Print this document
High Quality
Open the downloaded document, and select print from the file menu (PDF reader required).
1
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
by
ROBERT BOLT
PART ONE
1 As a background to the SCREEN CREDITS the following:
CLOSE SHOT of the MOTOR BICYCLE. It is large, powerful and in beautiful condition. We can see that it is standing in some kind of country shed with a background of work-bench, petrol cans and so on. A few wild flowers, dandelions and such, are stuffed rather roughly in a jam jar on the work-bench. The shed is open-fronted and the motor bicycle and its background are dappled with sunlight falling through nearby leaves. A MAN comes and stands between us and the machine with his back towards us. We can only see him from the buttocks down. He is wearing heavy motorcycling boots and slaps onto the petrol tank a pair of gauntlet gloves. CAMERA stays on this while he prepares the machine—filling the tank, adjusting choke and mixture controls, ad lib as needed. He mounts and kicks the starter and moves off frame, with a roar.
2 PANNING SHOT. The motor-cycle leaves the farmyard into the lane. As background to FINAL
CREDITS, the peaceful farmyard; noise of motor-bike receding to silence. Then sharp cut to:
3 EXTREME CLOSE SHOT. The MOTOR-CYCLIST. Head and shoulders. On SOUND TRACK engine roaring. He is so heavily begoggled and mufflered as to be anonymous but he wears no helmet and his bright hair is ruffled in the slipstream.
4 MOVING SHOT of the road ahead. At a distance, the road is up. It is too early in the morning for the workers to be there; a NIGHT WATCHMAN yawns over his brazier. A notice says “WARNING. Drain laying. Roadworks ahead”. We throttle down and pass the roadworks, still too fast and bank for a corner. Round the corner a similar roadworks and a similar notice which we see nearer than before, the word “WARNING” looming larger. Again we throttle down and pass the roadworks, again too fast, and are accelerating immediately towards a second corner.
Coming out of the corner a third roadworks ahead. The same notice repeated, this time the word
“WARNING” almost filling the screen.
5 CLOSE SHOT of the MOTOR-CYCLIST. The scarf has slipped a little and we can see his mouth. It is neither smiling nor particularly determined but it sets into a sort of still calm as the CYCLIST accelerates:
Through the roadworks far too fast. We swerve to the left, to the right, tilt, approach a blind bridge,
are out of control, spin, crash.
6 CLOSE SHOT. A piece of the road. The goggles slither along it up to CAMERA.
CUT TO
CLOSE SHOT. The blind stone eyes of LAWRENCE’s bust in a chapel of St. Paul’s Cathedral. On SOUND TRACK, the organ. A MAN in very correct civilian clothes, holding his bowler hat, adjusts the central wreath which has fallen askew. He does this not reverently but neatly , severely, and then without a backward glance leaves the chapel (past two SOLDIERS in blues who keep vigil there) and makes his way up the aisle after the rest of the discreetly murmuring, shuffling congregation where an elderly friend, a CLERIC, awaits him.
2
CLOSE TRACKING SHOT. BRIGHTON and his FRIEND pace slowly along the aisle, past memorials to other honoured heroes, which glimmer faintly from the walls. At these the CLERIC glances; then away.CLERIC: Well nil nisi bonum. But I find something... disproportionate in all
this.
BRIGHTON:(must defend Lawrence, though he can’t disagree) He was a remarkable
chap. By any counts, remarkable.
CLERIC:(interested) Did you know him well?
BRIGHTON: I knew him.
9 MEDIUM LONG SHOT. The steps of St. Pauls. The fashionable CONGREGATION is leaving, watched by a crowd of more ordinary FOLK who are kept aside by a few POLICEMEN. ALLENBY is standing alone, and quite still. He is in civvies and his bearing is modest, but one or two who pass him raise their hats, as though saluting. A REPORTER approaches.
REPORTER: Lord Allenby, Could you give me a few words about Colonel
Lawrence?
ALLENBY:(smiles a little) What, more words... ? (he makes a deliberately formal
“statement”) “The Revolt in the Desert played a decisive part in the
Middle Eastern campaign”.
The REPORTER is disappointed.
REPORTER: Yes sir, but about Colonel Lawrence himself.
ALLENBY: No. (politely regretful) I didn’t know him well you know.
ALLENBY moves away. The REPORTER sees somebody else off screen and darts towards BENTLEY
and a LADY.
REPORTER: Mr. Bentley, you must know as much about Colonel Lawrence as
anybody does.
BENTLEY:(a public “statement” which REPORTER takes down) “It was my privilege to know him and to make him known to the world: he was a scholar, a poet, and a mighty warrior”.
REPORTER tips his hat to the LADY and moves away.
BENTLEY: He was also the most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum and Bailey.
A MILITARY GENTLEMAN (The M.O. of the final sequence) darts up from behind, looming on
the step above.
MILITARY GENTLEMAN: You sir! Whoare you?
BENTLEY:(not a bit put out) My name’s Jackson Bentley.
MILITARY GENTLEMAN:(momentarily thrown) Oh. (recovers instantly) You whoever you are sir, I heard your last remark and I take the strongest possible exception!(challenging) He was a very great man!
BENTLEY:(mildly) Did you know him?
MILITARY GENTLEMAN: No sir, I can’t claim I knew him.(truculent) I had the honour once to
shake his hand in Damascus!
BENTLEY turns away with politely raised eyebrows. MURRAY passes with a FRIEND. He growls:
3
MURRAY: Knew him? No I neverknew him. He had some minor function on my
Staff in Cairo.
DISSOLVE TO
10 INT. MAPPING ROOM. BRITISH H.Q. CAIRO
CLOSE SHOT: LAWRENCE is neatly tinting a map with watercolour. He sits back to look at it,
patiently, but without enthusiasm. A shadow falls across him and he looks up, interested.
11 CLOSE SHOT: LAWRENCE’s point of view of a basement window. Outside, the lower half of
a camel walks by.
12 MED. SHOT. We now see that LAWRENCE is seated in a long narrow room, hardly more than a glorified passage. At each end a hole has been knocked high up in the wall and a massive bundle of electric cables proceeds in from one to the other and out again, dimming the already inadequate light which comes through a series of semi-circular windows high up in the wall of the basement.
There are six drawing boards with pots of paint, brushes, T squares, protractors, compasses, pens and ink, pencils, piles of rolled maps and whatever else cartographers need. Above the boards hang lamps with metal shades, and before each board is a stool. At one of these sits the only other OCCUPANT
of the room, a SERGEANT.
LAWRENCE:(gloomily) Michael George Hartley, this is a nasty, dark little room.
SERGEANT: ’T’s right.
LAWRENCE: We are not happy in it.
SERGEANT:(thinking of the trenches) I am.
LAWRENCE: Then you are an ignoble fellow.
SERGEANT: ’T’s right.
He lights a cigarette, throwing down the packet and box, while LAWRENCE watches him, and goes on with his work. It is a relationship not uncommon in the Forces; the gulf of class and rank has been bridged by means of a ritualised parody. There is the sound of boots on stone floor. LAWRENCE looks up.
13 CLOSE SHOT. The door opens and a chirpy CORPORAL enters with a folded newspaper. Beyond him we catch a glimpse of a telephone exchange and a flight of stairs leading upwards from the basement.
14 MED. SHOT. The CORPORAL walks over towards LAWRENCE. The phlegmatic SERGEANT
takes no notice at all.
LAWRENCE: Here is William Potter with my newspaper.
CORPORAL: Here y’are tosh.
LAWRENCE takes the paper, paying for it with a coin from his pocket.
LAWRENCE:(quite simply) Thanks. (back to the act) Would you care for one of
Sergeant Hartley’s cigarettes?
CORPORAL: Ta.
It is part of the game that no-one shall smile. The CORPORAL takes one of the SERGEANT’S
cigarettes as LAWRENCE unfolds his paper.
SERGEANT: Is it there?
Add a Comment
shanaezanggerleft a comment
myravioxleft a comment
bethannfriedenthalleft a comment
alixpleetleft a comment
janaemarquinaleft a comment