208 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
that the United States’ Perry Expedition (1853–1854) forced Japan to abandon its
feudal ways and rapidly modernize— developments that led to the Boshin War—
the movie strongly implies that the United States was the primary impetus behind
Japan’s Westernization and elides the actual Eu ro pean imperialist nations that were
equally involved (Britain, the Netherlands, and France). As for Katsumoto’s real-
life inspiration, Saigō Takamori, he ended up committing suicide on 24 Sep-
tember 1877 after defeat in battle, much like his fictional counterpart. The film
accurately portrays the emperor as having a reverential attitude toward Katsumoto,
the Takamori figure—an attitude in line with popu lar sentiment; shortly after his
death a statue of Takamori was erected in Ueno in northeast Tokyo. It still stands
today. However, the movie is grossly inaccurate in depicting the samurai as eschew-
ing firearms in favor of traditional weapons (e.g., swords, bows, and lances). As Akira
Kurosawa shows in Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985), the samurai started using
tanegashima (the matchlock arquebus) in the middle of the 16th century—300 years
before the setting of The Last Samurai— and used firearms into the modern era.LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
Synopsis
Lawrence of Arabia is a British- American war epic co- produced by Sam Spiegel and
David Lean and directed by Lean, with the screenplay written by Robert Bolt and
Michael Wilson. The film is based on the life of T. E. Lawrence, a British Army
officer who helped lead the successful Arab revolt against Ottoman Turkey during
World War I. Starring Peter O’Toole in the title role, Lawrence of Arabia is widely
regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films in world cinema.Background
A brilliant and remarkably capable British liaison officer with the rebel forces in
the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Thomas Edward Law-
rence (1888–1935) became legendary as “Lawrence of Arabia” after his exploits
were made famous by American journalist Lowell Thomas. The legend was fur-
ther enhanced by Lawrence’s epic autobiography, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, self-
published in 1926, then published commercially in 1935. In January 1935 British
movie mogul Alexander Korda, who had begun plans for a movie about Lawrence,
met with him, but Lawrence dissuaded Korda from making his film while his sub-
ject was still alive. Ironically, T. E. Lawrence died five months later, but financial
constraints and po liti cal turmoil in the Mideast caused Korda to abort the film any-
way. Korda tried to revive the proj ect in 1937, 1938, and 1949 but nothing mate-
rialized. Harry Cohn at Columbia tried again in 1952 but abandoned plans, unable
to satisfy Professor A. W. Lawrence (T. E.’s younger brother and literary executor),
who demanded script and casting approval. Around the same time playwright
Terence Rattigan approached David Lean with another Lawrence movie script enti-
tled “Ross” (a Lawrence alias) that focused on Lawrence’s alleged homo sexuality—
an angle that did not meet with the approval of A. W. Lawrence. A few years later