Reclusland

“Reason calls the grave a gateway of peace: and instinct shuns it.”
- T. E. Lawrence [The Mint (Penguin Books 1984)]

I went to a screening of Lawrence of  Arabia a few months back.  Got to see a full color print in an actual theater (B.A.M. Rose Cinemas, for any fellow Brooklynite’s out there, which only heightened the experience of being back in an old-timey theater).   It’s an beautifully shot movie, all the more so because it was filmed in 1962..

The movie was full of great quotes too:

(context: Ali has just shot Lawrence’s guide at a deserted well in the middle of the desert)
Sherif Ali: Have you no fear, English?
T.E. Lawrence: My fear is my concern.

(context: Lawrence has just put out a match with his bare fingers)
William Potter: Ooh! It damn well ‘urts!
T.E. Lawrence: Certainly it hurts.
Officer: What’s the trick then?
T.E. Lawrence: The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.

I like these, not because it’s typical bad assery, but because in both scenes, the level of focus Peter O’Toole was able to portray as Lawrence is palpable.  His is scared, and it does hurt.  But he’s holding his focus while inside that, and it shows.

My favorite, though, was this one, where Lawrence breaks down and gives up on his winter campaign after being tortured (but not recognized) by a leader of the Turkish Army:

T.E. Lawrence: A man can do whatever he wants, but he cannot want whatever he wants!

He says this, and follows it with “and what decides what he wants? This!” and he points at his skin.  But to make this into a racial statement is to miss an opportunity for something much greater I think.  After all, what does decide what a man wants?  In all the talk of free will versus destiny that I’ve ever heard, no one’s ever brought up the fact that we do not seem to be free to choose what we want.  How can it be free will if there’s no conscious choice of desire?  Theoretically, for true free will, we would be able to pick a desire, and then allow it to begin to act on us, to move us to it’s music and make us dance as we want.  It should be a tool, not a drive to give into or to resist.  Show me someone able to do that, and I’ll believe in true free will.  : )

Anyway, long story short, it’s an awesome movie, go watch it.  It also made me really interested in T. E. Lawrence as well.  If this is what the movie business makes of his life, the real story must be a lot more interesting.  I’ve considered reading his massive autobiography, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph“ but it seems the best edition of it (closest to what he wanted it to be) was the 1922 unabridged Oxford text.  Which is conveniently both out of print and not for sale used. (If anyone has a copy they’re looking to get rid of, hit me up!)  I know I won’t read it twice, so I’d rather make sure it’s the right edition if I do read it.

That’s Lawerence, second from the right.
The guy in the front is Obi Won Kenobi Prince Faisal I of Iraq