The Plays of Robert Bolt, Part II

Dueling Queens: Sarah Miles and Eileen Atkins in Vivat! Vivat Regina! (Source)

Part One here.

Robert Bolt's later works show the playwright sublimated to the screenwriter. The first, The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, incorporates Bolt's thematic preoccupations into a children's play. Vivat! Vivat Regina grafts Brechtian stylization onto the tragedy of Mary Queen of Scots. Last is State of Revolution, a wordy, overstuffed but fascinating chronicle of the Russian Revolution.

Bolt's penchant for the grandiose remains undiminished. Each of the plays features dozens of characters, elaborate staging and sweeping events that must have been nightmarish to perform. On page the plays (mostly) read well-enough; on stage they might be excessive. Arguably, Bolt's ambition exceeds the medium.

The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew (1964)

“A very good way is to do what you should… But a bit of what you fancy, does yer good!” 

After completing Doctor Zhivago Bolt penned The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, a delightful children’s play. Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company for their 1964 Christmas season, its original production starred heavyweights John Normington, Michael Jayston, Terence Rigby, and Leo McKern. The play proved a huge success, with yearly revivals in Britain, a television adaptation by Germany’s Augsburger Puppetkiste, and a novelization published in 1995.

In a medieval Kingdom, assorted nobles celebrate their triumph over dragons with endless leisure. Do-gooder Oblong Fitz Oblong gets assigned to Baron Bolligrew, an oppressive landlord taxing his charges to death. Oblong befriends Michael, an amoral magpie who resembles a more benign Gentle Jack, and his square idealism initially proves fruitless against Boligrew and evil warlock Moloch. Things come to a head when Moloch summons an evil dragon to vanquish Oblong. Oblong must break his moral code to triumph.

Bolligrew incorporates Bolt's pet themes and stylization amidst a children's setting. His Storyteller functions like the Common Man from A Man for All Seasons: a narrator and character in the story, breaking the fourth wall with a wink and nod. Bolt's script stresses the artificiality with tinny music, cardboard animals and self-aware dialogue. It's a pleasing mix of the intellectual and playful: kids can appreciate the silliness, adults can enjoy Bolt's craftsmanship.

All this analytical hooey overwhelms the fact that Bolligrew is a kid’s play – and an excellent one at that. Sir Oblong's upright heroism takes a beating from assorted villains, but virtue comes out on top. Wonderfully crafted and with a droll sense of humor, it treats its young audience with respect. No wonder Bolt called it “the [play] that’s given me the most pleasure.”  

Vivat! Vivat Regina! (1970)

"She will have what she desires, and it will fetch her off her throne.”

Bolt returned to Tudor England in 1970, writing Vivat! Vivat Regina! as a vehicle for his wife Sarah Miles. Performed at the Chichester Theatre Festival with Miles as Mary Stuart and Eileen Atkins as Elizabeth I, it received considerable success. An equally successful Broadway version with Atkins and Claire Bloom ran in New York the following year, earning several Tony nominations. Vivat has experienced several revivals, including a 1985 off-Broadway version with Geraldine Page as Elizabeth, and Barbara Flynn as Mary in a 1995 Mermaid Theatre production.

Despite its reception, Vivat is Bolt’s weakest history play. The saga of Mary Queen of Scots has been told many times, from Maxwell Anderson to Maria Schiller. Bolt’s depiction of the dynastic duo as “figures on a seesaw, so similar and opposite” is interesting but not especially novel: Elizabeth sacrifices love for her throne, while Mary’s carnal fulfillment destroys her grip on power. We get a recitation of familiar history, well-written but unsurprising.

Vivat’s primary interest is Bolt’s very cinematic imagery. Most effective is a form of theatrical “cross cutting” which allows the Queens to interact without actually meeting. Thus he avoids the pitfall of a fictitious Mary-Elizabeth confrontation. The stylized stage work, with an elevated pyramid standing in for the respective throne, stands halfway between Absurd sparseness and traditional pageantry. More familiar Brechtian tropes (characters addressing the audience, use of a nursery rhyme during Darnley’s assassination) are employed to mixed effect. With its trappings of Epic Theatre, Vivat is probably more effective on stage than page.

As always, Bolt provides reams of crisp dialogue and eloquent speeches. But he clutters the narrative with an excess of characters and the story frequently drags. The personal focus which worked so well in A Man for All Seasons here trivializes history into a royal cat fight; we don’t get a proper grasp of the momentous political and religious issues at stake. Vivat is ultimately readable but underwhelming.

State of Revolution (1977)

“We cannot assume that the times in which we live are not catastrophic, merely because it is we who live in them. After all, someone has to live in catastrophic times.” 

Robert Bolt spent two years researching this epic treatment of the Russian Revolution, staged by Peter Hall's National Theatre with a prestigious cast: Michael Bryant, Michael Kitchen, Terence Rigby and Brian Blessed. The production proved arduous, due in part to a labor strike by stage hands. Critics savaged the play for being pro-Communist, anti-Communist or (in Irving Wardle's words) having "nothing definite to say."

State of Revolution was another personal project. Bolt held a New Left view of Communism, dismayed by Soviet tyranny but hopeful for true revolution elsewhere. Besides CND, he joined Hugh Trevor-Roper and Ernie Roberts in visiting Maoist China in 1965. His radio play The Window depicted the '56 Hungarian Revolution, while Doctor Zhivago provided a worm's-eye view of Revolutionary Russia. Bolt's time as president of ACTT (the Association of Cinematographic and Television Technicians) disillusioned him: in the mid-'70s he moderated a bitter dispute between Trotskyist unions, bankrupt studios and Harold Wilson's Labour government.

Like Vivat and Gentle Jack, State of Revolution is just too big: 25 speaking parts, large crowd scenes and spectacle covering 15 years of Russian history. The narrative lurches from prewar Capri through World War I, both revolutions, Red Terror, the Kronstadt Rebellion and Trotsky and Stalin's rivalry. With so much going on, State bogs down in spectacle. Producing it must have been nightmarish. Without Brechtian sparseness it's a panorama, meticulously accurate but dramatically stiff.

State lacks Bolt's usual themes. Zhelnik, leader of the Kronstadt Soviet, represents the pure extremist embodied by Louis Flax in Tiger and the Horse or Strelnikov in Doctor Zhivago, a revolutionary too pure for the Revolution. Felix Dzerzhinsky's evolution from idealist to pitiless executioner depicts humanity sublimated by ideology. Captain Draganoff has shades of the Common Man, cheerily switching from the Tsarist police to the Cheka. These characters are marginal however, Bolt instead focusing on the Bolshevik inner circle.

State crosses a "Great Men" historical pageant with Marxist dialectic: "Big events aren't formed by people, people are formed by big events." Education Minister Lunacharsky lectures about "the historically determined movement of the masses" while celebrating Lenin and Stalin's individual brilliance. Bolt also explores the contradictions between the Revolution's idealism and its brutal methods. But he ultimately reflects a naive sympathy towards the Bolsheviks: if only Stalin hadn't usurped Trotsky, Russia would be a Workers' Paradise! Yeah, right.

Bolt's portrait of Lenin and Co. drives home the irony. Lenin starts a relentless fanatic but the realities of government force moderation. Trotsky threatens German ministers with the mutiny of their men; "We do seem to have won," comes the retort. The New Economic Policy, liquidation of the Kulaks and revanchist imperialism transforms the Revolution into a repressive state. Trotsky, a theoretician whose arrogance alienates everyone, feuds with Stalin, an "administrator" like A Man for All Seasons' Cromwell waiting to be useful. Bolt shows how personalities and practicality shaped the Soviet Union more than theory.

State of Revolution finally proves more challenging than entertaining. Nonetheless, its shrewd deconstruction of Marxist dogma makes it worth reading.

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State of Revolution was Bolt's final stage play. He spent the next three years working torturously on David Lean's The Bounty, the stress of which triggered a crippling stroke. After a long, painful recovery Bolt penned a few more screenplays (The Mission, Without Warning: The James Brady story) but never again returned to the stage. Perhaps the negative reaction towards State dissuaded him. Or perhaps he realized his true talents lie in cinema.

Back to movies soon!

The Plays of Robert Bolt, Part I

Part Two here.

With Lawrence of Arabia only a week away from re-release, I'm dusting off a long-mothballed post: a review of Robert Bolt's oeuvre. Bolt did his most lasting work as a screenwriter, yet he was also a prolific stage dramatist. Aside from A Man for All Seasons however, his plays are mostly forgotten.

In the early '60s, Bolt went from Mancunian schoolmaster to theatrical superstar with a trio of hits: Flowering Cherry, The Tiger and the Horse and A Man for All Seasons. Bolt's ability to analyze political issues through individual protagonists won him acclaim and popular appeal. But he was also dismissed by many: John Russell Taylor called him "a good old-fashioned playwright" like Terence Rattigan, telling conventional stories within familiar dramatic structures. Bolt's conventionality marginalized him in the era of John Osborne and Harold Pinter's "Angry Young Men," despite his flirtations with Brechtian "epic theater" in A Man for All Seasons and Gentle Jack. Even so, success brought him to David Lean and Sam Spiegel's attention, and the rest is history.

Certainly Bolt proved a gifted screenwriter. His eye for striking visuals, skilful treatment of complex themes, sharp characterizations and poetic dialogue made him ideally suited for film. Cinema allowed him a vast canvas for his preoccupations: war-torn Arabia, Revolutionary Russia, the Paraguayan jungle. By contrast, later plays like Vivat! Vivat Regina and State of Revolution suffer from excesses of characters and incident. Frith Banbury scoffed at Bolt's choice of "Sam Spiegel's yacht" over theater accolades, but one can hardly blame Bolt for focusing on a medium where he excelled.

Nonetheless, Bolt's stage work is worth remembering. His plays bristle with quotable dialogue and fascinating themes: the individual against society, the agony of conscience, the juxtaposition of personal and political, commitment versus compromise. Even when Bolt fails, he's usually interesting.

Seven of Bolt's plays have been published: Flowering Cherry (1958), The Tiger and the Horse (1960), A Man for All Seasons (1960), Gentle Jack (1963), The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew (1964), Vivat! Vivat Regina (1970) and State of Revolution (1977). Of Bolt's other work, The Last of the Wine (1955) remains unpublished, while The Critic and the Heart (1957) and Brother and Sister (1966) only received limited printings. I'll recuse myself from reviewing A Man for All Seasons for a third time. All six plays examined are flawed but comprise an interesting body of work regardless.

Flowering Cherry (1958) 

“Your apples and orchards, your dreams; your one dream – it’s nothing but a lie and an excuse for lies and lies!” 

Bolt's debut The Critic and the Heart proved a minor success, but Flowering Cherry propelled him to theatrical stardom. The show ran at London’s Haymarket Theatre for over a year, starring Ralph Richardson and Celia Johnson. The play received positive reviews, with Harold Hobson particularly effusive: “Bolt looks on the withering misery, the complete self-contempt with the cold eye of a surgeon and with the … perceptiveness of a Proust.” A short Broadway run with Eric Portman and Wendy Hiller proved less successful.

The story is Arthur Miller by way of Chekhov. Insurance man Jack Cherry dreams of retiring to a cherry orchard in Somerset. He constantly threatens to quit his job, his erratic behavior driving wife Isobel batty. Things come to a head over a petty theft, with Cherry accusing his wayward son Tom, and when Cherry contemplates selling the family house. Isobel finally confronts Cherry over his self-destructive actions.

Bolt claimed to be unfamiliar with Death of a Salesman but this is hard to credit. Parallels to Miller’s magnum opus are inescapable: the husband wrapped up in delusions, the long-suffering but defensive wife, the dishonest children. Echoes of The Cherry Orchard further slather Cherry with discreditable familiarity. The most original elements are the most awkward: Cherry’s daughter Judy, a silly poker-bending stunt, and a projected cyclorama of cherry petals in the breeze. There’s a nod to the “Angry Young Man” in Tom, the disaffected Army-bound son, but otherwise this is a stolidly adult play.

Attentive readers will notice Boltian themes in embryonic form. Cherry certainly faces a question of commitment, albeit on a more personal scale than later works. A dichotomy between the “business world,” represented by the salesman Grass, and the “Natural” world represented by Cherry’s orchard, is a rough draft for Gentle Jack’s central dichotomy. But these are sublimated to the banal domestic drama.

Of course, judging any play solely by its text is problematic. A good, well-cast production might make these tired elements work: certainly Ralph Richardson and Celia Johnson could breathe life into anything. Without a production nearby however, I’m forced to judge Cherry on its literary merits, which are minimal.

The Tiger and the Horse (1960)

“I have no permissive authority over the importance of things. If they’re important to you, than to you they’re important.” 

In 1960, Bolt had the honor of two plays running simultaneously on the West End. Though written before A Man for All Seasons, The Tiger and the Horse was launched two months’ into that show’s run. It did better business at the time, because of another brilliant casting coup: Michael Redgrave in the lead and Vanessa Redgrave, in her first major stage role, as daughter Stella.

Despite its contemporary success, Tiger has faded into a theatrical footnote. For all its dated topicality and artificial plot mechanics it retains considerable power. Tiger is Bolt’s first work to fully develop his themes of self-hood and individual commitment.

Jack Dean is a professor at an unnamed Oxbridge University. A former astronomer, he's taken himself out of the "real world" by studying philosophy. He's next in line for promotion to Vice Chancellor until research fellow Louis Flax presents Dean with a petition for nuclear disarmament. Dean refuses to sign, alienating his wife Gwendoline, for whom the petition takes on incredible importance. Dean's pressed to make a choice, however, when Louis impregnates Dean's daughter Stella, and when Gwendoline loses her grip on sanity.

Tiger was an immensely personal project for Bolt. He was an active member of Bertrand Russell’s Committee of 100, which advocated nuclear disarmament. He contributed an essay to Clara Urquhart's anti-nuke book A Matter of Life (1963) and explored the issue in his play The Last of the Wine. In September 1961 Bolt was arrested for taking part in a protest in Trafalgar Square, only to be bailed out by a furious Sam Spiegel, who needed Bolt to write Lawrence of Arabia. Bolt’s failure to live up to his fictional protagonists haunted him for the rest of his life.

Tiger remains effective despite its dated central issue. Like many Bolt protagonists, Dean tries to "have it both ways," avoiding controversy at the cost of principle. Bolt effectively contrasts him with Louis, a politically committed busybody who can't tell Stella he loves her. Bolt further personalizes the drama with Gwendoline, who goes mad contemplating the horrors of nuclear war and her husband's lack of affection. The stakes aren't so far-reaching as A Man for All Seasons but serve a powerful drama; Bolt shows that even abstract issues effect everyone.

When Bolt focuses on Dean's dilemma, Tiger excels. Unfortunately, the play becomes weighed down in subplots and awkward characterization. Louis and Stella's romance initially provides comic relief, but never develops enough weight to balance the main story. Gwendoline's descent into madness seems abrupt, with her climactic action occurring offstage. In the final scenes, character development, plot mechanics and thematic concerns conveniently come to a head. Fortunately, these flaws are “outweighed by the forcefulness of [Bolt's] speeches” (Sabine Prufer), resulting in a powerful if didactic conclusion.

If Tiger is a formative work, it’s certainly an interesting one. Bolt would soon refine its themes and characterizations into his finest stage achievement.  

Gentle Jack (1963)

"A dog with its teeth in another dog’s throat is not so terrible, as a man in an office.”  

Gentle Jack’s disastrous West End run, starring Kenneth Williams, Dame Edith Evans and Michael Bryant, is legendary. Miscast stars, extraordinarily hostile audiences and merciless critics quickly buried it. Tribune Magazine’s scathing review is representative: “What could have been delightful as a fantasy takes on the tedious aspect of a charade.” The play was cancelled after 75 shows and has never been revived. Williams parlayed the experience into hysterical anecdotes, especially concerning the stuffy Dame Edith.

Jack is a fascinating failure. It's Bolt's most ambitious play, replete with striking themes and creative imagery shaped into a supernatural parable. Unfortunately Bolt botches the presentation, resulting in a melange of half-baked, garbled ideas.

Mild-mannered banker Jacko Cadence accompanies boss Violet Lazara, to Attis Abbey. Jacko’s family owned the Abbey until Violet swindled it from them; she regards Jacko with a mixture of pity and contempt. Jacko loathes the countryside and fends off the advances of local tart Penelope. Jacko gets mixed up in a local ceremony summoning the Nature spirit Jack-in-the-Green. It turns out Jack is very real, and he invests Jacko with otherworldly powers to make his presence known on Earth. But Jacko proves reluctant to abandon the “logical” world completely, infuriating Jack.

Gentle Jack takes the conflict between “Natural Man” and his professional responsibilities to its extreme. Here it’s a literal dichotomy, the forces of “Office” and “Nature” depicted as constantly warring, antithetical. Violet’s financial successes leaves her frigid and sexless. Her affection for assistant Bilbo appears chaste and she cannot transcend her professional avarice. The amoral Jack, comprising “cruelty and tenderness in equal measure,” is a fascinating creation. Execution aside, the development of this dichotomy is spot-on.

Jacko is a “natural butt” ill at ease in both universes, held in contempt by everyone. His coworkers ridicule him, the lusty Penelope taunts him, the workers at Attis Abbey resent his comparative wealth. Jacko puts his newfound power to good use, finding fulfillment in helping others. But he refuses to commit a pointless murder. Trying to straddle the fence between both worlds merely enrages both. Bolt presents another dilemma of commitment, but here “the choice Jacko is given is not a feasible one.” (Prufer)

Drawing heavily on the Theatre of the Absurd, Bolt envisions a living, almost surreal set. The drab office world collides with a vividly rendered forest, complete with foliage, falling fruits and a soundtrack of bees. From page descriptions, it would require an imaginative director to pull off. Bolt’s emphasis on visuals speaks to why he was a better screenwriter than playwright.

Unfortunately, these ideas smother under over-baked folderol. The first act sees Bolt piling on a multitude of characters that stifle development. Minor characters like the Brackets, an unhappy old couple, Gaston and Cynthia, two young but squeamish lovers and a gaggle of estate workers, serve little story function despite much attention. The effect is dramatic congestion, with each personage vying for attention through overripe monologues and witticisms. There’s too much going on and the play becomes sluggish and boring.

With Jack’s belated arrival, the play finally comes to life. Jack’s speeches about Nature’s amorality are powerfully rendered, and Jacko solving characters’ assorted problems provides sardonic mirth – more so when his solutions prove unsatisfactory. His romance with Penelope takes on an appropriately tragic edge in this context. Events build to a climax both comic and horrifying; Jack’s plea for “an animal in the House,” lapsing into nursery rhyme and Welsh dialect, strikes an appropriately perverse note.

But even here Bolt fudges things. He establishes Jack and Violet as polar opposites, representatives of Nature and the Office destined to collide. Intruding however is Morgan, a snooty mathematician presented as a “man of Logic.” This minor character squares off with Jack at the denouement, with Violet emerging not only unscathed but unchallenged. “The play confuses because it doesn’t succeed in focusing the unreasonableness,” Ronald Hayman notes.

Jack's failure sent Bolt further into the arms of Hollywood: he soon divorced his first wife, married Sarah Miles and re-joined David Lean for Doctor Zhivago. In the late ‘70s Bolt began revising the play, a project put paid by his crippling stroke. A shame, as there’s clearly a good play somewhere amidst the muddle.

* * *

I hope you've all enjoyed this slight deviation from the cinematic. My next installment will examine Bolt's final three plays. There may be movie reviews in the meantime, so stick around.


Note on Sources:

Besides Bolt’s plays themselves, my primary sources for this article are: Robert Bolt by Ronald Hayman (1969), Sabine Prufer’s The Individual at the Crossroads: The Works of Robert Bolt, Playwright, Screenwriter and Novelist (1999), and Adrian Turner’s Robert Bolt: Scenes from Two Lives (1998). All quotes and citations derive from them, including critic reviews, unless otherwise indicated.

Lawrence of Arabia: Seven Scenes from Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Is Lawrence of Arabia historically accurate?

As further preparation for Lawrence of Arabia, I spent this week re-reading T.E. Lawrence's memoir Seven Pillars of Wisdom (London: Penguin Classics edition, 2000). Whatever its strict accuracy (and one must allow for embellishment and subjectivity in memoirs), it's an engrossing read on several levels: as literature, a military chronicle, an exotic travelogue, a political analysis, a psychological self-portrait. It's easy to understand how David Lean saw potential for an exciting film. But how does the movie compare to its source material?

Rather than an excruciating line-by-line analysis (see again Jeremy Wilson), this article examines seven key scenes from Lawrence of Arabia based on their relationship to Seven Pillars. We'll view the filmmakers' choices through three general criteria: 1. How does the scene draw from Lawrence's writings? 2. Is it accurate or at least within the bounds of reasonable dramatic license? 3. What dramatic purposes do any changes serve?

1. Ali at the Well 

Perhaps Lawrence's most memorable scene is Sherif Ali's introduction at Matsurah Well: a black blob appearing on the horizon and slowly approaching, Lawrence and his guide Tafas watching in trepidation. He shoots Tafas, member of the rival Beni Salem tribe; Ali is a Harith, their blood enemy. Ali takes Lawrence's service pistol, previously gifted to Tafas. Lawrence then denounces Ali as a murderer and continues his journey to Feisal alone.

This scene draws on an incident in Seven Pillars (81-83), but the two depictions couldn't be more different. The real Sherif Ali traveled with a slave, and the two switched identities to fool Tafas. Lawrence treats the incident comically, far from the movie's deadly encounter. Lawrence also shows that Bedouin allowed common use of desert wells, even among unfriendly tribes. Here, Lean readily jettisons reality for artistic effect.

Lean introduces several thematic strands. It establishes Ali and his bipolar relationship with Lawrence. Lawrence starts as civilized man disgusted by the "savage" Ali; the two develop inversely throughout the film, reversing roles in the final act. The idea of Arabs torn "tribe against tribe," and Lawrence's efforts to unite them for a common cause, is dramatically established. Regardless of realism, the scene is both artistically impressive and dramatically important.

2. Feisal's Tent 

From his first meeting with Prince Feisal, Lawrence felt him "the leader who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory" (92). As portrayed by Alec Guinness, Feisal embodies Arabia's glorious past and dreams of independence, with a shade of worldly cynicism. He has no illusions about British war aims and ultimately accepts an unfavorable compromise.

Lean and writer Robert Bolt draw loosely on Seven Pillars but use this encounter as a dramatic springboard. Obviously it's an important scene for Lawrence and the other characters. It's also crucial in delineating themes and plot devices that will recur throughout the film.

Lean introduces Colonel Brighton, a composite character representing military convention. Brighton emphasizes the importance of discipline, disputed by Ali (who wants modern weapons) and Feisal (who doubts its value). Lawrence immediately (and inaccurately) disagrees with Brighton and advocate a third way: guerrilla warfare. This piques Feisal's interest, allowing him to confide his fears to Lawrence that the English "hunger for Arabia."

In the subsequent "miracle" scene (drawing loosely on Lawrence's interlude at Wadi Ais), Lawrence realizes the Arabs must move north and seize Aqaba to regain the initiative. This is misleading. Contrary to Brighton's claim that the Royal Navy has "better things to do," they worked closely with the Arabs in seizing the port of Wejh (January 1917). After this, Lawrence says in Seven Pillars, "the Arab movement... had passed beyond danger of collapse" (169). Aqaba was not then a desperate gambit but a logical next step.

Dramatically, this scene places Arab and British war aims in opposition. The Arabs want complete independence; the British want to limit the uprising, in furtherance of imperial goals. Lawrence must choose one side or the other, or else be hopelessly conflicted. There's much truth to this characterization, though oddly Lean makes Lawrence ignorant of the Sykes-Picot Agreement until much later! This scene is dubious historically but provides a solid basis for further drama.

3. Gassim: Nothing is Written 

One of Lawrence's best scenes is the rescue of Gassim, an Arab tribesman lost on the road to Aqaba. This sequence, strikingly shot by Lean, closely follows Seven Pillars' description (260-264). Shortly afterwards Lawrence eschews his uniform for white robes, the Arabs accepting him as "El Aurens" - the cornerstone of his legend. Here Lean deviates from Seven Pillars: Auda abu Tayi (who in reality joined the Aqaba expedition at its onset) wonders why Lawrence risked his life for a man "not worth a camel's price" (263), while Lawrence had been wearing Arab robes long before.

Dramatically this scene serves two major purposes. First, as mentioned, it marks Lawrence's acceptance by the Arabs, especially Ali, who soon becomes an inseparable friend. Second, it highlights Lawrence's first triumph over Fate. Ignoring Arab fatalism, Lawrence proves he can overcome long odds through determination: "Nothing is written!" This minor triumph sets the stage for greater victories at Aqaba and Damascus.

Lean later provides an ironic coda when Lawrence executes Gassim for murdering a Howeitat (tellingly, with Tafas's revolver). "It was written then," intones Auda, reasserting Fate's power over Choice. It also introduces a new theme - Lawrence's enjoyment of killing. The real Lawrence executed another Arab, Hamed, for a similar crime earlier in Seven Pillars. Conflating the two events is acceptable dramatic license.

4. Meeting Allenby 

Lawrence spends a single page detailing his first encounter with General Edmund Allenby. He enthuses about his new commander, "physically large and confident" (330) and more willing to help the Revolt than his predecessor General Murray. Lawrence's admiration for Allenby, both man and military commander, is clear throughout Seven Pillars, even describing him as a father figure.

Lean transforms this "comic interview" into one of the film's pivotal sequences. Lasting nearly 15 minutes, it serves a myriad of functions. Bolt elucidates Aqaba's strategic importance, quoting Lawrence's arguments in Seven Pillars (cf. 281). The British officers who, just a scene before, inundated Lawrence with racial slurs now cheer him as a hero. Besides introducing Allenby and developing Brighton (who gains genuine admiration for Lawrence), it probes Lawrence's psyche at a key moment in the narrative.

Lawrence comes across as a broken, neurotic wreck. His pride in capturing Aqaba has dissipated, after losing his servant Daud to quicksand and his encounter with racist officers. Worse, Lawrence realizes his own blood lust, "enjoying" his execution of Gassim and fearing its future implications. Exhausted and afraid he desperately begs for reassignment. He has the bad luck of meeting Allenby, here not a supportive superior with "confidence... like a wall" (553) but a deceitful villain.

Where Murray dismissed Lawrence as "the kind of creature I can't stand," Allenby immediately recognizes Lawrence's military value. A guerrilla army harassing Turkish supply lines is a boon for future offensives. He also pegs Lawrence's Achilles heel: vanity. Dismissing Lawrence's concerns, he elicits complements from Brighton (officer), Dryden (civilian) and a Mr. Perkins (enlisted man), covering all bases of flattery. Then he holds a public military conference, expounding Lawrence's genius to his entire staff. Thus Allenby's defining traits: military skill and psychological perfidy.

Lean and Bolt re-introduce earlier anti-war/imperialist themes. Lawrence suspects Britain won't honor their promises, an inquiry Allenby and Dryden both dodge. The scene ends with Allenby, Brighton and Dryden deciding not to give the Arabs artillery. For now, Lawrence is satiated by vague promises of post-war freedom, and concrete promises of arms and money. His ego flushed by adulation, he returns to the desert.

5. Deraa Is The Key

Surely the most traumatic incident in Seven Pillars involves Lawrence's capture, torture and gang rape by Turkish soldiers in Deraa in November of 1917. Many historians doubt this incident actually happened, a debate beyond this blog's scope. Lean and Bolt make it a central scene in Lawrence, but distort both the background and its effects significantly.

Lawrence's reasons for entering Deraa were banal. Deraa (in present-day Syria) was an important railroad junction which Lawrence hoped to raid. While scouting in town he was arrested by the Turks and taken to a Turkish officer - supposedly Hajim Bey, the garrison commander. The officer "began to fawn on me... (offering to) make me his orderly... if I would love him" (452). Lawrence refused his advances, then was beaten and sexually assaulted by the Bey's soldiers. Lawrence escapes, and later learns that he was betrayed by Syrian nationalist Abd el-Kadr.

This incident obviously traumatized Lawrence, leaving deep physical and psychological scars. His post-war masochism likely originated with Deraa, and he remained incapable of sexual feelings afterwards. It's easy to overstate its effects, however. In Seven Pillars, Lawrence scarcely refers to the incident again. He's more distraught by a military failure, his continuing guilt over his liaison role and treachery by an Arab colleague. This is what convinced him to "beg Allenby to find me some smaller part elsewhere" (514), not trauma over Deraa.

Lean's restrained depiction of Lawrence's mistreatment is understandable. But Bolt's portrayal of Lawrence borders on ridiculous. Here, Lawrence and Ali stride into Deraa alone, Lawrence apparently thinking his mere presence will inspire a rising. Aqaba convinced him he can work "miracles," further inflamed by Allenby's flattery and subsequent successes. "Do you think I'm just anybody?" he asks Ali before embarking on his mission. This is utterly ridiculous hubris, and one of the film's weaker moments.

Bolt thought "Deraa is the key" to all of Lawrence's subsequent actions: his attempted resignation, the massacre at Tafas, his psychological collapse. In this he followed many biographers, who placed undue emphasis on Lawrence's psychosexual side. It seems altogether too convenient an explanation, if dramatically handy for a screenwriter.

6. Tafas Massacre 

Seven Pillars graphically describes the Tafas Massacre, a horrific incident during Allenby's Megiddo offensive. The Arabs brutally slaughter 2,000 Turkish soldiers, many after surrendering, in retaliation for sacking a local village. Some biographers shield Lawrence from responsibility, but Lawrence makes his own culpability explicit: "By my orders we took no prisoners" (653). Lean provides a reasonable dramatization of the event, but delivers a suspect characterization of Lawrence.

This scene brings Lawrence's neuroses to a head. Bolt offers a Freudian explanation for Tafas, Lawrence avenging his degradation at Deraa through massacre, now killing gleefully, surrounded by a bodyguard of hired killers. His descent into animal barbarism is contrasted with Ali's increasingly "civilized" behavior; the latter even echoes Lawrence's taunt from their first meeting: "Surely you know the Arabs are a barbarous people!" Lawrence ends the scene blood-soaked and mentally broken, having reached the apotheosis he'd tried to avoid.

As mentioned previously, Lean and Bolt largely draw on Anthony Nutting's biography of Lawrence. In Seven Pillars, Lawrence largely accepts the carnage as a fact of tribal warfare. The Turks after all precipitated it by murdering Arab civilians, initiating collective anger and brutal vengeance. Soon after the Bedouin captured Deraa and continued towards Damascus. The movie however treats Tafas as a hollow triumph, needless bloodshed born of one man's psychosis.

7. Damascus and the Arab Council

The worst scenes, historically-speaking, come at film's end. Lean and Bolt's version of post-war Damascus is recognizable only through a few colorful anecdotes gleaned from Seven Pillars. History is far more complex and interesting than what Lean and Bolt offer.

Lawrence describes raucous scenes in Seven Pillars, the town hall "packed with a swaying mob" (666) and arguing over Damascus's governance. The real threat, however, was neither Sherifian incompetence nor British indifference, but Abd el-Kadr: the same man who'd betrayed Lawrence at Deraa. Kadr and his brothers launched several attempted coups to undermine Feisal's authority, resulting in several skirmishes with Feisal's men. Kadr was eventually killed in November 1918 while imprisoned. The issue, therefore, was not (in Lawrence's account) tribalism but an ambitious man and his followers.

Far worse is the depiction of the Arabs as utterly incompetent. They appear as rubes baffled by machinery, allowing Damascus to catch fire (really set by Turkish troops) and Turkish wounded to die in hospital. In reality, the Arabs "quickly collected the nucleus of a staff and plunged ahead as a team" (671), creating a police force, fire brigades, mechanics and sanitation committees. The movie recounts Lawrence's encounter with an enraged British medical officer ("This is outrageous!"), focusing on its irony: after a movie of searching for his identity, Lawrence is mistaken for an Arab. What a time to highlight this!

Lawrence's narrative ends with him exiting Damascus, as does the movie. The situation left behind however is quite different. Feisal's government remained in power until 1921, when France ousted them at bayonet point. No conniver in Allied perfidy, Feisal fought the French tooth-and-nail before being placed as a contentious client on Iraq's throne. Allenby seemed genuinely to regret his role, doing his best to balance British, French and Arab interests as ordered. Neither man is fairly characterized here.

This anti-climax logically concludes the movie's anti-war themes and recurring hubris. Again, a major victory can't come without an offsetting failure, and bloodshed must amount to nothing. Perhaps we're to draw inferences about modern pan-Arabism; Nasser's United Arab Republic collapsed while the film was in production. Regardless, this scene is not only inaccurate but insulting, as this ostensibly anti-imperial film falls back on "White Man's burden" stereotypes. Here's one instance where the dramatic license proves genuinely regrettable.

Conclusion

Like all historical and literary adaptations, Lawrence of Arabia often sacrifices accuracy for artistic effect. In many cases it's justifiable or transcends the source. In several instances, however, it's highly questionable or even deleterious. Still, even the highly questionable scenes listed have some basis in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. As an adaptation, Lawrence is probably no better or worse than Hollywood's usual efforts.

Previous articles in this series:

• Lawrence of Arabia: The Film as Biography - analyzing Lawrence's portrayal of Lawrence
• "Common humanity's the one thing you can't have" - analyzing the "seduction scene"

Lawrence of Arabia: The Film as Biography

Reel Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) vs. Real Lawrence (T.E. Shaw)

With Lawrence of Arabia's 50th anniversary re-release approaching, fans may appreciate some perspective on this classic film. This will be the first of (hopefully) several pieces analyzing the film, from both historical and cinematic perspectives, in the coming weeks.

A logical starting point is the portrayal of T.E. Lawrence. I groped towards this theme in an old essay here, but since then I've read nearly 30 biographies of Lawrence, many reviewed on this blog. I feel qualified as a learned amateur if not expert to analyze the film's historicity. While authorized biographer Jeremy Wilson is harshly critical of its historical errors, I'm inclined to take a more nuanced view, viewing it through a dual prism as history buff and movie lover.

Is the film's Lawrence a reasonable interpretation of the historical figure or a complete invention? Before examining the character himself, we must consider briefly the film's background: who made it and when it was made. With all due respect to director David Lean, producer Sam Spiegel and Peter O'Toole, I feel the screenwriters are most central to this analysis.

Background

The Screenwriters

Imagining Lawrence: Michael Wilson (left) and Robert Bolt. (Wilson picture c/o Gary Crowdus)

Both Michael Wilson, who wrote early drafts of the script, and Robert Bolt, who delivered the final product, left a personal mark on Lawrence. The two writers differed in their approach: Wilson hoped for a broader political portrait of the Arab Revolt, while Bolt's focus was Lawrence himself. Both harbored left-wing sentiments that influenced their view both of Lawrence and the Arab Revolt generally.

Wilson's screenwriting career (producing classics like Salt of the Earth and Friendly Persuasion) was aborted by HUAC. His Communist affiliations led Wilson to be blacklisted through most of the '50s. After co-writing (uncredited) Lean and Spiegel's Bridge on the River Kwai he was eager to receive recognition for a major film. Wilson, however, couldn't accommodate Lean's vision of Lawrence, and Robert Bolt received sole credit on the finished film. Not until 1995, after Spiegel, Lean and Bolt were all deceased, did Wilson receive credit.

Bolt was a school teacher-turned-playwright who'd just hit it big with his twin successes of The Tiger and the Horse and A Man for All Seasons - plays which examined historical/political issues through an individual lens. Spiegel initially planned for Bolt to "touch up" Wilson's script, but Bolt spent over a year reshaping the screenplay. He was an active member of the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, a political commitment which jeopardized the film: Bolt was arrested for an anti-nuclear demonstration while writing the script. A furious Spiegel bailed Bolt out, humiliating the socialist playwright.

The controversy of "who wrote Lawrence of Arabia" is definitively examined by Joel Hodson's Cineaste article. Suffice it to say Wilson provided the script's narrative outline while Bolt contributed the dialogue and interpretation of Lawrence. Both, however, viewed Lawrence as "a romantic fascist" (Bolt) who mixed personal motives with military duty and love for primitive Arab culture; the Revolt itself as a classic case of imperial perfidy. In the midst of the Cold War, when the Middle East was again a battleground for great powers, and the aftermath of 1956's Suez Crisis, where Abdel Nasser's Egypt humiliated post-imperial Britain, Lawrence's message held deep contemporary resonance.


Biographical Context

Critical biographers: Richard Aldington (left) and Anthony Nutting

In his Apologia (pp. 505-509 of Adrian Turner's Robert Bolt: Scenes From Two Lives), Bolt claimed Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom was his only major source for the film. This seems hard to credit, however. The movie roughly owes its narrative contours to Seven Pillars but draws heavily on the contentious biographical debate of 1962. Two biographies in particular, written shortly prior to the film, likely influenced Bolt and Wilson.

In 1955, novelist Richard Aldington published Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry. Aldington brutally deconstructed the Lawrence legend, depicting his subject as every shade of cad: a liar, egomaniac, neurotic, homosexual and literal bastard. Aldington had a valid point that biographies up to then were uncritical and uniformly flattering. But his vitriolic tone, evident personal grudge against Lawrence ("the appropriate hero for his class and epoch") and willingness to always believe the worst of his subject led to bitter denunciation. Nonetheless, his claims seeped into public consciousness, difficult to dislodge even today.

A more direct influence was Anthony Nutting. A former official in Anthony Eden's Conservative government, he resigned in the wake of 1956's Suez Crisis. David Lean enlisted Nutting as a Middle Eastern adviser on the film, but Nutting found his advice mostly discarded. Most specifically, Nutting objected strongly to Sherif Ali killing Lawrence's guide at the well, feeling it a gross distortion of Bedouin culture.

Nutting published a slim volume called Lawrence of Arabia: The Man and the Motive shortly before the film's release. It shows that while the filmmakers largely ignored Nutting's Middle East expertise, they gleaned much from his interpretation of Lawrence. Nutting's depiction of a Lawrence as a self-anointed "Kingmaker," a grandiose neurotic and "rabid masochist" driven over the edge by Deraa matches Bolt/Wilson's interpretation to a T. No doubt Nutting's personal experiences influenced his interpretation of Lawrence's political dilemma.

Whether intentionally or not, Wilson and Bolt appropriated many of Aldington and Nutting's analyses of Lawrence into their scripts. It's quite probably intentional with Nutting, given his early (albeit fractious) association with the film.

Edit (9/17/2012): Reading Steven C. Caton's book Lawrence of Arabia: A Film's Anthropology, it appears Michael Wilson at least studied Aldington while preparing his screenplay (pp. 110-111).

Lawrence as film character

"Do you think I'm just anybody Ali?" Lawrence as egomaniac

With this background in mind, we'll examine the film's Lawrence through his primary character traits.

Egomania/Exhibitionism

Lawrence's defining trait is egomania. He constantly asserts his own importance: "Of course I'm the man for the job!" "We won't rest until they know *I've* taken Aqaba!" At his high points, Lawrence suffers from a God complex. At one point he poses "like a Sun God" (Turner) on a wrecked train as his followers cheer, or when he and Ali walk into Deraa single-handed, evidently hoping by simple presence to provoke an uprising. This is matched with manic-depressive states of self-loathing, as in his return to Jerusalem: "The truth is I'm an ordinary man."

The film also devotes much time to Lawrence's relationship with Jackson Bentley, an American reporter standing in for Lowell Thomas. The two men seem to dislike each other, but find each other useful for their own ends. Bentley is "looking for a hero" to use in propaganda promoting America's entry into World War I. Lawrence is looking for an audience. For all his distaste for Bentley's vulgarity ("He thinks you're a kind of thief!") Lawrence relishes the chance to show off to the world.

Lawrence's ego proves both a blessing and curse. On the one hand, it provides the inspiration for his military achievements. His grandiosity is justified by the capture of Aqaba and his brilliant campaign against the Hejaz Railway. Yet it's also his Achilles heel, as it pushes him into irrational actions like continuing a campaign with a handful of men and strolling into Deraa alone. Most painfully, it allows Allenby to manipulate him for military ends, fanning his fragile ego into borderline dementia.

Outsider Status

Lawrence is depicted as a bumbling buffoon in British company, spilling a colleague's drink and earning the contempt of most. This is matched by Lawrence's ill-fitting uniforms and casual, unmilitary behavior. He's loathed by his superior officers, and his peers treat him as an oddity. Murray doesn't think him a "real man" and loathes his intellectualism. His illegitimate birth, a closely guarded secret, no doubt enhances his inability to fit in.

Lawrence initially seems keen to leave to Cairo, and finds himself at home amongst the Bedouin. Through his exploits he befriends Ali and earns the respect of Feisal, Auda and other Arabs. Yet he still doesn't truly seem to fit in, expressing contempt at low ebbs ("so long will (the Arabs) be a little people" etc.) and viewing himself as fundamentally British. Certainly his capture at Deraa, where he's singled out for complexion, ruins any such impression. Yet his later attempts at fitting in amongst the British are unconvincing.

As Lawrence's abilities come to the fore, he gains the attention (if not respect) of his superiors. Allenby and Dryden both recognize him as a useful tool for their respective military and political ends. The soldiers revere his accomplishments but find the man a puzzle ("I didn't know him well, you know!"). Only Colonel Brighton seems to truly appreciate Lawrence's ability, and still can't claim to truly "know" him. By the final campaign his only remaining cause appears to be himself.

Despite his best efforts, Lawrence remains an outsider. His peers still can't appreciate his dual image. The Damascus Medical Officer denounces Lawrence as a filthy wog at the hospital then shakes his hand in uniform. The Arabs are left bewildered by his self-destructive ennui ("There is only the desert for you"). And his superiors discard him with the war over, all parties "equally glad to be rid of him."

Effeminacy/Homosexuality

One of Richard Aldington's most contentious claims was that Lawrence was a homosexual. At a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Britain, this was an explosive charge, which Lawrence's family and supporters vehemently denied. Though evidence is scarce, it quickly caught on with the public, through Aldington's book and popular media like Terrence Rattigan's play Ross. Sex sells, and an historical figure like Lawrence is hardly immune to gossip or innuendo.

David Lean later claimed "Lawrence was very, if not entirely, homosexual" and Lawrence is as clear as a 1962 film could be. As portrayed by Peter O'Toole, Lawrence displays awkward, effeminate mannerisms. He seems out of place in British uniform and is shown bumbling around Army headquarters, spilling drinks and mincing towards colleagues. When Lawrence receives his Bedouin robes, he prances around laughing giddily, even examining himself in the reflection of his dagger. More stereotype than nuance, the message is nonetheless obvious.

Lawrence's relationship with Farraj and Daud (his mischievous servants) and Sherif Ali also suggest this to a degree. Lawrence's friendship with Ali is central to the drama, with some viewing it as a literal romance. The absence of a female lead, and Lawrence's femininity, lend some credence to this view. However, Ali's proclamations of love towards the end are likely admiration and feeling of kinship than homosexuality. One must be careful not to over-apply critical analysis where a surface level is sufficient.

Sadomasochism

Another key ingredient in Bolt/Wilson's portrait is Lawrence as masochist. Lawrence's first major scene has him putting out a match, proclaiming that "the trick... is not minding that it hurts!" While pondering the Arabs' predicament in the desert, he squeezes a rock in his hand until he bleeds. After Daud's death in quicksand, he staggers through the desert on foot, ignoring Farraj's pleas to share his camel. He also seems fairly unfazed by a Turkish bullet.

This takes a nastier form in later scenes. After Lawrence executes Gassim, he finds to his horror that he "enjoys" killing. This prefigures his torture and rape at Deraa, which he's implied to have enjoyed as well. It finally reaches his apotheosis when he unleashes the Arabs at Tafas, slaughtering a column of Turkish stragglers. Lawrence is shown as a crazed participant in the killing, shooting and stabbing unarmed men with evident glee. After fighting it throughout the film, Lawrence finally gives way to bloodlust after the "citadel of [his] integrity" is violated at Deraa.

Servant of Two Masters

A theme that surely appealed to both Bolt and Wilson is Lawrence's devotion to "England... and to other things." Bolt made a career of characters who tried to "have it two ways," both on stage and screen. Wilson certainly sympathized with Lawrence's being forced to compromise personal belief for state goals.

The film's Lawrence is shown an outcast in British society but seemingly at home in Arabia. Despite his loyalty to the crown and respect for Allenby (whom he views as a father figure), he falls in love with the Bedouin lifestyle and feels personal responsibility to help "gain their freedom." Ultimately he convinces himself that if the Arabs beat the British to Damascus, independence will be theirs. Unfortunately the Arab Council collapses amidst infighting and incompetence, the British calmly waiting to take over. Defeated morally and spiritually, Lawrence is forced off-stage while Allenby and Feisal work out an expedient compromise.


Accuracy

"The most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum and Bailey": the real Lawrence with Lowell Thomas

In sum, Lean, Bolt and Wilson craft an extremely neurotic, tortured and eccentric Lawrence. How accurate is their portrayal? Taking the specific points into account:

• Lawrence's "egomania" is a matter of debate. Depending on the biographer, Lawrence was either a self-promoting charlatan, relatively honest or playfully exaggerating his exploits. In Seven Pillars Lawrence pens a chapter entitled Myself, where he examines his achievements and personality. He writes of his "craving to be famous... and horror to be known to like being known." This is shrewd self-assessment given his ambivalence towards Lowell Thomas, and hiding out in the Royal Air Force while dining with Bernard Shaw and E.M. Forster. Certainly, however, the film's extreme God complex is a gross exaggeration. The circumstances of Lawrence's capture at Deraa were much more banal than the film suggests, and Lawrence's writings (though subjective) generally credit Arabs and fellow British officers where appropriate. An extreme interpretation but in keeping with then-contemporary biographies.
• Lawrence was hardly an eccentric outsider. In fact Lawrence was affable and made friends easily; he got on with most of his colleagues in Cairo, and was respected by his superiors and elders. After the war he found it as easy befriending literati and political leaders as rankers in the RAF and Tank Corps. Nor was Lawrence ill-used, when he'd been entrusted with responsibilities beyond the average Lieutenant: interrogating Turkish POWs, analyzing Arab tribes and attempting to ransom the besieged garrison at Kut.
  Bolt apparently gleaned this from a passage in Seven Pillars where Lawrence claimed to make a nuisance of himself to avoid an undesired posting. Lawrence's penchant for practical jokes rubbed many the wrong way. But this was just one part of his character. He was not an unappreciated genius languishing in a useless job, but a well-respected, experienced junior officer with considerable charm. He was a logical choice for an Arab liaison.
• Lawrence's sexual leanings are impossible to prove. Many find passages of Seven Pillars of Wisdom homoerotic, as when Lawrence describes Bedouin man love in some detail. His relationships with Arab servant Dahoum before the war, and R.A. Guy while serving in the RAF, seem suspect to many. Against this can be weighed his flirtations with Janet Laurie and Clare Sydney Smith, and his claim that he died a virgin.
  Certainly though few have depicted Lawrence as a mincing effeminate. He was strong for his small size and considered tough and masculine. In this regard, the filmmakers go for sensationalism with a shade of unfortunate stereotype.
• Lawrence's masochism is well-established. In the late 1960s John Bruce, one of Lawrence's Tank Corps colleagues, told Sunday Times reporter Philip Knightley that Lawrence had Bruce flog him regularly as punishment for (imagined) sins. Lawrence's brother felt this self-punishment rather than sexual release. Despite this, most biographers are disinclined to view Lawrence as a masochist before Deraa, though he harbored a love of "testing" himself physically with exercise and strict diet.
• Sadism however is unlikely. Nowhere in Seven Pillars does Lawrence claim to have "enjoyed" executing Hamed or the massacre at Tafas. This more resembles Nutting's view of Lawrence unleashing the Arabs in murderous revenge for Deraa than Lawrence's writings. The real Lawrence harbored a "horror of bloodshed," for both practical and personal reasons, but not from secretly liking to kill.
• While many biographers insist on painting Lawrence in absolute terms, harboring one strict loyalty or another, the film's Lawrence torn between British loyalty and promises to the Arabs is reasonably accurate. Certainly Lawrence's writings, from Seven Pillars to diaries and correspondence, evince a great deal of anguish over convincing the Arabs to "fight for us on a lie," leaving him "continually and bitterly ashamed." The portrayal's flawed in particulars (eg., showing Lawrence as ignorant of the Sykes-Picot Agreement) but generally convincing.

The film's major omissions can be briefly summarized. Lawrence's pre-war adventures as an archaeology student go unmentioned, along with his involvement in an "archaeological" survey of the Sinai Peninsula just before the war and previous intelligence work with the Arab Bureau. He did not have the best relationship with General Murray, but then he reported to Generals Clayton and Wingate, not Murray. Of course his post-war career is also omitted. On a superficial level, Peter O'Toole is nearly a foot taller than the historical Lawrence!

Conclusion

"There was something about it I didn't like." - Lawrence as sadist.

The movie's portrayal of Lawrence is, historically, a mixed bag. Undoubtedly it leans heavily on then-contemporary analyses of Lawrence as opposed to Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Seeking the cinematically sensational and dramatically effective, Lean, Bolt and Wilson emphasize (and exaggerate) Lawrence's psychological foibles over his political dilemma. The sadism angle seems particularly suspect at 50 years' distance.

On the other hand, the movie gets more right than its credited for. Lawrence is most convincing showing Lawrence's personal conflict at "serving two masters" and feeling betrayed at war's end. Lawrence's ambivalence towards notoriety is well-captured, and his personal heroism ably portrayed. In many of its essential episodes, such as Gassim's rescue and his military leadership, the film does its subject justice.

Overall, Lawrence of Arabia's T.E. Lawrence is a fair, if exaggerated, portrait based on what was known in 1962. Many new discoveries and interpretations, from the release of War Office records in 1968 to testimony of previously-unheard witnesses (John Bruce, Janet Laurie) to biographies and released family correspondence, have challenged its depiction. But its view of a deeply tortured, larger-than-life hero remains largely convincing to this day.

"Common humanity is the one thing you can't have": Lawrence of Arabia's Balcony Scene

I've already posted about the new restoration of Lawrence of Arabia. As its release date approaches, more information is slowly trickling out about the Blu-Ray. Besides its supposedly flawless image quality and exorbitant list price ($96 USD!!!), it does have one additional feature of great interest: the restoration of the film's most famous deleted scene.

A crucial sequence in the film (dubbed the "seduction" scene by David Lean) has Lawrence returning to General Allenby's HQ after his rape at Deraa. Hoping to be "an ordinary man," he encounters Feisal, who reveals the existence of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. A disgusted Lawrence attempts to resign, only to be goaded back into the field by Allenby. The end of this scene can be viewed here.

Most of this scene was missing from earlier prints of the movie. In 1989, Robert Harris released his famous restoration, which added some 20 minutes to the existing version, including this scene. However, due to poor image and sound quality, the beginning of this sequence could not be restored. Even dubbing Jack Hawkins' dialogue with actor Charles Gray proved insufficient, and the scene could only be restored in part.

I'll reproduce the missing dialogue below. Most sites claim it begins after Allenby's "Tell me what happened," but they ignore the brief scene between Dryden and Bentley ("It's a little clash of temprament that's going on in there"). Regardless (from Reel.com):

MEDIUM SHOT: The terrace outside Allenby's office. Lawrence is seated in a chair. Allenby's leaning against a pillow, his bottom on the terrace railing.
ALLENBY : … Yes. Well, you've had a glimpse of the pit.
LAWRENCE: No, a glimpse of sanity. [Hard.] And I'm not going back.
[There is a short pause. Lawrence's eyes are on the general's epaulettes. Allenby notices and begins to unbutton his jacket.]
ALLENBY: You won't go mad, Lawrence. [Quite indifferently] You've got an iron mind.
LAWRENCE: Oh, no. [But he is pleased]
ALLENBY: Oh, yes. And here's another thing. When you ask for your "common humanity" you're crying for the moon. Common humanity's the one thing you can't have.
LAWRENCE: There's nothing else.
ALLENBY: There is, for one man every hundred years or so.
LAWRENCE: [Skeptical, but we can just see the poison starting to work] Me?
ALLENBY: [Taking off his jacket] Yes, I think so. [Regarding himself with the jacket] Isn't that funny? I feel quite naked. And that's the difference. I'm a leader because someone pins crowns on me. You're a leader … [Shrugs] … because God made you one, I suppose. There's nothing you can do about it.
[Allenby sits. Lawrence looks at him suspiciously, but feeling flattered and longing to accept the paternal embrace that seems to be offered.]
ALLENBY: You write poems, don't you?
LAWRENCE: Yes.
ALLENBY: Any good?
LAWRENCE: No. Bad.
ALLENBY: [Sympathetically] Hard luck.
LAWRENCE: It's not a matter of luck.
ALLENBY: 'Course it is. I grow dahlias myself.
[Allenby takes out photo of his house and his son. He peers at it, pointing to a patch of cabbage-like flowers in the background.]
ALLENBY: I've got good soil, good compost. I buy good plants. And I'm a conscientious gardener. But I don't have the luck to be a good one. So … [Grinning] I'm a gardening sort of general. Most generals are. But there have been poet generals. Xenophon was one. Hannibal … Nelson was the last. I think you're another.
LAWRENCE: [Skeptical, wearing a tremulous smile] Nelson and me? [He is asking Allenby to be merciful.]
ALLENBY: Yes.
LAWRENCE: That's an extraordinary thing to say to a man.
ALLENBY: Not to an extraordinary man it isn't.
LAWRENCE: [Thrusting it away] No, no.
ALLENBY: [Matter-of-fact] You must know it.
LAWRENCE: [Almost desperately] No!

Because of contractual obligations the scene won't be added to the actual film. Rather, the Blu-Ray will provide it as a special feature. Still, given my ambivalence to post-hoc restorations, I can hardly complain.

Lean and Robert Bolt considered this scene crucial to the movie, excising it only with great reluctance. Bolt supposedly considered it the best thing he ever wrote. Its historical value is unquestioned, but the scene would also add welcome character depth.

The scene shows Lawrence at his lowest ebb, shamed by his experience at Deraa and disgusted over British perfidy. Nonetheless, his egomania remains scarcely restrained. The scene shows Lawrence trying desperately to resist Allenby's advances, knowing from their first meeting that flattery is Lawrene's Achilles heel. His need for a father figure in Allenby makes the "seduction" more powerful. Unable to further maintain his false humility, Lawrence gives in, ending the scene on an even more grandiose note: "The best of them won't come for money... they'll come for ME!"

More interesting still is its characterization of Allenby. In the existing film Allenby is fairly two-dimensional, a skilled general who manipulates Lawrence for military purposes, with a smidgen of guilt masked by duty ("thank God I'm a soldier!"). This scene certainly develops his manipulative side even further. Even so, we get a small glimpse of Allenby the man: he takes off his uniform, discusses his family and hobbies, and shows himself a vulnerable human being. Other scenes only hint at this mixture of guilt and insecurity, a career soldier who recognizes Lawrence's unorthodox skill and resents it. Its deletion inarguably hurts the character and Jack Hawkins' performance.

On the other hand, the scene's excision makes sense. The existing Jersualem sequence is wonderfully economical. Bolt works a remarakble amount of character and plot exposition into a relatively brief, quick-paced sequence: Lawrence's inner turmoil, his growing stature, continuing outsider status ("Lays it on a bit thick, doesn't he?") even as his legend grows, not to mention British betrayal of the Arabs. The longer version also shows Bolt as playwright more than screenwriter, producing overtly florid, theatrical dialogue. Adding it would arguably hurt the pacing and make things drag. In a film as long as Lawrence, this is a reasonable concern.

Bolt's original script shows tantalizing remnants of further scenes. The extant scene with Allenby and Brighton discussing Lawrence's reports is longer, with Allenby all but expressing jealousy of Lawrence's fame and accomplishments: "(His reports are) not lies, poems." One fascinating sequence in an earlier draft, partly reproduced in Sabine Prufer's The Individual at the Crossroads: The Works of Robert Bolt, details a conversation between Lawrence and Auda abu Tayi immediately after the capture of Aqaba. However, I doubt these scenes are available, let alone filmed in the latter's case.

Of course, we won't know for sure until October 4th (the theatrical release) or November 13th (the Blu-Ray). Either way, it's one more reason to be excited about the restoration.

UPDATE, 11/19/2012: A 45 second clip can be viewed here. The whole scene on the collector's edition Blu-Ray is listed at around 7 minutes 30 seconds.

My main observation is that Lean and Robert Harris's concerns about voice matching are correct. Charles Gray doesn't sound a thing like Jack Hawkins in this clip. Strange considering Gray provides a closer vocal match in other sequences.

When I procure the Blu-Ray I'll report on the entire scene. Needless to say I'm as intrigued as ever after seeing this clip.

The Mission

The Mission (1986) was a pet project for Fernando Ghia, who spent over a decade bringing this story of Jesuit missionaries in Paraguay to the screen. Teaming with producer David Putnam, director Roland Joffe and writer Robert Bolt, Ghia crafts a powerful epic about faith, religion and imperial politics. If The Mission isn't completely successful, it's certainly admirable in its ambitious treatment of a complex subject.

In 1750s Paraguay, Jesuit Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) spreads Christianity to the Guarani Indians, who are ambivalent towards his faith but receptive to his mission of brotherhood and civilization. He meets up with Mendoza (Robert De Niro), a slave trader who begs penance after killing his brother (Aidan Quinn) in a duel, and later joins Gabriel's order. When Papal legate Cardinal Altamirano (Ray McAnally) arrives to affect a Spanish-Portuguese partition, Gabriel pleads for him to preserve the missions. But Altamirano proves more receptive to the anti-Jesuit Portuguese, making a tragic showdown with the Guarani inevitable.

Visually and aurally, The Mission is undeniably luscious. Joffe provides spirited direction, with Chris Menges's beautiful rain forest photography striking the perfect note of otherworldly serenity. The movie's replete with arresting images: a crucified priest hurtling over a waterfall, the elegant missions, Gabriel's non-violent confrontation with rampaging Spanish troops. Ennio Morricone's remarkable score is among his best: for all the portentious percussion and angelic choirs, its heart is a simple oboe piece, which Gabriel uses to breach the cultural gap with the Guarani.

The Mission provides an intriguing depiction of Christianity. Gabriel's unwavering faith makes him a force for good, shielding the Guarani from slavery, redeeming Mendoza and defending the missions. Mendoza achieves penance by immersing himself in Guarani culture and renouncing violence, until events force his hand. Their delicate approach to missionary work "civilizes" the Guarani while respecting their culture; indeed, the Indians' "spirituality" manifests itself most strongly through music. Religion aside, the Jesuits' actions are unquestionably righteous, faith leading Gabriel and Mendoza to selfless acts of heroism.

Like Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, Mission depicts honorable men hamstrung by a church obsessed with temporal power. Altamirano proves the most intriguing character, a well-meaning but ineffectual bureaucrat all too aware of his failings. He responds spiritually to the Jesuits' efforts but proves more amenable to Spanish and Portuguese persuasino. Lacking the courage to disobey orders, Altamirano tearfully authorizes the Guarani's destruction: "Thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it."

Reflecting contemporary debates, the film contrasts progressive "Liberation Theology" with free market evangelism. Altamirano dismisses a priest's view of collectivization as radical; the priest retorts that he's echoing Christ's own sentiments. Later, the Spanish Governor (Chuck Low) pronounces the Jesuits' mission the work of Satan for opposing commercial exploitation! These parallels become more pointed considering the plight of Archbishop Romero and other left-wing priests in '80s Latin America. The Mission critiques organized religion without ridiculing faith, a tightrope less subtle films fail to navigate.

Yet The Mission doesn't fully flesh out its interesting ideas. Many elements feel half-baked and rushed in the 124 minute timeframe. Mendoza's early struggles are compelling and his penance and redemption beautifully rendered. But he largely disappears from the story afterwards, hence muffling the impact of his reluctant return to violence. On another level, the Guarani themselves are background characters largely without a voice. Additional time or a clearer focus may have better developed these angles.

Jeremy Irons (Elizabeth I) scores with a performane of quiet, unshakeable dignity. Robert De Niro's dour turn is less successful, sublimating a potentially intriguing character. Ray McAnally (Billy Budd) steals the show as the double-dealing Cardinal. Chuck Low (Goodfellas) and Roland Pickup (The Day of the Jackal) play venal politicians, and Liam Neeson has a small part. Father Daniel Berrigan can be briefly glimpsed as a Jesuit.

The Mission is a story of considerable power. It's quite interesting as an examination of personal faith and political treachery; a bit of fine-tuning might have made a classic.

Shooting One's (Robert) Bolt

I'll start with a personal note: I didn't get the job I interviewed for. Pity.

Lately I've been catching up on the plays of Robert Bolt. Mr. Bolt's long been one of my favorite writers and I'm appalled at the paucity of internet information on his non-A Man for All Seasons work. If you want to learn about The Tiger and the Horse, State of Revolution or (God forbid) Gentle Jack, you've either got to track down super-rare, ultra-expensive copies of the plays, or read their Groggy-authored Wikipedia articles. This will not do.

Film-related or not, I may take it upon myself to correct this deficiency. Expect either an omnibus article on Bolt's collective work, or smaller individual essays, in the next month or two. This requires research, thought and time that might be better employed, but what the hell. Any fellow who owns Adrian Turner's Bolt biography, Sabine Prufer's The Individual at the Crossroads, all of Bolt's stage plays *and* a blog is an expert at wasting time.

On the off-chance any reader is keen on helping, research and formating suggestions are welcome.

In the meantime, don't fret. I have a decent backlog of movies to review this week, including a classic horror flick, a Tom Cruise vehicle and a Ridley Scott movie that's actually good. Stay tuned.

The Bounty

Roger Donaldson's The Bounty (1984) might be the best account of HMAV Bounty's infamous mutiny. Originally conceived as a two-part David Lean super-epic, it was ultimately pared down to this comparatively modest film. Nonetheless, Robert Bolt's complex characters and an excellent cast make it a compelling interpretation of a maritime legend.

Lieutenant William Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) asks Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson) to serve with him on HMAV Bounty on a breadfruit mission to Tahiti. The voyage to the islands goes well-enough, aside from an ill-fated attempt to round Cape Horn. Bligh is forced to prolong his stay on Tahiti for the plants to mature, allowing the crew to become hopelessly ensconced in the tropical paradise. Christian falls for Mautua (Tevaite Vernette), daughter of King Tynah (Wi Kuki Kaa), much to Bligh's consternation. Attempting to regain control of the crew, Bligh institutes harsh discipline, pushing them to mutiny. A framing device has Bligh accounting for his actions before a court martial led by Admiral Hood (Laurence Olivier).

David Lean initiated The Bounty in 1977, planning two long films covering the Bounty's full story, including the HMS Pandora's pursuit of Christian and Bligh's post-mutiny career. Lean approached several producers (Dino De Laurentis, Joseph Levine, even old sparring mate Sam Spiegel), none keen on financing such a huge undertaking. Millions of dollars were spent constructing a replica Bounty, scouting locations and casting before shooting a foot of film. Robert Bolt's stroke and Lean's bickering with De Laurentis caused Lean to abandon the project, leaving Roger Donaldson to helm a much smaller film. (See Kevin Brownlow's David Lean: A Biography for a detailed account.)

For all that, The Bounty is extremely successful. Working on Richard Hough's Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian, Donaldson and Bolt chart a different course than previous versions. Instead of a good-and-evil parable, The Bounty presents a tale of cultural clash and a failure in leadership.

Captain Bligh remains an archetypical villain, a sadistic martinet driving his crew to righteous rebellion. Recent biographers and historians suggest this depiction is unfair. Bligh may have been harsh but probably no more than his contemporaries. Certainly Bligh had a distinguished (if checkered) career, including his extraordinary post-mutiny voyage to Timor, heroic service in the Napoleonic Wars and an ill-fated attempt to stamp out corruption in New South Wales. Nonetheless, given past portrayals, elevating Bligh to protagonist status is a bold move.

Bolt gives Bligh a complex characterization. This is the only Bounty film to note that he and Fletcher were old friends, which here explains Bligh's later abuse. We even meet Bligh's family early on. Bligh's an able, heroic seaman who's not unduly harsh: three deserters are flogged instead of hanged. From the start however, he blames others for his mistakes and deeply resents criticism. The first crack in Bligh's facade comes when Master Fryer (Daniel Day-Lewis) defies an order during a storm. His failure, Bolt suggests, is allowing his crew to run riot on Tahiti and then overcompensating on discipline for the return voyage.

By contrast, Christian is less favorably portrayed. He's initially an upright man but allows himself to "go native" on Tahiti and can't return to shipboard life. His dilemma is very personal, with Mautua's pregnancy steeling his resolve. Christian impulsively supports the mutiny and almost immediately regrets it: he's no more able to handle the rowdy crew than Bligh. The haunting final shot has Christian stranded on Pitcairn, watching the Bounty in flames, his future uncertain.

Roger Donaldson's subsequent career has been mixed (Thirteen Days his best post-Bounty work) but he's excellent here. Beautiful Polynesian and New Zealand locations provide the perfect atmosphere of sexual paradise and personal freedom. Vangelis's dreamlike score sells the mood even further. But there's also a feeling of langor and decadence which matches the story perfectly. Smaller-scaled than previous Bounty flicks, it's no less effective.

Anthony Hopkins gives one of his best performances, making Bligh sympathetic while bringing out his darker side when necessary. Mel Gibson is surprisingly effective as a foppish officer seduced by tropical splendor. Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson have choice supporting roles and Bernard Hill (Valkyrie), John Sessions and Philip Martin Brown (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) play crewmembers. Wry Laurence Olivier and pettish Edward Fox make the trial structure effective. Tevaite Vernette and Wi Kuki Kaa play credible Tahitians.

The Bounty isn't the epic masterpiece it could have been but it still compares favorably to its predecessors. Bringing a fresh take on a classic story, it's highly recommended.