At the risk of sounding plebeian what was the viewer meant to take away from this film?

at the risk of sounding plebeian what was the viewer meant to take away from this film?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/R9scZDbKxtY
youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY
youtube.com/watch?v=RuxHLzwlDY4
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

woooo~~OOOO I am the ghost of genocided Armenians~~!!~~~ AVENGE ME PETER

What do you mean? Like a moral of the story?

It's mostly a true story, or a simplification of one, combining a lot of events and characters (and making Lawrence way more central than even he said)

The film opens with his death and concludes with him seeming defeated, what was the message behind his character arc? What was the significance of his growing blood lust and why was he condemned for it by another merciless man? Were we just there for the spectacle?

>what was the message behind his character arc?

Again, you know he was a real person right? He really did take part in the Arab revolt, and try and help the Arabs to take Damascus before the British so there could be an Arab state, despite knowing that the Brits and the French had already decided to go back on their promises and carve up the middle east between them. And then he died in relative obscurity in a motorbike accident.

I mean, forget about the rest of the shit. That's a true story. Isn't it worth telling?

In terms of just how they framed his story, with the death right at the start like you said, I guess it was to paint him as a tragic figure, who the legend mattered a lot more than the reality. Lean seems to suggest throughout that that, like you said, Lawrence was a poser, or a thrillseeker. He doesn't outright make it beyond doubt, but that is one interpretation of Lawrence that the film suggests to you. On a whole, I don't think it tries to preach any "moral" or "character arc" though. It pretty much just follows Lawrence through the events, as reported.

*slowly loosens the valve on Zyklon B tank*

Life can be epic if you're Christian.

Don't get raped by Turks was the main point

that lawrence is a man
and you're not

I didn't understand that it was him who died at the start but in the future

that helped me out, thanks

My bro, check this out:

youtu.be/R9scZDbKxtY

You are going to love this.

Greets from Brazil.

Reminder that if Lawrence had gotten his way, the moderate, western educated and connected Arabs would've stayed in power in the middle east,and not been overthrown by the cunting house of saud, leading to islamism and the neverending shitstorm that is the early 20th century.

>getting your information about history from youtube celebs

>youtube
>celebs

While the Middle East sucks today and there's nothing we can do to change that, we did repeatedly fuck up their shit. Then because their shit is fucked up, that's an excuse for us to fuck up their shit again, with the process repeating forever. Maybe the refugee crisis will make people think twice about continuing to fuck around in the Middle East though if stuff like that can be a consequence. America's still been pretty much untouched by terrorism/refugees compared to Europe over the last decade so maybe we'll still fuck around there for the foreseeable future

That Arabs are barbarians who will never learn democracy
Also Turks like to rape

Entertainment.

The fuck you talkin' 'bout? Like that YouTuber is saying something wrong?

...

It's not so much that we fucked their shit up, this whole region was under the Ottoman Empire before Lawrence and the crew came in. The problem was how we balkanised it lead to cunt Arabs (The Saudis) fucking over other Arabs. You shouldn't get all hand-wringing and postcolonial about it, the problem is with Arabs.

The west didn't create the Saudis, the wahhabist (until in the Cold War we started funding them anyway), but we created the situation where they could appear and take power, when an obviously way better option was available.

Iran was a democracy before the us and uk ruined it.

>Iran
>Arab

This

Tunisia is a democracy, maybe Iraq too after the fall of saddam idunno

>Tunisia
>Arab

just the mere fact that fucking people get actual information from fucking dumb shits on youtube

What are they then? French ;^)

Bedouin / general north african

Bedouins are nomads from the arabian peninsula

Well I'm only a few minutes in, just saying that you shouldn't take information from some youtuber as anything but the same level as some guy you meet in a pub just chatting shit.

Already noticed one mistake, admitelly 8 minutes in. He calls Feisel the leader of the Arab Revolt, when really he was just the one they had the best relationship with. His dad, Hussein bin Ali was the leader, there was a reason he was given Mecca. But he wasn't played by Alec Guinness was he :^)

Lawrence tried to understand the culture of the Arabs and help them, but was punished and rebuked for it.

The fact is foreign rulers doesn't give a shit about you and never will. When the Brits defeated the Ottomans they became the "new" Ottomans. When the Israelis defeated the British they became the "new" new Ottomans and so on and so forth.

As for the Arab nationalists Lawrence helped they all got massacred by Saudis eventually with the full support of the British.

Life is a bitch. You're either the ruler or the oppressed. If you take your time to be "empathetic" like TE Lawrence you'll just get walked over which is what happened when they eventually fired him.

youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY

I think he meant Berbers

But the ones he was fucked by were the British and French governments, not the Arabs. He absolutely had the support and helped support those foreign rulers, it was the ones from his own culture that had none of it.

I think that's what he was implying, he just worded his first sentences in a little confusing manner.

Oh, and the second big one, he just regurgitates the film version of events, saying it was Lawrence who came up with the idea to take Aqaba. Not even Lawrence claimed this. The guy goes on to say that the Royal Navy was INVOLVED in the assault, but he still seems to think it was Lawrence's plan. It wasn't.

Quite possibly, I see what you mean now. I still think you can't really blame Lawrence for trying. And definitely things turned out slightly "better" for them than they would have if the British had taken Damascus first.

>But the ones he was fucked by were the British and French governments, not the Arabs.

That's the whole point.

No empire is actually interested in the well being of the rest of the world, once you knock over one Empire (Ottomans) you just get another one (Brits).

Yes, sorry

I meant that he was punished by his commanding officers despite his resounding success.

In fact it was the British/US that helped kill off the progressive arab nationalist movements (mainly to help Israel and Saudi Arabia's geopolitical position in the middle east) which allowed the Saudis, who practice the most extremist form of Islam on earth (Wahhabism) to spread views to the rest of the Islamic world all because they wanted control over the arab oil fields.

The point isn't that Lawrence was wrong for trying

It's that in the end no matter how hard he tried he lost anyway.

Irl he actually made that up, for some fucking reason.

>"better" for them than they would have if the British had taken Damascus first.

Ironically the middle east would be in a far better position today If the Ottoman Empire and the Germans had won.

>No Saudis
>No Israelis
>Iran and other countries open to the west
>no US interventionism
>Muslims become nationalists and are westernized and modernized

I guess if you mean that is the point of the film, you might be right. It's definitely one thing to take from the whole debacle.

>In fact it was the British/US that helped kill off the progressive arab nationalist movements

>progressive
>arab
>nationalist

One of the reasons they hated the Ottomans was for being too western and not Muslim enough.

>Muslims become nationalists and are westernized and modernized

That is basically what happened during WWI. Something like the Saudis was always likely to happen, when later in the century every other major empire was dismantled and balkanised, the same was going to happen most likely to the middle east, probably under similar terms to what it did.

And then the same bullshit with wahhabists, or something like that was always on the cards with the realpolitik of the Cold War.

That you shouldn't expect shit from savages because they're going to just tear everything up with petty squabbling.

It's a very sobering movie, that scene where the British officer comes and slaps Lawrence's shit in over how the wounded were being treated a best.

...

The main reason was that the "Young Turks" who ran the Ottoman Empire believed in rule by Turkey

Every independent Arab state became slowly westernized until the 1967 Israeli war fucked everything up and discredited nationalism and westernization leading to the destructive rise of Saudi Wahhabism (Jihadists) much of which was funded by the US government starting with Carter and Brzezinski in the 70s with the Taliban in Afghanistan on down to Obama and the "rebels" in Syria

the cold war is sort of like what's happening in Libya and Syria now

The US funds some extremists in a country in order to use them political ends (in this case stopping the extremists the USSR is funding to take over) and the result is endless bloodshed and death in the country while the population becomes radicalized

Fuck, I'm not even an Americlap and that picture is chilling.

Being that this is one of my favorite films, and ive seen it a million times, I'm just gonna say, who knows, the point is to watch and speculate.

In the first scene of the film we see Lawrence through dusty goggles, we can't see him completely. Our view of him is obscured. Who is this man?

In the final scene , we see again, Lawrence, but through the jeep's windshield, again, his image obscured by dirt. Who is this man?

It's a great story with great characters with constantly conflicting ideas and arguments. One could call it as pessimistic as it is deeply spiritual. There's nothing really to take away from it, but whatever you felt and thought during it.

History is weirder than you think.

What's your favourite scene?

fuck anglos and arabs
t. turk

The Ottoman Empire was going to die regardless

the only real question was who got to pick the bones.

The world would have been better if it had been the Russians or the Germans instead of the British and French.

The takeaway is:

A) One man can truly make a difference

B) You, most likely, will achieve nothing, you existence wasted, all that awaits you is erasure from the collective memory

yeah ottoman empire went full retard with religion, ignoring science and political changes
same thing is happening with turkey now
feels batman

that's what happens when you adopt the ideology of someone who thinks that Plato, Aritotle and Socrates were all "morons"

too bad no one today knows what an Asharite is or how their anti science/math crippled the muslim world

oh well sucks to be Muslim

Sorry for late response
Favorite scene might be the one near the end of Lawrence, Ali, and Aida at Damascus as night.

It was to explain his despondency without having to say "failing made me super bummed because I have a literal messiah complex."

>because I have a literal messiah complex

or he just new the region was doomed despite all his effort and there was literally nothing he could do about it
All the fighting, all the suffering, all the sacrifice, for nothing. Actually all his attempts to improve the world made things unimaginably worse than he could have possibly predicted.

That's why I love the theme, it really evokes his yearning to do what he sees as morally right, but in the end having to resign himself to failure as all his hopes and dreams ultimately crumble around him.

youtube.com/watch?v=RuxHLzwlDY4

>too bad no one today knows what an Asharite is
>implying nobody on Sup Forums plays CK2

Asharite is better for expansion, but if you want to be a tech powerhouse you have to go Mutazilite

Mutazilite actually got a buff with Reaper's Due because having a bunch of high Learning guys at court makes a huge difference when the plague rolls in and you need a new physician

I'm glad to know that vidya autism is keeping the knowledge of obscure Middle Eastern religious movements alive and well

>...its reporter identified just three scientific areas in which Islamic countries excel
>Camel reproduction

It's a story about the struggle of man against nature, about finding common ground with vastly different backgrounds/cultures, and the simultaneous folly and glory of man's will (nothing is written etc)

There's also a very slight tinge of some homoerotic "bromance", just like Ben Hur

That getting anally raped can really take the fun out of life.

>Williamson wrote for Mosley’s paper “Action”. He called for Anglo-German brotherhood, recognising that Hitler desired nothing more than peace with Britain. He saw that the result of another war would be the bringing of Asiatic Bolshevism to the heart of Europe. He sought to have his friend T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) join with Mosley in a peace campaign. Lawrence was returning from having posted his letter to Williamson agreeing to such a campaign when he had his fatal motorbike accident.

>He died trying to prevent WW2, saving Europe and Britain

Women are irrelevant and don't need to be in films.