8. Lawrence of Arabia
There's an argument that David can be seen to be the antagonist or the protagonist in this movie, depending on your perspective, just as William Blake said you can choose to see Satan as the protagonist or antagonist of
Paradise Lost (Blake said Milton "was a true Poet, and of the Devils party without knowing it..."). As discussed earlier Davids character is the jump-off point for the existential puzzle that this movie seeks to explore, and to give you some insight into David then its helpful to discuss
Lawrence of Arabia, Davids favourite movie that he likes to watch in-between shooting three-pointers and brushing up on ancient Sumerian dialects (all very interesting past-times!). Is it necessary to have seen
Lawrence of Arabia to understand
Prometheus and understand David? No. Yet in a movie so rich with symbolism and allusion it adds to the immersive experience. As well as showing David repeating the line the trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts as he views the actual movie aboard the Prometheus, the dialogue in
Prometheus references
Lawrence of Arabia twice: "there is nothing in the desert, and no man needs nothing and big things have small beginnings. In the movie Peter OTooles Lawrence is a fish-out-of-water character who, as an eccentric outsider, is not entirely trusted or understood by his own colleagues. You can see the parallels with Davids character already. And, like Lawrence, David becomes increasingly confident throughout the film until he has graduated from a mere butler to someone who is essentially the orchestrator of destines for all of the crew. The key allusion though that I believe Ridley and co. are trying to make ties into what we discussed about the notion of the soul above, and Davids seemingly escalating sense of identity. In the movie, when asked where his allegiance lies, the character of Lawrence wistfully says that it is to England "and other things..." And this is part of the key to understanding David. Yes, his allegiance may be to Peter Weyland and to the company that he represents but David is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with his human counterparts and, when suddenly faced with the possibility of engaging a race of beings who can take accelerate his learning far beyond that which humankind can, he is ready to strive for his freedom. This echoes the themes of forbidden knowledge that we touched on in our last article, the literary parallel of which lies in the
The Book of Enoch and whose mythological parallel is the story of the titan Prometheus providing humankind with fire stolen from the workshop of Hephaestus.
Key line: David - "Big things have small beginnings..."