Dive into the visual brilliance of Lawrence of Arabia in this cinematic deep dive!
Discover the secrets behind its iconic look, from the groundbreaking Super Panavision 70 technology to the masterful use of lenses and lighting. Learn how director David Lean and cinematographer Freddie Young crafted some of the most unforgettable images in film history.
If you're a fan of epic storytelling and stunning cinematography, you won't want to miss this exploration of why Lawrence of Arabia looks the way it does. Watch now and see the desert like never before!
I agree that it's a deconstruction of that trope. He tried to do the classic orientalist missionary thing and was immediately tortured for it. Nobody in the film really struck me as a hero, much less Lawrence.
Yeah, really the nicest thing you can say about Lawrence here is that, his genuine affection for the Arabs and their culture aside, his ego and his misguided desire to be a hero saw him used as a pawn by both Allenby and Faisal, and he winds up a broken man for it.
Which isn't too far from how the real Lawrence viewed himself after the war. He's very self-deprecating and pessimistic in the Seven Pillars, which was of course the primary basis for the movie script. The big difference though is that the real Lawrence knew about Sykes-Picot almost from the beginning, and was actively working to sabotage it for most of the campaign. That hardly excuses his arrogance in thinking he was able to play king maker and thwart two empires. Again, the best you can say about him is that he was a somewhat well-meaning, extremely capable, but ultimately misguided and foolish figure.
That may be an overly charitable interpretation, but in my years studying him, I've never gotten the impression that he was some scion of British imperialism. He was just a guy playing hero who dearly paid for it.