Movie Review Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia

This movie uses the vast desert as the setting for the adventures of T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence succeeds in enlisting desert tribes to fight on the side of the British -- and against the Turks in World War I. The point of the military aspect is that the Arab Revolt was being helped by the British, as the British wanted to defeat the Ottomans and drive the Turks out of Arab lands. Lawrence was a big part of the elimination of the Turks, and in the process he becomes a very strange hero. Among the most riveting, poignant scenes in the film is after Lawrence has made a miraculous crossing of the desert -- a crossing that would take the life of ordinary people because of the boiling hot sun and sand -- but just as he is about to reach of food, water, and shelter, he turns back to find a friend that has fallen back. The speck of a man approaching Lawrence from a great distance in the desert, a tiny speck that slowly becomes a figure of a human, is a powerful scene that shows the audience just how vast and unforgiving the desert is.

What is anthropological about the film?

The British Empire at that time (WWI) was still far-reaching, and in this film the British are the "Western colonizers" who move through and conquer the spaces they desire with sophisticated machinery, and it is the Arabs who are "colonized, who tent and travel through the vaster if emptier but equally beautiful wastes of the desert" (Caton, 1999, p. 148). The author, Caton, a Harvard professor of Anthropology, sees anthropology when an "Other" (Lawrence) heads off for adventure in an alien environment, to interact with other cultures in a respectful if dangerous meeting of the minds. Anthropology is the study of humanity, and in this film the moviegoer is treated to a diverse cultural smorgasbord -- the stuffy British, the desert animals known as Bedouins (nomads living off the land in the crudest fashion), the Turks (with their gleaming swords) and other Arabs. Culture is something that the protagonist understands very well, and he slips out of his British uniform and wears a flowing white robe as though he has somehow transitioned from European officer to wild roaming roustabout trying to unite the desert denizens against the Turks. Trying to show his British superiors that there is more to warfare than tanks and planes and mortar fire.

Does the film try to present a unified culture?

In one way it does, as Lawrence is able to unify the nomads (Arabs) to attack the Turks. Lawrence's sheer will and charisma helps to unite the desert tribes; they see him as some form of savior. The film also presents a strong Lawrence, but it also points to the diversity of human characters in the desert, including the British, the Arabs, the Turks, and of course Lawrence, who is certainly different from all the rest yet he identifies with the Arabs (including the nomads). Joseph Bottum writes that Lawrence had "the almost impossible personal bravery and finely wrought character that made him perhaps the greatest leader of small forces in the 20th century" (Bottum, 2011).

How is the film not anthropological? Did it sound the trumpet of Westernization?