Lawrence of Arabia (film)

In 1935, Lawrence dies in a motorcycle accident. At his memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral, a reporter tries, with little success, to gain insights into the remarkable, enigmatic man from those who knew him.

The story then moves back to the First World War. Lawrence is a misfit British Army lieutenant who is notable for his insolence and education. Over the objections of General Murray, Mr. Dryden of the Arab Bureau sends him to assess the prospects of Prince Faisal in his revolt against the Turks. On the journey, his Bedouin guide, Tafas, is killed by Sherif Ali for drinking from his well without permission. Lawrence later meets Colonel Brighton, who orders him to keep quiet, make his assessment, and leave. Lawrence ignores Brighton's orders when he meets Faisal; his outspokenness piques the prince's interest.

Brighton advises Faisal to retreat after a major defeat, but Lawrence proposes a daring surprise attack on Aqaba. Its capture would provide a port from which the British could offload much-needed supplies. The town is strongly fortified against a naval assault but only lightly defended on the landward side. He convinces Faisal to provide fifty men, led by a pessimistic Sherif Ali. The teenage orphans Daud and Farraj attach themselves to Lawrence as servants. They cross the Nefud Desert, considered impassable even by the Bedouins, and travel day and night on the last stage to reach water. One of Ali's men, Gasim, succumbs to fatigue and falls off his camel unnoticed during the night. When Lawrence discovers him missing, he turns back and rescues Gasim, and Sherif Ali is won over.

Lawrence persuades Auda Abu Tayi, the leader of the powerful local Howeitat tribe, to turn against the Turks. Lawrence's scheme is almost derailed when one of Ali's men kills one of Auda's because of a blood feud. Since retaliation by the Howeitat would shatter the fragile alliance, Lawrence declares that he will execute the murderer himself. Lawrence is then stunned to discover that the culprit is Gasim, the man he risked his own life to save, but Lawrence shoots him anyway.

The next morning, the Arabs overrun the Turkish garrison. Lawrence heads to Cairo to inform Dryden and the new commander, General Allenby, of his victory. While crossing the Sinai Desert, Daud dies when he stumbles into quicksand. Although his report of Aqaba's capture is initially disbelieved, Lawrence is promoted to major and given arms and money for the Arabs. He is deeply disturbed and confesses that he enjoyed executing Gasim, but Allenby brushes aside his qualms. Lawrence asks Allenby whether there is any basis for the Arabs' suspicions that the British have designs on Arabia. When pressed, Allenby states that there is none.

Lawrence launches a guerrilla war by blowing up the Ottoman railway between Damascus and Medina and harassing the Turks at every turn. An American war correspondent, Jackson Bentley, publicises Lawrence's exploits and makes him famous. On one raid, Farraj is badly injured. Unwilling to leave him to be tortured by the enemy, Lawrence reluctantly shoots him dead and then flees.

When Lawrence scouts the enemy-held city of Deraa with Ali, he is taken, along with several Arab residents, to the Turkish Bey. Lawrence is stripped, ogled, and prodded. Then, for striking out at the Bey, he is severely flogged before he is thrown into the street, where Ali comes to his aid. The experience leaves Lawrence shaken. He returns to British headquarters in Cairo but does not fit in.

A short time later in Jerusalem, General Allenby urges him to support the "big push" on Damascus. Lawrence hesitates to return but finally relents.

Lawrence recruits an army that is motivated more by money than by the Arab cause. They sight a column of retreating Turkish soldiers, who have just massacred the residents of Tafas. One of Lawrence's men is from Tafas and demands, "No prisoners!" When Lawrence hesitates, the man charges the Turks alone and is killed. Lawrence takes up the dead man's battle cry; the result is a slaughter in which Lawrence himself participates, despite Ali's protests. He regrets his actions thereafter.

Lawrence's men take Damascus ahead of Allenby's forces. The Arabs set up a council to administer the city, but the British cut off access to the public utilities, leaving the desert tribesmen to debate how to maintain the occupation. Despite Lawrence's efforts, they bicker constantly, and soon abandon most of the city to the British.

Lawrence is promoted to colonel and immediately ordered back to Britain, as his usefulness to both Faisal and the British is at an end. As he leaves the city, his automobile is passed by a motorcyclist, who leaves a trail of dust in his wake.

Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence

Many complaints about the film's accuracy concern the characterisation of Lawrence. The perceived problems with the portrayal begin with the differences in his physical appearance; the 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) Peter O'Toole was almost 9 in (230 mm) taller than the 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m) Lawrence.[25] His behaviour, however, has caused much more debate.

The screenwriters depict Lawrence as an egotist. It is not clear to what degree Lawrence sought or shunned attention, as evidenced by his use of various assumed names after the war. Even during the war, Lowell Thomas wrote in With Lawrence in Arabia that he could take pictures of him only by tricking him but Lawrence later agreed to pose for several photos for Thomas's stage show. Thomas's famous comment that Lawrence "had a genius for backing into the limelight" can be taken to suggest that his extraordinary actions prevented him from being as private as he would have liked or it can be taken to suggest that Lawrence made a pretence of avoiding the limelight but subtly placed himself at centre stage. Others point to Lawrence's writings to support the argument that he was egotistical.

Lawrence's sexual orientation remains a controversial topic among historians. Bolt's primary source was ostensibly Seven Pillars but the film's portrayal seems informed by Richard Aldington's Biographical Inquiry (1955), which posited Lawrence as a "pathological liar and exhibitionist" as well as a homosexual. That is opposed to his portrayal in Ross as "physically and spiritually recluse".[26] Historians like B. H. Liddell Hart disputed the film's depiction of Lawrence as an active participant in the attack and slaughter of the retreating Turkish columns who had committed the Tafas massacre but most current biographers accept the film's portrayal as reasonably accurate.

The film shows that Lawrence spoke and read Arabic, could quote the Quran and was reasonably knowledgeable about the region. It barely mentions his archaeological travels from 1911 to 1914 in Syria and Arabia and ignores his espionage work, including a pre-war topographical survey of the Sinai Peninsula and his attempts to negotiate the release of British prisoners at Kut, Mesopotamia, in 1916. Lawrence is made aware of the Sykes–Picot Agreement very late in the story and is shown to be appalled by it but he may well have known about it much earlier while he fought with the Arabs.[27]

Lawrence's biographers have a mixed reaction towards the film. The authorised biographer Jeremy Wilson noted that the film has "undoubtedly influenced the perceptions of some subsequent biographers", such as the depiction of the film's Ali being real, rather than a composite character and also the highlighting of the Deraa incident.[28] The film's historical inaccuracies, in Wilson's view, are more questionable than should be allowed under normal dramatic licence. Liddell Hart criticised the film and engaged Bolt in a lengthy correspondence over its portrayal of Lawrence.[29]

The film portrays Allenby as cynical and manipulative, with a superior attitude to Lawrence but there is much evidence that Allenby and Lawrence liked and respected each other. Lawrence once said that Allenby was "an admiration of mine" and later that he was "physically large and confident and morally so great that the comprehension of our littleness came slow to him".[30][31] The fictional Allenby's words at Lawrence's funeral in the film stand in contrast to the real Allenby's remarks upon Lawrence's death,

I have lost a good friend and a valued comrade. Lawrence was under my command, but, after acquainting him with my strategical plan, I gave him a free hand. His co-operation was marked by the utmost loyalty, and I never had anything but praise for his work, which, indeed, was invaluable throughout the campaign."[32]

Allenby also spoke highly of him numerous times and, much to Lawrence's delight, publicly endorsed the accuracy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Although Allenby manipulated Lawrence during the war, their relationship lasted for years after its end, indicating that in real life, they were friendly, if not close. The Allenby family was particularly upset by the Damascus scenes in which Allenby coldly allows the town to fall into chaos as the Arab Council collapses.[33]

Murray was initially sceptical of the Arab Revolt's potential but thought highly of Lawrence's abilities as an intelligence officer. It was largely through Lawrence's persuasion that Murray came to support the revolt. The intense dislike shown toward Lawrence in the film is the opposite of Murray's real feelings but Lawrence seemed not to hold Murray in any high regard.

The depiction of Auda abu Tayi as a man interested only in loot and money is also at odds with the historical record. Although Auda at first joined the revolt for monetary reasons, he quickly became a steadfast supporter of Arab independence, notably after Aqaba's capture. Despite repeated bribery attempts by the Turks, he happily pocketed their money but remained loyal to the revolt and went so far as to knock out his false teeth, which were Turkish-made. He was present with Lawrence from the beginning of the Aqaba expedition and in fact helped to plan it, along with Lawrence and Prince Faisal. Faisal was far from being the middle-aged man depicted since he was in his early thirties at the time of the revolt. Faisal and Lawrence respected each other's capabilities and intelligence and worked well together.[34]

The reactions of those who knew Lawrence and the other characters say much about the film's veracity. The most vehement critic of its accuracy was Professor A. W. Lawrence, the protagonist's younger brother and literary executor, who had sold the rights to Seven Pillars of Wisdom to Spiegel for £25,000 and went on a campaign in the United States and Britain to denounce the film. He famously said, "I should not have recognised my own brother". In one pointed talk show appearance, he remarked that he had found the film "pretentious and false" and went on to say that his brother was "one of the nicest, kindest and most exhilarating people I've known. He often appeared cheerful when he was unhappy". Later, he said to The New York Times, "[The film is] a psychological recipe. Take an ounce of narcissism, a pound of exhibitionism, a pint of sadism, a gallon of blood-lust and a sprinkle of other aberrations and stir well." Lowell Thomas was also critical of the portrayal of Lawrence and of most of the film's characters and believed that the train attack scenes were the only reasonably accurate aspect of the film. Criticisms were not restricted to Lawrence. Allenby's family lodged a formal complaint against Columbia about his portrayal. Descendants of Auda abu Tayi and the real Sherif Ali, Sharif Nassir, went further by suing Columbia although the film's Ali was a fictional composite character. The Auda case went on for almost 10 years before it was dropped.[35]

The film has its defenders. Biographer Michael Korda, the author of Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, offers a different opinion. The film is neither "the full story of Lawrence's life or a completely accurate account of the two years he spent fighting with the Arabs". Korda said that criticising its inaccuracy "misses the point". "The object was to produce, not a faithful docudrama that would educate the audience, but a hit picture".[36] Stephen E. Tabachnick goes further than Korda by arguing that the film's portrayal of Lawrence is "appropriate and true to the text of Seven Pillars of Wisdom".[37] A British historian of the Arab Revolt, David Murphy, wrote that although the film was flawed by various inaccuracies and omissions, "it was a truly epic movie and is rightly seen as a classic".[38]

Previous films about T. E. Lawrence had been planned but had not been made. In the 1940s, Alexander Korda was interested in filming The Seven Pillars of Wisdom with Laurence Olivier, Leslie Howard, or Robert Donat as Lawrence, but had to pull out owing to financial difficulties. David Lean had been approached to direct a 1952 version for the Rank Organisation, but the project fell through.[39] At the same time as pre-production of the film, Terence Rattigan was developing his play Ross which centred primarily on Lawrence's alleged homosexuality. Ross had begun as a screenplay, but was re-written for the stage when the film project fell through. Sam Spiegel grew furious and attempted to have the play suppressed, which helped to gain publicity for the film.[40] Dirk Bogarde had accepted the role in Ross; he described the cancellation of the project as "my bitterest disappointment". Alec Guinness played the role on stage.[41]

Lean and Sam Spiegel had worked together on The Bridge on the River Kwai and decided to collaborate again. For a time, Lean was interested in a biopic of Gandhi, with Alec Guinness to play the title role and Emeric Pressburger writing the screenplay. He eventually lost interest in the project, despite extensive pre-production work, including location scouting in India and a meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru.[42] Lean then returned his attention to T. E. Lawrence. Columbia Pictures had an interest in a Lawrence project dating back to the early 50s, and the project got underway when Spiegel convinced a reluctant A. W. Lawrence to sell the rights to Seven Pillars of Wisdom for £22,500.[43]

Michael Wilson wrote the original draft of the screenplay. Lean was dissatisfied with Wilson's work, primarily because his treatment focused on the historical and political aspects of the Arab Revolt. Lean hired Robert Bolt to re-write the script to make it a character study of Lawrence. Many of the characters and scenes are Wilson's invention but virtually all of the dialogue in the finished film was written by Bolt.[44]

Lean reportedly watched John Ford's film The Searchers (1956) to help him develop ideas as to how to shoot the film. Several scenes directly recall Ford's film, most notably Ali's entrance at the well and the composition of many of the desert scenes and the dramatic exit from Wadi Rum. Lean biographer Kevin Brownlow notes a physical similarity between Wadi Rum and Ford's Monument Valley.[45]

In an interview with The Washington Post in 1989, Lean said that Lawrence and Ali were written as being in a gay relationship together. When asked about whether the film was "pervasively homoerotic", Lean responded: "Yes. Of course it is. Throughout. I'll never forget standing there in the desert once, with some of these tough Arab buggers, some of the toughest we had, and I suddenly thought, 'He's making eyes at me!' And he was! So it does pervade it, the whole story, and certainly Lawrence was very if not entirely homosexual. We thought we were being very daring at the time: Lawrence and Omar, Lawrence and the Arab boys."[46] Lean also compared Ali and Lawrence's romance in the film to the relationship of the two main characters in his 1945 film Brief Encounter.[47]

The film was made by Horizon Pictures and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Principal photography began on 15 May 1961 and ended on 21 September 1962.[48] The desert scenes were shot in Jordan and Morocco and Almería and Doñana in Spain. It was originally to be filmed entirely in Jordan; the government of King Hussein was extremely helpful in providing logistical assistance, location scouting, transport and extras. Hussein visited the set several times during production and maintained cordial relationships with cast and crew. The only tension occurred when Jordanian officials learned that English actor Henry Oscar did not speak Arabic but would be filmed reciting the Quran. Permission was granted only on condition that an imam be present to ensure that there were no misquotations.

The Mudéjar pavilion of the Parque de María Luisa in Seville appeared as Damascus.

The Plaza de España, Seville appeared as Britain's Egyptian Expeditionary Force Headquarters in Cairo, which included the officers' club.

Lean planned to film in Aqaba and the archaeological site at Petra, which Lawrence had been fond of as a place of study. The production had to be moved to Spain due to cost and outbreaks of illness among the cast and crew before these scenes could be shot. The attack on Aqaba was reconstructed in a dried river bed in Playa del Algarrobico, southern Spain (at 37°1′25″N 1°52′53″W); it consisted of more than 300 buildings and was meticulously based on the town's appearance in 1917. The execution of Gasim, the train attacks, and Deraa exteriors were filmed in the Almería region, with some of the filming being delayed because of a flash flood. The Sierra Nevada mountains filled in for Azrak, Lawrence's winter quarters. The city of Seville was used to represent Cairo, Jerusalem and Damascus, with the appearance of Casa de Pilatos, the Alcázar of Seville and the Plaza de España. All of the interiors were shot in Spain, including Lawrence's first meeting with Faisal and the scene in Auda's tent. The Tafas massacre was filmed in Ouarzazate, Morocco, with Moroccan soldiers substituting for the Turkish army; Lean could not film as much as he wanted because the soldiers were uncooperative and impatient.[49]

The film's production was frequently delayed because shooting commenced without a finished script. Wilson quit early in the production and the playwright Beverley Cross worked on the script in the interim before Bolt took over, although none of Cross's material made it to the film. A further mishap occurred when Bolt was arrested for taking part in an anti-nuclear weapons demonstration and Spiegel had to persuade him to sign a recognizance of good behaviour to be released from jail and continue working on the script.

O'Toole was not used to riding camels and found the saddle to be uncomfortable. During a break in filming, he bought a piece of foam rubber at a market and added it to his saddle. Many of the extras copied the idea and sheets of the foam can be seen on many of the horse and camel saddles. The Bedouin nicknamed O'Toole "'Ab al-'Isfanjah" (أب الإسفنجة), meaning "Father of the Sponge".[50] During the filming of the Aqaba scene, O'Toole was nearly killed when he fell from his camel but it fortunately stood over him, preventing the horses of the extras from trampling him. Coincidentally, a very similar mishap befell the real Lawrence at the Battle of Abu El Lissal in 1917. Jordan banned the film for what was felt to be a disrespectful portrayal of Arab culture.[9] Egypt, Omar Sharif's home country, was the only Arab nation to give the film a wide release, where it became a success through the endorsement of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who appreciated the film's depiction of Arab nationalism.

Super Panavision technology was used to shoot the film, meaning that spherical lenses were used instead of anamorphic ones, and the image was exposed on a 65 mm negative, then printed onto a 70 mm positive to leave room for the soundtracks. Rapid cutting was more disturbing on the wide screen, so film makers had to apply longer and more fluid takes. Shooting such a wide ratio produced some unwanted effects during projection, such as a peculiar "flutter" effect, a blurring of certain parts of the image. To avoid the problem, the director often had to modify blocking, giving the actor a more diagonal movement, where the flutter was less likely to occur.[51] David Lean was asked whether he could handle CinemaScope: "If one had an eye for composition, there would be no problem."[52] O'Toole did not share Lawrence's love of the desert and stated in an interview "I loathe it".[53]

The film score was composed by Maurice Jarre, little known at the time and selected only after both William Walton and Malcolm Arnold had proved unavailable. Jarre was given just six weeks to compose two hours of orchestral music for Lawrence.[54] The score was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Sir Adrian Boult is listed as the conductor of the score in the film's credits, but he could not conduct most of the score, due in part to his failure to adapt to the intricate timings of each cue, and Jarre replaced him as the conductor. The score went on to garner Jarre his first Academy Award for Music Score—Substantially Original[55] and is now considered one of the greatest scores of all time, ranking number three on the American Film Institute's top twenty-five film scores.[56]

Producer Sam Spiegel wanted to create a score with two themes to show the 'Eastern' and British side for the film. It was intended for Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian to create one half and British composer Benjamin Britten to write the other.[57]

The original soundtrack recording was originally released on Colpix Records, the records division of Columbia Pictures, in 1962. A remastered edition appeared on Castle Music, a division of the Sanctuary Records Group, on 28 August 2006.

Kenneth Alford's march The Voice of the Guns (1917) is prominently featured on the soundtrack. One of Alford's other pieces, the Colonel Bogey March, was the musical theme for Lean's previous film The Bridge on the River Kwai.

A complete recording of the score was not heard until 2010 when Tadlow Music produced a CD of the music, with Nic Raine conducting the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra from scores reconstructed by Leigh Phillips.

The film premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 10 December 1962 (Royal Premiere) and was released in the United States on 16 December 1962.

Theatrical poster from 1962 during its release

The original release ran for about 222 minutes (plus overture, intermission, and exit music). A post-premiere memo (13 December 1962) noted that the film was 24,987.5 feet (7,616.2 m) of 70 mm film, or 19,990 feet (6,090 m) of 35 mm film. With 90 feet (27 m) of 35 mm film projected every minute, this corresponds to exactly 222.11 minutes. Richard May, VP Film Preservation at Warner Bros., sent an email to Robert Morris, co-author of a book on Lawrence of Arabia, in which he noted that Gone With the Wind was never edited after its premiere and is 19,884 feet (6,061 m) of 35 mm film (without leaders, overture, intermission, entr'acte, or walkout music), corresponding to 220.93 min. Thus, Lawrence of Arabia is slightly more than 1 minute longer than Gone With the Wind and is, therefore, the longest movie ever to win a Best Picture Oscar.

In January 1963, Lawrence was released in a version edited by 20 minutes; when it was re-released in 1971, an even shorter cut of 187 minutes was presented. The first round of cuts was made at the direction and even insistence of David Lean, to assuage criticisms of the film's length and increase the number of showings per day; however, during the 1989 restoration, he passed blame for the cuts onto deceased producer Sam Spiegel.[58] In addition, a 1966 print was used for initial television and video releases which accidentally altered a few scenes by reversing the image.[59]

The film was screened out of competition at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival[60] and at the 2012 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.[61]

Lawrence of Arabia was re-released theatrically in 2002 to celebrate the film's fortieth anniversary.[62]

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 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.

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, who had provided Hawkins' voice for several films after Hawkins developed throat cancer in the late 1960s. A full list of cuts can be found at the IMDb.[63] Reasons for the cuts of various scenes can be found in Lean's notes to Sam Spiegel, Robert Bolt and Anne V. Coates.[64] The film runs 227 minutes in the most recent director's cut available on Blu-ray Disc and DVD.[2]

On the evenings of 28 and 29 January 1973, ABC broadcast the film over two evenings, due to the film's length.[65] On 21 August 1977, ABC re-broadcast it, in one 8 p.m. to midnight showing.[66]

Lawrence of Arabia has been released in five different DVD editions, including an initial release as a two-disc set (2001),[67] followed by a shorter single disc edition (2002),[68] a high resolution version of the director's cut with restored scenes (2003) issued as part of the Superbit series, as part of the Columbia Best Pictures collection (2008), and in a fully restored special edition of the director's cut (2008).[69]

Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg helped restore a version of the film for a DVD release in 2000.[70]

An 8K scan/4K intermediate digital restoration was made for Blu-ray and theatrical re-release[71] during 2012 by Sony Pictures to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary.[72] The Blu-ray edition of the film was released in the United Kingdom on 10 September 2012 and in the United States on 13 November 2012.[73] The film received a one-day theatrical release on 4 October 2012 and a two-day release in Canada on 11 and 15 November 2012, and it was re-released in the United Kingdom on 23 November 2012.

According to Grover Crisp, executive VP of restoration at Sony Pictures, the new 8K scan has such high resolution that it showed a series of fine concentric lines in a pattern "reminiscent of a fingerprint" near the top of the frame. This was caused by the film emulsion melting and cracking in the desert heat during production. Sony had to hire a third party to minimise or eliminate the rippling artefacts in the new restored version.[71] The digital restoration was done by Sony Colorworks DI, Prasad Studios, and MTI Film.[74]

A 4K digitally restored version of the film was screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival,[75][76] at the 2012 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival,[61] at the V Janela Internacional de Cinema[77] in Recife, Brazil, and at the 2013 Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival in San Jose, California.[78]

In 2020, Sony Pictures included the film on a multi-film 4K UHD Blu-Ray release, The Columbia Classics 4K UltraHD Collection, including other historically significant films from their library such as Dr. Strangelove and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The film was later released in an individual two-disc steelbook set by Kino Lorber, with both including a substantial, mostly overlapping collection of special features.[79]