David Lean's Arabia Campaign: the Enduring Lawrence November 16, 2008

David Lean (who would have been 100 this year) made a masterpiece in 'Lawrence of Arabia' (1962), the Oscar-winning account of T.E. Lawrence's adventures in the Middle East. Robert Horton examines this highly ambiguous character study, and traces a line of conquering Westerners who embarked on Eastern crusades and fell under the sway of the desert -- Napoleon, Lawrence and Lean himself.