6/12/24
Newsletter #616
The Crack of Dawn
There is a brilliant scene in Lawrence of Arabia in Prince Feisal’s tent. Initially, Lawrence is there with a British officer (Anthony Quayle), and several other people, including an old man reading the Koran, and Feisal’s nephew, Ali (Omar Sharif). Feisal (Alec Guiness) sends them all away, but has Lawrence stay.
When it’s just the two men remaining in the tent, the wind begins to blow, the tent starts to just slightly sway, and the tent poles begin to creak. The affect is simple and electrifying. Then David Lean, for me, anyway, performs magic with his staging of the two actors and the widescreen camera. In this scene Feisal accuses Lawrence, saying, “I think you are one of those desert-loving British, like Gordon of Khartoum, or Doughty.”
Gordon of Khartoum was played by Charlton Heston in the British film Khartoum (1966), which was exceptionally poor casting in my opinion, and it’s a crappy movie. However, the leader of the Muslims, who are presently rebelling against British rule, Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah, who had proclaimed himself the “Mahdi” of Islam (the “Guided One”), is played by Laurence Olivier, and he’s terrific. His use of his baby finger to point out the space between his teeth, indicating that he is the chosen one, is wonderful, great, big acting.
Regarding Prince Feisal’s reference to Doughty, that is regarding, Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888), a travel book written by Charles Montagu Doughty (1843–1926), an English poet, writer, and traveler.
But there is another “Desert-loving British” character who remains unnamed in the film, but there is a direct reference. At one point Ali asks Lawrence where he’ll get reinforcements, and Lawrence says (and I paraphrase), “I’ll go see the Howeitat, I hear they are great fighters.” Where did Lawrence hear that? From Gertrude Bell.
Gertrude Bell is the lead character of Werner Herzog’s breathtakingly awful biopic, Queen of the Desert (2015) with Nicole Kidman painfully miscast in the lead. Part of the motivation of Gertrude Bell’s character is that she was not beautiful. She wasn’t ugly either, but by the standards of Victorian England in 1870s and 1880s, she was not considered particularly attractive. She was, however, one of the very first women to attend Oxford, and in her own way she singlehandedly changed the world, but she wasn’t pretty like Nicole Kidman. The minute you screw that up, you’ve screwed the pooch. I’m a big fan of Werner Herzog, but man, when good filmmakers make bad movies, they’re frequently really bad. The movie is ostensibly based on a particularly good book called Desert Queen by Janet Wallach. Herzog’s movie is so bad that I kept thinking while watching it, “You could still make another, better movie out of Desert Queen.”
Anyway, the desert-loving Gertrude Bell began making her own expeditions into Arabia in the late 1880s. then the 1890s, and particularly in the early 1900s. By actually being smart and knowing what she was doing when putting her desert expeditions together, as well as speaking the various tribal languages, Gertrude managed to befriend many of the Bedouin the most powerful leaders. It was Gertrude who knew that the Howeitat tribe were fierce warriors because she was friends with their leader, Auda Abu Tayi, who was portrayed in Lawrence by Anthony Quinn. But here’s a photo of the real Auda Abu Tayi, circa 1917. I think Quinn was an inspired choice, even if he wasn’t an Arab (or a Greek).
And just to be clear, Gertrude Bell’s expeditions were comprised of about a hundred people and a hundred camels. She brought along a ton of stuff. She dined every night while she was in the vast wastelands of the Arabian desert, seated in a big tent at beautiful chairs on expensive Persian rugs, the food served on fine China. This was part of what impressed the Bedouin chiefs that she befriended along the way, over the many years. She is the one who introduced the young T.E. Lawrence to these Bedouin chiefs.
Finally, by the end of WWI, Gertrude Bell was running the British Arab Bureau. Because she had traveled the Middle East more than anyone else, Gertrude Bell was the one who was chosen to draw up the new, modern map of the Middle East, and she’s the one who basically created the borders for all the Arab countries. Until her map there really wasn’t an Iraq, and an Iran, or a Saudi Arabia – it was simply Arabia Deserta.
Anyway, I’m in Haarlem, Holland. It’s awesome. I’ll report in on that tomorrow.
Thank you.
Have a great time in Holland !