This is wrong. We should all be together. Quite understandably, Sheik al-Atoun blames the situation on the peace imposed by the European imperial powers at the end of World War I, a peace that T. Lawrence tried mightily to forestall. The desultory nature of the war continued through the summer of But something had happened to Lawrence in the interim.
In November , while conducting a secret reconnaissance mission into the strategic railway town of Deraa, he was briefly captured by the Turks, then subjected to torture—and, by most all evidence, rape—at the hands of the local Turkish governor. Managing to escape back to rebel lines, a far more hardened, even merciless, Lawrence began to emerge.
In others, he took nearly suicidal risks. He attacked a Turkish troop train despite being so short of weapons that some of his men could only throw rocks at the enemy. If this was rooted in the trauma at Deraa, it seems he was at least as much driven by the desperate belief that if the Arabs could reach Damascus first, then the lies and guilty secrets he had harbored since coming to Arabia might somehow be set right.
On every road leading out of the ramshackle Jordanian border town of Ramtha there occurs a curious phenomenon: three- and four-story mansions set amid manicured and walled gardens. He points down the road to the border crossing with Syria, a half-mile away.
They move everything across—guns, drugs, cooking oil, whatever you can imagine. Now, by all accounts, Deraa is a shattered shell of itself, its streets in ruins, the vast majority of its population gone. Many have ended up in the sprawling Jordanian refugee camp of Zaatari north of Amman—or here, in Ramtha.
Fifteen miles to the west of Ramtha lie the ancient Graeco-Roman ruins of Umm Qays, situated on a rocky promontory. On a clear day it is possible to see as far north as the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee. In the closing days of World War I, it was not these distant spots that made Umm Qays vitally strategic, but rather the sinuous Yarmouk Valley lying directly below.
When General Allenby launched his offensive against the Turks in Palestine in late September , the engagement quickly turned into a rout.
Virtually the only escape left open to the Turks was up through the Yarmouk, to the railway at Deraa. But awaiting the Turks once they climbed out of the valley were T. Lawrence and thousands of Arab rebel soldiers. One year after Deraa, Lawrence returned to the place of his torments and now he would exact a terrible revenge.
At one time, the 2,year-old stone fortress of Azraq rose out of the eastern Jordan desert like an apparition, a foot-high monolith. The upper floors and battlements collapsed in a massive earthquake in , but the structure is still impressive enough to draw the occasional tourist bus from Amman, 50 miles to the west. It is a low-ceilinged chamber, cool and vaguely damp, with stone floors and narrow windows that give a view onto the surrounding desert.
It has the feel of a place of refuge and, in fact, Lawrence recuperated here after his ordeal in Deraa, 60 miles northwest. Early on the morning of September 19, , Lawrence and his followers began slipping out of Azraq castle, bound for the town where Lawrence had been tortured. Racing on to Damascus, Lawrence swiftly set up a provisional Arab government, with Faisal at its head.
But when Allenby reached Damascus two days later, he summoned Lawrence and Faisal to the Victoria Hotel to inform them that, as outlined by Sykes-Picot, the city was to be placed under French administration. No sooner had a defeated Faisal left the room than Lawrence begged Allenby to be relieved of his command.
With the war in Europe drawing to a close, he hurried to London to begin lining up support for the Arab cause at the upcoming Paris Peace Conference. As for Iraq, Britain had planned to annex only the oil-rich southern section, but with more oil discovered in the north, they now wanted the whole thing. Lawrence sought allies wherever he could find them. In January , on the eve of the peace conference, Lawrence had engineered an agreement between Faisal and Weizmann.
In return for Zionist support of a Faisal-led Syria, Faisal would support increased Jewish emigration into Palestine, tacitly recognizing a future Jewish state in the region.
The pact was soon scuttled by the French. But the most poignant what-might-have-been involved the Americans. Suspicious of the imperialist schemes of his European partners in Paris, President Woodrow Wilson sent a fact-finding commission to the Middle East.
For three months, the King-Crane Commission toured Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, and what they heard was unequivocal: The vast majority of every ethnic and religious group wanted independence or, barring that, American administration.
Wilson, however, had far more interest in telling other nations how they should behave than in adding to American responsibilities. When the commission returned to Paris with its inconvenient finding, the report was simply locked away in a vault.
At the same time that he was becoming a matinee idol in Britain, courtesy of a fanciful lecture show of his exploits delivered by American journalist Lowell Thomas, he was increasingly regarded by senior British officials as the enemy within, the malcontent who stood in the way of victorious Britain and France dividing the spoils of war.
In the end, the obstreperous lieutenant colonel was effectively barred from the peace conference and prevented any further contact with Faisal. That accomplished, the path to imperial concord—and betrayal—was clear. The repercussions were swift in coming. Within the year, most all of the Middle East was aflame as the Arab world, enraged at seeing their Ottoman masters replaced by European ones, rebelled.
Lawrence was particularly prescient about Iraq. Being this the reason why the director and his team were able to create such a dense and profound portrait of this man by painting a portrait not only of the man himself and his interior conflicts for instance, his sexual orientation but also the portrait of the world that surrounds him either it is the bureaucratic British system, a modern and developed world or the wilderness of the Arabian landscape and its people which Lawrence identifies with the most.
Although it is true that Lawrence was instrumental in enlisting the desert tribes on the British side in the campaign against the Turks, the movie suggests that he acted less out of patriotism than out of a need to reject conventional British society, choosing to identify with the wildness and theatricality of the Arabs.
Could such a man rally the splintered desert tribes and win a war against the Turks? Not only in scale but in subject. Putting T. Lawrence aside for a moment, the film also offers a vision of the bureaucracies of war. So, despite all the divergences between film and reality, Lawrence of Arabia is historically and culturally a valid object and one of the utmost importance in depicting the mechanics of the conflict as well as the parties it evolved.
The facts about a specific character may not be a hundred percent truthful, however, the universe in which the character belongs is carefully depicted.
And only if you fall asleep throughout the all film you fail to learn about the distribution of the Arabian territory during this period, as well as, the animosity between the various parties, the interests and alliances made during World War I concerning that part of the territory and, of course, most importantly that war is not made on the battlefield.
Additionally, when talking about the film in a cultural perspective two things must be mentioned: its score and its art direction. This was a specific topic I was looking forward to develop as I was writing this article, however, I came across a very complete solely focused on the importance of Lawrence of Arabia in the film editing field.
From scene to scene the transitions in Lawrence of Arabia were for the most part done by simple cuts and not by recurring to effects. So, naturally, the recurrent use of this style created not only established rhythmical patterns but also proximity between spectator and film. There is much to be taken in consideration and learn from this film: use of colour, composition and camera placement, how to position actors in a given scene, depiction of contradictory feelings like loneliness in the midst of a war party ….
So, in starting by the main character, T. Great names of the British and American cinema and theatre. Guinness having prior to Lawrence of Arabia famously played eight different characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets and Kennedy a big name in Shakespearean theatre. On the supporting cast, Anthony Quinn gives a great and cunning performance as an Arab Lord named Auda that leads one of largest and most powerful tribes; Omar Sharif portrays a man which is a symbol of the Arab heart and what it values honour, family, unity, belief ; Arthur Kennedy is the sort of neutral party that understands the value and influence of a figure like Lawrence in a world at war, but also, he is like the audience who follows Laurence and tries to understand his ambiguous personality.
Alec Guinness a deep and thoughtful performance as the royal prince Faisal whose place and importance to the film is defined in the conversation he has with the British Officers in which he states:. He is most famous for his part in the Arab Revolt.
He was later lionized in the film. His absorption of Arab culture came to him in stages. He learned Arab ways of living and, over time, to speak Arabic fluently. In so doing he understood the essence of Arab culture. And, finally, he acted on his deep cultural and historical knowledge and intuition.
Lawrence of Arabia, the film, treats the man Lawrence in an exotic, almost romantic way. We have to recall the reality, however, which is that he was in the service of the British Empire, whose motive in the Middle East was imperial.
Following his studies, Lawrence became an archaeologist. This first-hand knowledge and experience earned him a posting to Cairo after he enlisted in the British Army in October The campaign would secure him lasting fame in British popular legend. His role was to act as a liaison officer between the British Government and the Arab tribes.
The British were attempting to rally the Arabs against the ruling Ottoman Empire. They hoped that an internal revolt could help break the deadlock in the war in the Middle East. Lawrence was not the only British officer engaged in this work, but he is undoubtedly the most famous. His role required diplomatic as well as military skills, and he was able to build an effective relationship with Emir Feisal, a son of Sherif Hussein of Mecca and an important commander. Lawrence was able to exert enough influence to convince the Arab leaders, Feisal and Abdullah I, to support Britain.
During the resulting Arab Revolt, guerrilla attacks against the Ottoman Empire were co-ordinated with wider British strategy. Lawrence developed a particularly close relationship with Feisal.
His Arab Northern Army became the main beneficiary of British aid. This included speaking their language, staying with them, and adopting their dress. Lawrence was well suited to his liaison role. His pre-war experience meant that he understood the region and the language.
He was able to motivate the Arab tribesmen and identified Feisal as the most successful leader in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. He stayed with Feisal for two years and helped him to lead the Arabs north from Hejaz to Syria.
Lawrence believed that this would be the foundation of an independent Arab state after the First World War. Aqaba fell to the Arabs on 6 July And at Tafileh in January , Lawrence and the Arabs turned a defensive battle into a rout of the Turkish forces. Lawrence also organised the Hejaz Arabs to conduct guerrilla attacks. They targeted Turkish lines of communication, including telephone wires and the railway that led to Palestine - a crucial supply route.
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