LAWRENCE OF ARABIA – “The Thinking Man’s Spectacle”

Introduction

An unassailable “classic” in cinema history, Lawrence of Arabia has been called a masterpiece, epic, majestic, awesome, and “The Thinking Man’s Spectacle.” These are just some adjectives used to describe this truly legendary film. Simply put, it’s one of the greatest movies ever made. Yet the production behind the making of this revered film was anything but easy and is an interesting story in its own right.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

After the success of 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai director David Lean and producer Sam Spiegel decided to base their next project on the book Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. It was an autobiographical account of the famous British officer’s experiences in the Middle East during World War I. They called their proposed film Lawrence of Arabia.

Lean traveled to Jordan to scout possible filming locations. He was initially worried that all he would find would be a flat, featureless wasteland. Instead, he discovered sights and vistas just begging to be photographed. Lean found rocks, mountains, vast landscapes, and ever-changing colors. The director’s focus on Lawrence of Arabia was slowly starting to change. Instead of a straight-up “biography,“ he realized that he wanted to tell an adventure story, one that would use an artist’s sensibility.

Key Players

Lean tapped a young and relatively unknown actor named Peter O’Toole as his lead actor. Another key part went to Omar Sharif, who was a rising star in his home country of Egypt but was relatively unknown in other parts of the world. Interestingly, for a film of that period, there were no major female parts whatsoever.

Lean had also hired cinematographer Freddie Young. He knew the shoot was going to be exceptionally difficult, so it was important for Lean to work with someone who was a proven self-starter. This was the beginning of a long and successful collaboration between Lean and Young, resulting in Oscar wins for both.

When the two men first met, Young summed up the working dynamic he wanted to see from his director.  He told Lean: “Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.” In other words, Young didn’t want to be told how he should do his job. As a result, Young and Lean immediately clicked with each other.

A New Type Of Narrative 

Meanwhile, during six months of pre-production, a screenwriter had churned out nearly 400 pages of script.  However, Lean wasn’t happy with any of it. He felt the narrative was too conventional. The director also said it focused too heavily on historical events rather than focusing on what made Lawrence tick.

At Lean’s insistence, Spiegel hired a new screenwriter named Robert Bolt, an intellectual who came from a theatrical background. Bolt was famous as the author of the play A Man For All Seasons. Bolt, however, had a very low opinion of “movies” and was very upfront in sharing that view. He once even described cinema as a vulgar form of art.

However, Sam Spiegel’s abilities of persuasion combined with the power of a paycheck had convinced Bolt to take on the job. Soon, he was sitting on the movie mogul’s luxurious yacht in the Red Sea, typing out pages for Lean’s approval. Lean had liked what he saw. Through Bolt’s words, Lawrence had emerged as a richly textured and complicated individual. Essentially the character had become an anti-hero that was full of imperfections. Bolt’s script was also remarkable for the incisive and pointed dialogue that it contained.

Challenges in the Desert

When the rest of the crew began assembling in the desert to begin the process of actually shooting the film, many were taken aback at Lean’s appearance. After spending six months in the sun preparing for production, the previously pale Englishman’s skin had turned almost black.

Over a hundred people were being set up in a makeshift camp that was set up in the middle of nowhere. As one might have expected, water had quickly become their biggest issue, one that was critical. The nearest supply of the precious liquid had come from an oasis that was some 150 miles away. It was soon determined that the only feasible way to get the valuable water to the cast and crew was via a tanker truck. This arrangement wound up working fine, even though everyone had complained that their drinking water had tasted like kerosene.

Other Problems

Much of the shooting took place over the summer months. It wasn’t unusual for the temperature in the shade to reach 127 degrees Fahrenheit. Omar Sharif had the misfortune to be cast in a black garment. Every night, while undressing, he found the inside of his outfit turned pure white. That’s how much salt his body lost every day after sweating in the sweltering heat for hours on end.

Things were not faring any better for the film’s technical crew. Lawrence Of Arabia was shot in a 65-millimeter widescreen format. As a result, this necessitated the use of extremely heavy and bulky cameras. Freddie Young and his film crew quickly realized that these photographic monsters and the desert did not work well with each other. Additionally, the shifting ground would often prevent the crew from being able to repeat the exact same shot twice. In addition, sand grains would often get blown directly into the camera’s mechanisms. This would cause numerous breakdowns.

Coffee Cup Chaos

Keeping the pristine landscape on Lawrence Of Arabia “unsullied” often proved to be an incredible challenge. For instance, if someone had come to visit the camp via jeep and approached from the wrong angle, the crew would have to go out and painstakingly sweep out all of the tire tracks. If they shot a take with a camel crossing the frame and needed to redo it for any reason, someone would go out with a broom. They would then “backtrack” or erase all their footprints as they returned behind the camera. Things as innocuous as a coffee cup could lead to major delays.

Inevitably a gust of wind would sweep through the camp and blow an unattended white receptacle out into the desert. With shooting halted, someone would have to walk (or drive) out into the shot, retrieving the cup. They then would “sweep” up their tracks to remove any vestiges of civilization from the supposed untamed wilderness.

These types of delays combined with Lean’s perfectionist tendencies turned Lawrence Of Arabia into a horrendous shoot.  Even when filming extremely wide shots, the director insisted that it be the actual actors riding their camels on the horizon. It also wasn’t uncommon for the director to postpone shots, sometimes for several hours, until the sun imbued the surroundings with specific hues. Sandstorms seemingly came out of nowhere and often put the production on hold for days at a time.

An Unforgiving Landscape

Much of Lawrence of Arabia was shot in a huge valley in Jordan known as Wadi Rum.  It’s roughly halfway between Petra and the port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. Lean used the location much like director John Ford used Monument Valley in Arizona for so many classic westerns. The surrounding geography becomes another character in the movie.

Yet, Wadi Rum wasn’t the only place in Jordan where Lean shot major sequences for Lawrence of Arabia. Other key scenes took place at El Jafr. That’s where Lawrence and his followers attempt to cross the inferno known as “The Devil’s Anvil” in the Nefud Desert. It’s a real-life place and a member of Lean’s own crew described it this way:

“…If there is a divine purpose in Jafr, it is that God has placed it on Earth as a warning of what Hell is like…”

Producing Ploys

After months of shooting, Lean and Young still had no idea if anything they had filmed was any good.  The exposed negatives were sent back to London for processing, and whenever Lean sent a telegram to Spiegel asking for feedback, it was met with silence.

Finally, the producer paid a visit to the location to check up on the progress of the production. Lean cornered him regarding what he thought of the footage they had spent months shooting. He asked Spiegel to explain why he hadn’t responded to any of his telegrams. The wily producer responded:

“…The quantity was so little and the quality so poor, I hadn’t the heart to put it in a cable…”

Devastated, David Lean called the head of publicity at Columbia Pictures, the studio which was co-financing Lawrence Of Arabia. Subsequently, the executive told him that the rushes looked fine, exceptional in fact. Bewildered, Lean then asked why Spiegel would lie to him. He was told that it was an old producer’s ploy. Once the film entered production, Spiegel knew that withholding and giving false information was the best way to apply pressure.

Monumental Stress

Lean still had a lot of scenes to shoot, and this revelation didn’t exactly improve his mental outlook. The director’s behavior became more and more erratic. On many days he showed up on the set muttering things like:

“…I don’t know what to do today…I don’t know how to start…” 

Then started the unusual habit of going for long walks in the desert by himself in the morning, refusing to speak with anyone until he returned to camp. Screenwriter Robert Bolt showed up on location to do further rewrites and was aghast at what he saw. With no background in film production, he simply couldn’t understand why things took so long. After helping out with several scenes, Bolt returned home and gave a scathing interview to a London newspaper. He described life on the filming location as:

“…a continuous clash of egomaniacal  monsters wasting more energy than dinosaurs and pouring rivers of money into the sand…”

Sam Spiegel read Bolt’s assessment in the morning papers and was not amused. He had also been checking on the film’s expenses. The film’s initial budget had been set at $3 million. It was currently on track to top $10 million, with no end in sight. Even with footage that had been shot, no one knew how long the final film would be.

The Plug Gets Pulled

Infuriated, Spiegel sent Lean a telegram telling him to wrap things up. Lean, still smarting over being lied to about the quality of the footage he had shot, decided to send a little impromptu message of his own to Mr. Spiegel. Knowing that the producer was indeed reviewing each day’s rushes, Lean placed himself in front of a camera while sweeping up some sand with a broom.  Speaking directly to the film’s producer, Lean said:

“…You come out here and try having a go in my place.  You wouldn’t last an hour…”

When Spiegel saw the clip in the screening room along with the rest of his entourage, he was both furious and embarrassed. He then promptly pulled the plug on the production. After shooting for more than 117 days spread out over many months, Lean and company were told to pack up and head home. As the other crew members pulled out, they remembered seeing David Lean sitting by himself and staring at the sand, a defeated man.

A New Start

Once he was back in England, David Lean had to go to a doctor for an operation to remove all the sand that had been embedded in his eye for the last year and a half.  After he regained his sight, he began screening the footage that was in the can and was bowled over by what he saw.

Lean quickly became re-energized about the project, especially when Spiegel told him he could still finish the film, just at a place closer to home that was less expensive. The director began scouting locations in Spain for the sequences he needed to finish – while sporadically flying to London to supervise the editing of the film’s rough cut.

Camels are Funny Creatures

One of the most spectacular sequences Lean shot in Spain was the scene in which Lawrence and his army storm the Turkish stronghold in Aqaba using a sweeping cavalry charge. As the camera follows their attack, it comes to rest on a single silent cannon, pointed ineffectually in the wrong direction. It’s a seamless and remarkable shot, which took an unbelievable amount of coordination.  Lean and Young captured it in a single take. Yet, this sequence almost resulted in a catastrophic disaster on the ground.

Upon arriving in Spain, the cast was required to get vaccinations to protect against local diseases. The needle used to inoculate Peter O’Toole’s derriere was dirty and infected.  As a result, O’Toole had to contend with a very painful boil on his rear end, which made riding a camel an extremely uncomfortable proposition.

The town of Aqaba in the film was a fake one, built on a dry river bed next to the ocean in Spain. When staging the attack, it made sense to put O’Toole at the front of the charging army. However, this turned out to be supremely dangerous.

Sure enough, while riding his camel at breakneck speed and nursing his sore behind, O’Toole fell off, right in front of dozens of other charging horses. Miraculously, O’Toole’s camel came back and stood over top of him, literally saving his life as the other horses were forced to go around. “Funny creatures, camels…” Omar Sharif would say years later when recalling the incident.

Out of the Frying Pan…

After Lean had finished shooting, Spiegel found a way to let him know there wasn’t going to be any let-up in the pressure. Without consulting his director, the producer had gone ahead and scheduled a premiere date for Lawrence of Arabia. Only, it wasn’t going to be your average film screening.

Spiegel had gone ahead and made it part of a Royal Film Performance with Her Majesty the Queen of England in attendance. The date was set for December 10th, 1962 and there was zero chance of moving it. Spiegel first informed Lean about this little surprise in August of that same year. Lean was forced to go straight from shooting on location into editing overdrive.  For the next four months, he and his team worked 16 hours a day and seven days a week in order to put something together for the premiere.

To better manage the mammoth task before them, it was decided to treat the project as two separate films, each separated by the intermission. They concentrated on the second half first, and after finishing it, worked on the first part of the film.

Iconic Music

Lean and his editing team weren’t the only ones burning the midnight oil during that fall of 1962. Spiegel had tried to hire two established composers to do the score for the film. However, they showed up drunk after lunch one day and laughed when shown pieces of the rough cut, calling the film “a travelogue.” In desperation, Spiegel turned to a relatively unknown French film composer named Maurice Jarre who only had two documentaries under his belt. When Jarre first played his idea for the movie’s “theme,” Lean loved it and hired the composer on the spot.

Subsequently, Jarre was then told that he had only six weeks to write the entire score for Lawrence Of Arabia. A score that was going to wind up running over three hours. Working alone, the only way the composer could pull this off was by limiting himself to 2-3 hours of sleep a night.

The Premiere

Lean and company did finish Lawrence Of Arabia in time for the December premiere, but with only two days to spare. The final product was one of the longest-running feature films ever made, clocking in at 3 hours and 42 minutes. That’s not even counting the overture, intermission, or exit music. The film was so long that Lean and his editors never had a chance to see the finished product from start to finish before the final workprint was sent off to the lab. Lean later said the first time he saw the film in its entirety was at the premiere along with everyone else. Needless to say, that initial showing went exceptionally well, and the film met with almost universal acclaim.

Acclaim and Accolades

At Oscar time, Lawrence Of Arabia racked up awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Cinematography, Sound, Music, Editing, and Art Direction. Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, and Robert Bolt were also nominated for Academy Awards. However, to David Lean’s great disappointment, none of them won. Rumor had it that O’Toole’s loss could be chalked up to all the drunken appearances he made while promoting the film. This included one memorable entrance he made at a press gathering shouting “The effing thing’s finished!” while clearly stumbling from an excessive intake of alcohol.

Lawrence Of Arabia continues to be regarded as one of the cinema’s all-time greatest achievements.  It’s simply one of those rare movies where the term “masterpiece” doesn’t seem like a piece of hyperbole.

If “Lawrence” Were Made Today

Steven Spielberg, who is probably the most commercially successful director of the modern era once said that before he starts any new film, he re-watches Leans films as a source of inspiration. When asked if it would be possible to duplicate Lawrence of Arabia in today’s filmmaking environment, Spielberg replied:

“…Here’s what would happen today.  They could make Lawrence digitally by combining digital effects with live actors. But people can tell the difference…I think Lawrence would cost about $285 million to make in today’s money, but to do it digitally would be a tremendous sin…What makes that film unlike any film that can be made again is that it was done naturally with elements of light and sound…Maybe the greatest screenplay ever written…” 

Question Answered

After basking in the glow of his unqualified triumph, Lean was just feeling glad to be still sane after his experiences making the film. With the movie complete, he decided to have a drink with Sam Spiegel so he could discuss something that had been bothering him for a long time. Lean asked his producing partner:

“…Why did you behave so badly and make things so difficult for me?…” 

Spiegel was ready with a quick reply:

“…Because baby, artists work better under pressure!!…”

It was the last time that David Lean would ever work with the man.

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