Raw, Laurence. "T. E. Lawrence, the Turks, and the Arab Revolt in the Cinema: Anglo-American and Turkish Representations." Literature Film Quarterly 4.33 (2005): 252-61.
The author of this work compares the perspectives of two different films on the Turkish people: David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and Lüfti E. Akad’s Ingiliz Kemal Lawrence’e Karsi (1952). Laurence Raw explains that the Lean picture, in its attempts to portray the Arabian people in a positive light, ends up misrepresenting the Turkish people. The Turks that appear in the film are represented as barbaric and unnecessarily violent. One scene in particular demonstrates the demonization of the Turks. During the encounter between the Turkish Bey and T. E. Lawrence, the Bey is presented as homosexual and perverse in his treatment of the young man. His eerie, lurking presence behind the doorframe as Lawrence is whipped highlights his sadistic leanings. On the other hand, the Akad film, made in Turkey, portrays its people as the heroes of the Arab Revolt. In particular, the central figure of the film, Ingliz Kemal, a spy for the Turkish army, is seen as a brilliant and inspiring warrior. On the other hand, the figure of T. E. Lawrence is represented as a crazed, egotistical villain willing to betray British and Arabs alike in his wish to gain immortality.
Nevertheless, Laurence Raw does find an intriguing similarity within these two pictures. Both films treat the British as unwanted intruders, whose drive for imperial conquest of foreign lands can only be seen as despicable. This article thus provides an excellent piece of comparative analysis on Lawrence of Arabia, as it offers the perspectives of these two such drastically different cultures. It gives examples of the myth-making practices of the film industries of two different countries, and their treatments of particular cultural heroes. It is particularly enlightening to discover that T. E. Lawrence was not the only war hero to emerge from the Arab Revolt with lasting fame.
tagged akad films ingliz_kemal lawrence_of_arabia lean turkey by ericajm ...on 08-APR-08


