Nothing Is Written           
 "Nothing is written!" probably the greatest single line in the greatest single motion picture of all time - Lawrence of Arabia. Obviously something was written (that line for one) and Robert Bolt was the man who wrote it. Bolt was an English playwright, which, all things being equal, usually consigns one to a life of anonymity. David Lean and Sam Spigel hired Bolt to produce the screenplay to Lawrence of Arabia. It was his first ever screenplay and at the 1962 Academy Awards Bolt’s brilliant penmanship was rewarded as only Hollywood could do so. They gave the Best Screenplay Oscar to Horton Foote for editing a novel Harper Lee had written a couple years earlier. 
  That said (or written) Bolt may not have come up with the line . . . the screenplay for Lawrence was largely written by Michael Wilson who was fired in pre-production. Bolt rewrote huge slabs of it so “Nothing is written” could have been written by either . . . it sure as hell wasn’t written by Foote.
     In fairness the Academy handed out seven gold statues to Lawrence: Best Picture – undeniable; David Lean for Best Director – maybe of all time; Best Cinematography for Freddy Young – no question; Best Art Direction to John Box, John Stoll & Dario Simoni – no arguments; John Cox for Best Sound – its 50% of a film so these guys deserve any credit they can get; Best Film Editing – Lawrence blows out match. Cut to sunrise over desert. Ingeniously simple, visually unforgettable. Anne Coates was the editor but I suspect Lean was behind that edit; and, most deservedly, Best Musical Score for Maurice Jarre.
     And the cast? Not so much as a dried up camel turd was presented in recognition of their craft. Ordinarily a good thing, because society should do as little as possible to encourage actors . . . but the cast of Lawrence is a bit more than ordinary.
     As only the British could do no Arab was hired to actually play the part of an Arab. A Brit, Alec Guinness played Prince Feisal; a Mexican, Anthony Quinn played Auda abu Taya; with Omar Sharif, an Egyptian, cast as Arab tribal leader Sherif Ali. Sharif may come from Syrian stock but the Egyptians are Egyptians not Arabs. Peter O’Toole, an Irishman, was Lawrence, as only the English can't ever bring themselves to fully trust the English to be really English.
     As difficult as it is to praise actors, O’Toole and Sharif were brilliant . . . but not enough for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Four decades later I conducted a snap poll at my local Cineplex and could find no movie goer who could name any more than four best actor winners from the past two decades. So take note actors – the people who pay your wages, at best, only remember you 20% of the time – and that’s on the condition that your peers vote you as the best of the best.
     For the Academy to ignore Lawrence for both acting and screenwriting is once again proof the Hollywood really doesn't know what a good motion picture is.
     The Best Actress Oscar eluded Lawrence for quite a valid reason – there are no women in the film. Well . . . there are a few . . . but we’ll just call them extras. Lawrence is probably the only Best Picture in which no woman has a speaking part. People have variously called me a sexist, a chauvinist or misogynist for heaping praise onto a motion picture which totally ignores women. My response: Why can’t I be all three!
     If Hollywood got a hold of this script today Lawrence would have banged his way from London to Cairo to Aqaba and back. A society debutante in London, a nurse in Cairo and the daughter of an Arab prince in Aqaba. Though if the sizeable question mark that hung over the real T. E. Lawrence’s sexuality were to be realized on the screen it could have been an Eton school master, an aide-de-camp (or a camp with . . . a limp) and the prince himself – strolling along the beach, sipping pina coladas as the waters of the Gulf gently roll on the shores of Aqaba.
     As a writer I can’t go past the screenplay. Writers hope (usually in vain) that, between them, actors and directors don’t murder their words. Occasionally they give them life. And even more rarely they make them immortal. With the great lines in Lawrence, O’Toole and Sharif did the latter.
     Nothing is written because nothing is written.
     Lawrence and Sherif Ali lead fifty others across the Nefud Desert. Ali sums it up pretty well: “The Nefud is the worst place God created . . . From here until the other side, no water but what we carry. For the camels, no water at all. If the camels die, we die. And in twenty days they will start to die.” As they trek across what many call “The Sun’s Anvil” they notice a camel has lost its rider. Lawrence insists they go back and get him. Ali protests, as time is against them, and Lawrence is told to forget the man, Gasim was his name. Forget Gasim because he is already dead. “Gasim’s time has come Lawrence. It is written.” 
     “Nothing is written!” and Lawrence turns back. It supposedly happened to the real T. E. Lawrence (but who really knows?). It almost kills him but as Ali and his fifty riders and camels rest at the end of the Nefud a day or so later the Englishman emerges from the desert with the Arab across his camel. Lawrence takes a drink from Ali and offers one line: “Nothing is written!”
     Things happen in life because we make them happen. And if happenings are not of our making then what we do about them is entirely of our own. Nothing is written is not just one of the greatest lines in cinema, it is one of the greatest lines in life.