Although reviewers of Queen of the Desert were less than enthusiastic about the movie, I watched it through to the end, annoyed at several points, but always engaged. After all, this is a biopic, a film genera often weak in story-telling, but the woman being pictured was an extraordinary individual who played a significant role in shaping the world we live in.
From Angelica Jade Bastien – “… Despite the rich biographical material of the real-life woman on which this is based and the skill of the filmmakers involved, Queen of the Desert ends up being an emotionally empty, thematically ill-defined, and listless affair. It is never able to communicate the complexity of the woman at its center. … … International upheaval, as viewed from the intimate vantage point of a historical figure as enchanting and modern feeling as Gertrude Bell, gives the filmmakers a variety of avenues to explore. But instead of hinging the emotional through-line on her ambition, proto-feminist leanings, or what made her so well-suited to navigating the tribal conflicts, the film focuses on the most prosaic aspect of this fascinating woman: her love life. …”
In his review, Peter Debruge praises Nicole Kidman’s performance, but another reviewer remarks on the fact that Kidman was in her mid-40s but had nothing done to change her appearance when playing Gertrude Bell as not yet 20 years old, then as Bell in her thirties and forties living out in the hot dry desert air that ages the skin. Still, Kidman does a reasonably effective portrayal of Bell’s personality. Unfortunately, the movie does not take us into the years of Bell’s most important and relevant endeavors, when she was in her fifties working with a King in his mid-thirties, at a time when her health was poor. She died at age 58.
The movie’s photography is good, with impressive views of the desert and vast stretches of sand in Morocco and/or Jordon, substituting for Iraq and Syria where the action actually took place. The market scenes are probably from Morocco. Gertrude and Henry, the man she loves, (played by James Franco) climb around in the attractive ruins of ancient buildings, again, most likely in Morocco, but otherwise I remember seeing only one bit of traditional architecture.
Traveling across the desert, Bell and her caravan stopped at walled compounds that may have been, or were intended to be, caravanserais, establishments at one-day caravan journey intervals, usually with an inn, a small mosque, a stable and facilities for the camels and horses. One stunning view in the movie is of Bell on horseback, riding along a river that flows through a deep mountain canyon, probably in Jordan.
This colorful four-minute video from PBS is a good introduction to Gertrude Bell.
I highly recommend this article, a review of books about Gertrude Bell. The title is The Queen of the Quagmire.
Gertrude Bell was extraordinarily talented, privileged, from a wealthy and well-connected family, adored and indulged by her father and stepmother. Her grandfather was Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, a member of Parliament who had worked alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. She attended the best schools and was the first woman at Oxford to win First-Class Honors in history. In 1892, age 24, on a long visit in Tehran with her uncle, the British Minister/Ambassador to the Persian state, she became fluent in Persian and two years later published a book on Persia. During the next decade she traveled and famously climbed mountains in Switzerland. In late 1899, she traveled to Jerusalem and began studying Arabic. She also took photographs that reflect her interest in and respect for the people she encountered. I think this photo is hers.
In 1900, on a trip from Jerusalem to Damascus, Bell went on horseback through hostile country to Petra, and without permission from the Turkish authorities, into the country of a fierce people, the mountain Druze of southwest Syria. The experience is dramatized in the movie. The reigning Druze chief, who had been a student in Paris, received her as his guest and they discussed French poetry, in French. The Druze faith is a sect of Isma’ili Shia Islam. (I wrote here about Ismaili origins.)
In 1901, a months-long trek across Greater Syria resulted in Bell’s classic “The Desert and the Sown,” a book that includes her photographs and vividly describes towns, cities and the vast deserts of Arabia.
In 1902 Bell and her brother went touring by steamship and railways to British India and continued on to Mandalay in Burma, Pinang in Malaysia, Singapore, the Dutch colonial centers in Java, to South Korea, Japan and to Canada. She recorded their travels in photographs she took along the way. The last photo is from Quebec and is dated July 1903. I will return later to her numerous, interesting and informative photographs of places I have known and written about. An archive of the photographs she collected is also available on-line.
In 1905, Bell explored Anatolia as an archeologist and published her observations in a series of articles in the Revue Archéologique. In 1907, she worked in central Turkey with a well-known archaeologist and New Testament scholar. Their excavations in Binbirkilise were chronicled in “A Thousand and One Churches.”
In 1910, Bell met T.E. Lawrence, a young Oxford graduate with honors in history. She was visiting an archeological site on the western bank of the river Euphrates, just south of the Syrian-Turkish border, where he was at work, being trained in archeology. This encounter and their friendship is in the movie.
The movie has a sequence that particularly intrigued me, one that took place in Hail city (or Hi’il) in which Bell tricks her way into the palace of the Emir. (The Barzan Palace in Ha’il was later destroyed by the Al-Sauds) She was again on a trek across the desert, this one a spying mission for the British to determine the military organization and strength of the Emirate of Jabal Shammar, based in Hi’il, Emirate of The House of Rashīd, against their formidable enemies, the House of Saud, rulers of the Emirate of Nejd. She enters the palace, discovers the Emir is not there and is trapped, held by the women of the harem until he returns. She acquires the needed information from the women, along the way having her hands painted with henna. When presented at last to the Emir, she cleverly wins her release and reports to the British that they should back the Al-Sauds. Ibn Saud won final victory over the Rashidis in 1921, making him the ruler of most of central Arabia. (Enlarge the map to locate Hi’il, the Rashids, and Riyadh, the Saudis.)
In 1914, at the outbreak of the war, unable to join the colonial service for the Middle East, Bell volunteered with the Red Cross in France. In 1915, however, both she and Lawrence were summoned to Cairo to serve in the Arab Bureau. In 1916, they sent her to Basra, ancient port city on the Persian Gulf, captured in 1914 by British forces because, as Winston Churchill knew, that is where the oil fields are. She was to advise Chief Political Officer Percy Cox, whom she had met in India when he was a young army officer serving as the colonial administrator to a Princely State south of Bombay. Among her duties was drawing maps to help the British army reach Baghdad. She was the only female political officer in the British forces.
A good map helps make sense of a situation, and these are great maps. Maps 4 through 8 are directly relevant here.
This is an excellent and readable article for facts and analysis of Gertrude Bell.
I can imagine the film that should have been made of Gertrude Bell, one that could honorably accompany Lawrence of Arabia. The movie would be centered on Gertrude Bell’s role in virtually creating modern Iraq.
She drafted the Iraqi borders, conferred with and persuaded its reluctant tribal chiefs to join the new country, worked with and assisted the thirty-five-year-old Prince Faisal to become King Faisal. (in Queen of the Desert played by Younes Bouab) It was not always an easy relationship, but as her influence waned, he continued with her, helping her set up Iraq’s archeological museum.
She was intent on keeping the people’s historical treasures for them rather than being shipped off to Europe. She also helped establish the national library and a school for girls. She loved Arabia; she wanted to live out her life in her Baghdad home and gardens. She died there from an over-dose of sleeping pills. The movie I envision would include flashbacks into her youth, into the adventures and accomplishments that prepared her for the Iraq years, including why she never married. After all, she did have two, maybe three, romantic episodes in her life. She was an attractive woman, and despite her strong will, quite feminine.
A possible plot and script for the movie are clearly embedded in this article by Chris Calder, based on “Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell, Adventurer, Advisor to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia,” by Janet Wallach, Random House, 1996.
I recommend, as well, this article by O’Briend Browne – “Creating Chaos: Lawrence of Arabia and the 1916 Arab Revolt.” Reading it, I at last have a reasonably clear picture of the battles in Lawrence of Arabia. I quote from it below.
Geraldine Bell’s King Faisal is T. E. Lawrence’s Prince Faisal, a friend to both. (the composite picture is from here.) In 1916, Bell was sent to Basra, ancient city and port she included in the future Iraq. Lawrence was sent as liaison officer to the Hejaz, the region where Mecca and Medina are located, to advise Arab troops the Allies needed for victory over the Ottomans in World War I and involved himself in the Arab Revolt initiated by Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca to secure Arab independence from the Ottoman Empire and create a unified Arab state. Hussein and his four sons engaged in the fighting. They were Hashemites, of the lineage that ruled Mecca from the 10th century until its conquest by the House of Saud in 1924. “As Lawrence later wrote in his remarkable account of the campaign, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, “I found Abdulla too clever, Ali too clean, Zeid too cool.” Then he met the 31-year-old Feisal, who was “the leader with the necessary fire.” It was the beginning of a long friendship based on trust, warmth, and a shared vision to lead the revolt into Syria. Assigned as Feisal’s liaison officer, Lawrence would blossom into an intrepid guerrilla fighter, operational tactician, and strategic visionary. So closely did he empathize with the Arabs that Feisal soon presented him with the silken robes of a Bedouin leader, which had the advantage of being more comfortable than a British uniform for camel riding and desert fighting.”
In Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Alec Guiness, at age 48, played Prince Faisal. Compare his appearance and demeanor in the movie with the photograph and actual history of Faisal. Guiness was too old for the part. (and his interpretations of men in other cultures has always annoyed me.) The real Faisal was a young leader in the fight for independence. He had led men into battle, participated in the disastrous setting up of a government for Damascus. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, “ … Feisal, Lawrence, and Arab leaders … expect(ed) to enjoy the fruits of their sacrifices and feats. Instead, Feisal discovered his name had been omitted from the official list of delegates. But in meetings and speeches he made his presence felt. “The Arabs have long enough suffered under foreign domination,” Feisal proclaimed, resplendent in robes of white silk and gold. “The hour has at last struck when we are to come into our own again.” President Wilson, meeting the Arab leader, said, “Listening to the emir, I think to hear the voice of liberty.”
Werner Hertzog is not the director for a movie on Gertrude Bell. Remembering Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth from 1998, on Queen Elizabeth, I thought he might be the better director for a movie on a woman like Bell. I had read the negative reviews of Kapur’s 2007 film, Elizabeth: the Golden Age, and was positively impressed with his defense of the way he conceptualized the history and the conflict depicted in the movie. Having since watched the second Elizabeth and revisited the 1998 Elizabeth, I’ve reconsidered. My recent views on this are expressed in the next post.
Iris – not only a great review but the idea for another movie is wonderful. The richness of the readings is very helpful. Iraq is such a mess now. It is just so sad. Change will come through the women. I hope that the Iraqi women can recuperate Gertrude Bell’s insights.
Nancy, I’m pleased you read this and approve. In thinking about the movie, I got caught up in several matters — one was discovering Gertrude Bell, I had never heard or read of her until until the movie. Maybe I’ll write an addendum on her and wait for your ideas on that. Then there’s the question of what makes a biopic work. Not many do. To write on this biopic I spent hours and hours on end reading on-line about the persons, social entities and events of that period of history in the Middle East. Having lived with a pastoral society in Somalia gave me some insight into tribal societies, and of course, I lived and worked in Turkey, so the Ottoman Empire is not a new idea for me. And I know of British colonial thinking from my Indian husband. Still, putting it all together to understand those years covered in the movies was a challenge.