Lawrence of Arabia and Me
The legendary epic makes for a strange bedfellow.
A note from the writer: This piece is way more personal than most of our content here on Cinemantics. Thanks to Caleb, Daniel, and Graham for being such a great support system during the writing process. Without further ado, enjoy. — TM
I had lived in the Washington, D.C. region for only six months when I purchased a ticket to see a re-release of the Oscar-winning epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962, dir. Lean) on the big screen.
Sure, I had heard of the film before, but I had never seen the whole picture. There were clips that I stumbled upon on YouTube and interviews I watched of Spielberg saying that he tries to watch it at least once every year. Hell, I even rented the movie a few times from the local library but couldn’t be bothered to give it a try.
Walking into the Alamo Drafthouse last August, I knew little about what was coming.
Yes, it’s vast and beautiful — each sunset and desert vista searing itself into your memory — and yes, it earns every accolade it’s accumulated after seventy years. But what struck me during that first watch wasn’t just the grandiose swells of Maurice Jell’s legendary score nor the tactile and well-staged action scenes.
Instead, it was the quiet moments of character and conflict in which Peter O’Toole gives life and depth to T.E. Lawrence in possibly the greatest performance ever captured on film.
His Lawrence is flamboyant and masculine, self-deprecating and egotistical, magnanimous and barbarous, driven eventually to tragic outcomes by a violent messianic complex.
And it was over the film’s four-hour runtime, with an orchestral overture and intermission thrown in for good measure, that I began to draw a strange kinship with O’Toole’s Lawrence.
In Lawrence of Arabia, I began comprehending the life-altering odyssey I was on.
In Lawrence, I began to see myself.
I had lived in Ohio all my life. Hell, most of that time I had been in the same county. I’m convinced the cows outnumber the people.
I hated most sports. That changed in adulthood, but I never found any interest in them growing up. I would have rather spent my time writing or reading or, even better, watching a movie. I always felt out of place there in my graduating class of 89.
The key to feeling like you are a part of some larger community is to assimilate as much as possible, often leaning into one specific area of similarities to mask the glaring differences between you and everyone else.
I shared enough of the beliefs of my contemporaries that I could blend in, but in so many ways, I still felt apart.
I was so good at assimilating that I forgot who I was.
Lawrence of Arabia is the story of a man without a home trying to find one. Born British to a mother who did not share his father’s last name, he yearned for the windswept deserts and mountains of Arabia where he would shed his strange English nature and become someone completely different.
There, he thought, he could be something.
Throughout the film, Lawrence’s nationality is something he could use to help assimilate among his peers when the situation requires it. Apart from being British, he shared nothing with his countrymen. There was neither peace nor happiness in the barracks and lofty halls of Cairo, even after he returned from leading a surprise attack against the Turks at Aqaba.
His erratic personality was often contrasted with the uptight, regimented British Army. His odd turns of phrase, coupled with O’Toole’s theatrical body language, made Lawrence a court jester when placed in the company of ranking military officers and politicians. The uniforms never seemed to fit him properly, and each salute seemed passive and uninterested.
At the beginning of the film, it was to show just how different Lawrence felt in the company of his countrymen. There is a scene early in the film’s first act that highlights this well. It takes place just as Lawrence begins his odyssey into the desert with his guide Tafas:
Tafas: Is [Britian] a desert country?
Lawrence: No. A fat country. Fat people.
Tafas: You are not fat.
Lawrence: No. I’m different.
As the film progresses, however, it’s used to reveal his internal struggle. Midway through act two, he returns to Cairo from a failed invasion of the north, feeling abandoned by the tribes he came to love and depend on. In a rather pathetic scene, Lawrence begs British command to take him back in and assign him a desk job — desperate to feel anything close to companionship.
The climatic attack on Damascus and the disintegration of the United Arab Front forced Lawrence to return back to England in defeat, his usefulness to Britain and the tribes over. Departing the city, he longingly looks at a caravan while his chauffeur says: “It must be good going home.”
But he isn’t going home.
He has no home.
Although he tried to make one in Arabia, he couldn’t.
Figures like Alec Guinness’s Prince Faisal used him as a means to an end, and his savior complex drove away the tribal leaders who loved him the most, such as Omar Sharif’s Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish. He had won the love of Arabia but lost it in a selfless pursuit of glory — something he knew Britain could never give him.
After 24 years in the Midwest, I jumped into the unknown and moved to Washington, D.C.
But it didn’t feel like I had really moved.
Because of other obligations, I returned to Ohio nine times in the first six months of living there. I felt like a man without a home — one foot on either side of the Mason-Dixon. The more I returned to Ohio, the more distant I felt from it.
I wanted to be everything to everyone I knew in both places instead of being who I knew myself to be. And because of that, I was forced to wear a uniform that never quite fit, fashioning it in a way to appease everyone. But it never did.
More than anything, it made me feel conflicted: Torn between the place of my childhood and my new home.
The two halves of myself didn’t seem to like — or trust — one another.
Lawrence is also a man without an identity.
When he wants it, he can be a brave leader of a guerilla army; when he needs it, he is a tolerated member of the British forces.
But in his loneliest moments, he simply wants companionship.
O’Toole’s flamboyant characterization of Lawrence implies something deeper than what is seen on the surface, a more primal conflict that transcends borders and cultures. Think back to the exchange between him and Tafas, which speaks not simply about nationality — but something deeply personal.
“I’m different.”
Before the search for a home, he was on a quest for himself.
Lawrence had no identity before the events of the film. The military campaigns he led helped give him confidence and purpose, thereby shaping a false identity around his military persona.
That makes a difficult scene mid-way through the film’s second act so painful.
As the Arab tribes abandon him, Lawrence moves towards the Jordanian city of Deraa with Ali. There he is captured, along with several Arab residents, and is taken to the Turkish Bey, and, in a deeply uncomfortable scene, Lawrence is stripped, ogled, and prodded. The Bey looks lustfully at Lawrence and, out of fear, Lawrence attacks him.
For striking out at the Bey, Lawrence is beaten and thrown into the street. The experience leaves him shaken, and, because of the humiliation, Lawrence throws himself even more into his quest for military glory — leading to the short-lived victory at Damascus.
These allusions make his quest for a home even more tragic.
He leaves Arabia and, with it, the only identity he ever really had.
As I sat down to watch the movie for the first time in the hot summer days of my first year away from Ohio, I felt like a man without a home or identity.
The movie was a mirror and warning.
I straddled two worlds and didn’t feel really comfortable in either because, at the heart of it, I wasn’t comfortable with myself.
Lawrence displayed that in every scene and every frame of the picture.
A lonely man in an extraordinary circumstance, Lawrence ran from himself and into the arms of the desert.
He never even tried to find inner peace.
Instead, he channeled his masochistic tendencies towards warfare in the hope of finding acceptance there. He did for a time but lost it when he flew too close to the sun.
In Lawrence’s tragic downfall, I realized why I couldn’t be okay with how things were.
It was a long struggle, it was a painful one. But I’m thankful for the film’s clarion call.
Because of Lawrence of Arabia, I am a man with a home.
And I know myself.