Lawrence of Arabia: Anthropology, Culture, and Colonialism

Overview of the Film

Lawrence of Arabia 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 military dimension of the film centers on the Arab Revolt, which the British supported in order to defeat the Ottomans and drive the Turks out of Arab lands. Lawrence played a central role in that effort, and in the process he becomes a very strange kind of hero.

Among the most riveting and poignant scenes in the film is the one that follows Lawrence's miraculous crossing of the desert — a crossing that would claim the lives of ordinary people under the boiling sun and across endless sand — and yet, just as he is about to reach food, water, and shelter, he turns back to find a friend who has fallen behind. The speck of a man approaching Lawrence from a great distance, a tiny figure slowly resolving out of the haze, is a powerful scene that conveys to the audience just how vast and unforgiving the desert truly is.

Anthropological Dimensions of the Film

The British Empire at the time of World War I was still far-reaching. In this film, the British are the "Western colonizers" who move through and conquer the spaces they desire with sophisticated machinery, while the Arabs are the colonized — people who "tent and travel through the vaster if emptier but equally beautiful wastes of the desert" (Caton, 1999, p. 148). Steven Charles Caton, a professor of Anthropology, identifies the film's anthropological character in the moment when an "Other" — Lawrence — heads off for adventure in an alien environment, interacting with other cultures in a respectful yet dangerous meeting of minds.

Anthropology is the study of humanity, and in this film the viewer is treated to a diverse cultural landscape: the stuffy British, the Bedouins (nomadic desert dwellers living off the land), the Turks with their gleaming swords, and various other Arab peoples. Culture is something that the protagonist understands deeply. He slips out of his British uniform and dons a flowing white robe, as though he has somehow transitioned from European officer to a wild roaming figure trying to unite the desert peoples against the Turks — and to show his British superiors that there is more to warfare than tanks, planes, and mortar fire.

Cultural Unity and Diversity

In one sense the film does present a unified culture, as Lawrence is able to bring the Arab nomads together to attack the Turks. His sheer will and charisma unite the desert tribes; they come to regard him as a kind of savior. At the same time, the film acknowledges the profound diversity of human characters in the desert, including the British, the Arabs, the Turks, and Lawrence himself — a man who is distinctly different from all the others yet identifies most strongly with the Arabs and their nomadic way of life. As Joseph Bottum writes, Lawrence possessed "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).

Conclusion

The film did not sound the trumpet of Westernization because Lawrence was the very antithesis of Western warfare and culture. He adopted the culture he was involved with and eschewed Western values, becoming in the process one of the most compelling and ambiguous heroes in cinematic history. Lawrence of Arabia remains a rich text for cultural anthropology precisely because it refuses to celebrate the West's conquest of the desert — it celebrates instead the man who chose to belong to it.

Works Cited

Bottum, Joseph. "Being T.E. Lawrence." Policy Review, Issue 166, 2011, pp. 65–70.

Caton, Steven Charles. Lawrence of Arabia: A Film's Anthropology. University of California Press, 1999.