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"Lawrence" is satire, too, which few, if any, have grasped since the film's 1962 release. What else can you call a film about an inveterate performer who was always, relentlessly, in search of an audience? .........The film was never meant to be taken seriously as a solemn, profound statement about much of anything.
As for
Orrence (Orrans) is certainly an event.
In the script, the phonetic corruption of Lawrence's surname is spelled "Aurens."
Since when did satire preclude profundity?
Of course it's satirical, but it's profound too. The film-making is profound, the communication, the execution, and the lessons.
Lawrence wasn't just a 'shameless exhibitionist' (if we're being so precise, that was the word), he was a narcissist, as shown by the S&M, the desert-love etc.. He spent half his time trying to be humble, to a degrading degree, even changing his name, and refusing luxuries in his home, and the other half self-promoting like some prophet. The two go hand-in-hand in the narcissistic personality. What Bolt does is to tell us how he got that way, and the consequences.
As regards the 'phonetic corruption of his name', here's a funny passage from the editor's proofreading notes preface to 'The Seven Pillars' and Lawrence's replies:
Editor: - 'Jedda and Jidda used impartially throughout. Intentional?'
T.E. Lawrence - 'Rather!'
Editor - 'Bir Waheida, was Bir Waheidi.'
T.E. - 'Why not? All one place.'
Editor - 'Nuri, Emir of the Ruwalla, belongs to the 'chief family of the Rualla'. On Slip 23 'Rualla horse', and Slip 38, 'killed one Rueli'. In all later slips 'Rualla'.
T.E. - 'Should also have used Ruwala and Ruwala'.
Editor - 'The Bisaita is also spelt Biseita'.
T.E. - 'Good'.
Editor - 'Jedha, the she-camel, was Jedhah on Slip 40'.
T.E. - 'She was a splendid beast'.
Editor - 'Meleager, the immoral poet'. I have put 'immortal' poet, but the author may mean 'immoral' after all'.
T.E. - 'Immorality I know. Immortality I cannot judge. As you please: Meleager will not sue us for libel.'
Editor - 'Author is addressed 'Ya Auruns', but on slip 56 was 'Aurans'.
T.E. - 'Also Lurens and Runs: not to mention 'Shaw'. More to follow if time permits'.
Editor - 'Sherif Abd el Mayin of Slip 68 becomes el Main, el Mayein, al Muein, and le Muyein'.
T.E. - 'Good egg. I call this really ingenius'.
In short ... there is no proper way in this kind of transliteration. Genghis or Jhingiz. You're not OCD are you?
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Regie has agreed with me on something.
'Before he did it, I'd have said it couldn't be done, sir.'
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ive been corrected on hear before
You mean 'here'. 
rite.
look pp i know the diffrence between hear and here ok. just typed it wrong.
Orrence however was a total fk up on my behalf.
looks like i will now have to write Orrence (Orrans, Aurans, Aurons, and Aurens!!)
perhaps we should all watch the film another two or three times and vote on our definitive spelling of how the arabs pronounce him??!!
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Do you think hes gone native on us, Harry???
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Lawrence was indeed a narcissist. A fully-fledged narcissist at that; the kind of person who engenders admiration and utlimately contempt or, at the very least, intense dislike. The narcissism spectrum would certainly 'explain' some of Lawrence's 'motives' and 'behaviours'. I've made a bit of a study of narcissism since my engagement with the internet and being confronted with narcissistic bullies!!!
(For an excellent study of social narcissism look no further than Christopher Lasch, "The Culture of Narcissism; American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations",1979. It's a seminal work and has been terribly influential. Much of what Lasch predicted/observed has become today's 'normal' behaviour.)
I'll check this book out, Regie. If he thought the expectations were diminishing in 1979, what'd he make of the credit crunch!?
Feisal refers to Gordon of Khartoum in the film as another 'desert-loving Englishman'. He exhibited similar traits, but was less aesthetic, an engineer version, and religion channelled his humilty/vanity complex. He lived frugally and opened his own house out to orphans and homeless people, hated praise and shunned it, yet was very petulant and angry if his vision was thwarted. His great saving grace as seen in the 'Khartoum' script ('Vanity was always mixed up with vision') was that he made his narcissism self-sacrificial as opposed to parasitic. Lawrence didn't even have a toilet in his Cloud's Hill cottage: he gave visitors a toilet-roll and a spade and showed them the land around the house: 'Don't be seen from the window'. Yet he advised governments and could've written his own ticket.
Bolt managed to get these things in subtly, like the match-finger thing. Notice that Lawrence, when he visits Dreyden's office is pulled immediately to a statue of Bastet the Egyptian cat-goddess, 'Oh, that's new ...' Her sister Sekhmet is the lioness however, queen of the desert sun, and Raines reminds him that the desert is a place for gods and Bedu and that he is neither. This ties in with the 'My mother never married my father, Ali' line, as a desert-loving negative-mum-complex sort of guy.
You get the same symbolism is 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert', but a very different context. The narcissistic mum's boys drawn to the desert.
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i will be able to watch Aurens with a different eye now and gain even greater apreciation of this multi-layered seminal work.
No prisoners!!
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