chaim Weizmann and Prince Faisal.
And he got Faisal to renounce land west of the Jordan River and I’m quoting Lawrence here. He convinced Churchill to change the Sykes-Picot agreement and leave out the Holy Land from giving it to the French or anybody else for that matter. In 1921, he pushed for the formal implementation of the Balfour Declaration and demanded a national home for the Jewish people. Lawrence envisaged Jews as having, quoting him, “an important role in the Middle East.” In an interview to a London Jewish newspaper on the first anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Lawrence said, “Speaking entirely as a non-Jew, I look on the Jews as the cultural importers of western leaven so necessary for countries of the Near East. If a Jewish state is to be created in Palestine, it’ll have to be done by force of arms and maintained by force of arms amid an overwhelmingly hostile population and neighbours.” Lawrence also wrote, this is much earlier in 1909, he wrote, “The sooner the Jews farm in Palestine, the better. Their colonies are bright spots in a desert.” In 1920, he wrote about the Jewish biblical connection to Israel and he wanted to create a homeland that was, and I’m quoting him, “It would be an effort on the part of the least European people of Europe to make head against the drift of the ages and return once more to the orient from which they came.”
Martin Gilbert, the brilliant British historian who’s written so many fantastic books about Jewish history and Auschwitz in the Second World War and the Holocaust, Gilbert wrote an essay where he referred to, I’m quoting Martin Gilbert, Lawrence’s little known romance with Zionism. He actually called him a Zionist, Martin Gilbert. That the Jews would use in Martin Gilbert’s words, their skill and capital to make the Middle East Palestine as organised as a European state. Martin Gilbert believes, he’s writing here, “and Lawrence believed that only with a sovereign Jewish entity in the area would the Arabs ever make anything of themselves.” And that’s a quote from Lawrence. Would the Arabs ever make anything of themselves? Gilbert went on, “He supported the Arabs. Lawrence pushed for Arab nationhood in the 1920s. He’s always pictured wearing Arab robes. But the astonishing truth is that Lawrence believed the only hope for the Arabs of Palestine and the region was a Jewish state. With a Jewish state, they would provide the modernity, the leaven as Lawrence called it, which would enable Arabs to move into the 20th century.” An extraordinary insight of Lawrence with Jewish people, although being an Arabist and obviously romanticising and dreaming and making it happen in so many ways, but having the historical and the broader cultural and political understanding of history to really get the bigger picture as well. And there’s so many today who see so many of these English colonial types who would still romanticise, see the mystery of the Arabian nights, the Arabian deserts, et cetera. And Lawrence understood it so well and so many over the last century and a bit. Again, going back to Martin Gilbert, finally, “A Jewish presence amongst the dunes and palm trees would provide the necessity of modernity or leaven as Lawrence called it, to enable Arabs to move forward into the 20th century.”
So I leave this as a remarkably complex picture of a remarkable individual captured in a masterpiece of a film. If I may rave about both a little bit here. A dreamer, yes, a romantic, absolutely. A complexity of identities, for sure. Caught between different cultures, absolutely, yes. Ultimately trying to figure it all out. Trying his best. But far more fascinating than many of the other duds who either came before or after. The least one can say is that he dreamed during the day, as he put it right in the beginning of “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” The dreamer in the day is a dangerous man because he can make that fantasy a reality. A dreamer at night is nothing, just remains a night dream. And for me, in the end, if we boil it down to me and what David Lean captures in the film is Lawrence the romantic dreamer. But he dreamed during the day. He made it really happen. Okay, so thank you very much and we are going to go into questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: So this is from iPad 659. Can you please compare “Four Feathers” with “Lawrence of Arabia”?
A: If there was more time I would. “Four Feathers” was about the war in Sudan, Myrna writes. Yes. Thanks for that. Jean, my parents had a first edition of “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” when I was a child in Joburg. Amazing. Gift to them. I remember paging through it knowing the book was special and the story was exotic. Absolutely exotic, foreign.
Q: Mitzi. Was John Glubb influenced by Lawrence?
A: That’s a great question. I need to research that better. I’m not sure. I don’t want to just give a glib answer at the moment, Mitzi, thanks for that.
Q: Monty, can dreams turn into nightmares?
A: Well, as James Joyce wrote at the beginning of his great novel, “Ulysses,” “History is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake.” So dreams can turn into nightmares, absolutely. And the dreamers with the eyes open and awake absolutely can turn life, society, history to an absolute nightmare for themselves as much as with their society, I agree.
Dennis, we saw Peter O'Toole playing Shylock. Yeah, yeah. He did a really interesting Shylock in 1960 at Stratford. The transformation of his appearance was astonishing. Yep. Great, great actor for his time.
Ronnie, Aaronsohn of NILI, the N-I-L-I was of great importance, but never had a PR man. I think that’s a really important point, Ronnie. Thank you. And I had to decide today whether to go more into Aaronsohn of the NILI or hold it to the minimum that I did. And because the focus on the film and British imperial policy more so that was the choice. But there’s no question that Aaronsohn was absolutely crucial in not only influencing Lawrence but influencing British Empire and policy and the beginnings of taking really seriously the Balfour Declaration and the creation of a Jewish state. No question. No PR man. Absolutely. I think without the PR guy, Lawrence would be a pretty minor figure to be frank.
Monty, as perhaps most people today. If one wants to understand the history of Islam and the makeover of the Middle East, go to YouTube, listen to the lectures, Moriaki Kida, ah, an Israeli academic. Brilliant. Thanks Monty, that’s really helpful.
Marilyn, thank you. Very kind. Thanks. Very appreciate.
Judith, many of you have been very kind.
Alice, remember seeing Ross, his identity assumed at the end of his life. Yes. When he joined the RAF, the Royal Air Force and he tried to join it under the name of Ross, but they all refused 'cause they knew his name was Lawrence and he was his famous character, et cetera. But he did try and he supported the development of air power which Churchill referred to, way before many of the others saw how important it really would be in warfare. Churchill I think got him amongst the best because Churchill had such a sense of history and cultural and social developments and changes constantly happening in history and literature. And I think Lawrence had the same, and Churchill saw that in Lawrence. And those are the really interesting ones, you know, and create, become iconic figures if they have good PR.
Julie, thanks very much.
Q: David, is there anyone like Lawrence as an advocate in India?
A: I don’t think so. I mean the obvious, you know, Lawrence is not the same in any way whatsoever. I think it was much more the character of Gandhi and many that he got around him, which is a very different kind of person and totally different character. I don’t think there’s any relationship here, but that’s an interesting idea. Thanks David.
Sheila, thank you. You’re very kind.
Q: Maya, what would Lawrence think in these times of the Jewish state against the primitive Arab?
A: That’s a really interesting and important question, Maya. I think I’m going to need more time to respond. I don’t want to just give a glib quick answer and I don’t want to just duck out of the question either. But I think like most things, he would have a complex response because I do think he believed that the Jewish people would bring civilization, modernity as he called it, the leaven as he called it, to Arabia. And he saw that is crucial to his vision of Arabia and the development aside from who ruled. He saw that Jewish people would bring, yeah, to use Martin Gilbert’s phrase, modernity and Lawrence’s word, leaven to the Middle East. Which in his mind would’ve been essential.
Sandy, I saw Alec Guinness’s “Ross” in 1961. Oh, that’s great, Sandy.
Monty, in Zichron Yaakov, there is the NILI Aaronsohn. Thank you for that. Yeah, we might be able to find another one about Aaron Aaronsohn. We’ll see if we are able to. But a crucially important figure in Jewish and Middle Eastern history, it’s no question.
Peter, thank you. Very kind. Only today’s media understood what happened. We are aware of Lawrence’s contribution. Well, I thought about that, why David Lean did not put the Jewish aspect into the film, but I think he had to, I suppose, he and Robert both the playwright, they had to choose what to leave out. I’m being kind to them intentionally. But if you try and put too much perhaps you know, it might have made it too much of a fruit salad. But it is a fascinating question. It’s the kind of thing I think Tom Sopo would take away from Lawrence’s life and make into a play. There’s sort of other figures who are peripheral to the iconic, partly media manufactured historical cultural figures. Okay, so I think that’s it. Oh no, there’s a couple more.
Q: Nancy, as a member of the middle class and knowing the aristocracy, is this why he was a pawn used by the British, and not more influential?
A: Yeah, no, great question. He was not part of the aristocracy. Absolutely. And he turned down a knighthood. Now today, it’s one thing, but can you imagine in the early 1900s turning down a knighthood? I mean, this is the absolute height of the British Empire. Ruling over a quarter of the world in the population, we just have to imagine to turn it down would’ve been one of the biggest insults he could give to his own people in that way. Because of the betrayals. That’s what he felt. And he writes about that in “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” Yes, he was used, absolutely. As we see in the film, he was used by both sides, the British and the French of course, by the civil servants on both sides and the military. Okay.
Q: And yeah, in today’s media, did he commit suicide?
A: No. He had a terrible motorbike accident at a young age in his forties and died six days later from the injuries.
Okay, Marcel, thank you. Okay, so others, thank you very much for your kind comments and thank you Hannah, for everything. And next week I’ll be doing Gertrude Bell. Fascinating woman who had incredible influence on Middle East policy of these times, was friendly with Churchill, friendly with Lawrence, knew them all and many others. Remarkable, fiercely independent, fiercely intelligent woman, Gertrude Bell, which we’ll look at next week. Okay, thanks so much and take care everybody.