Director Ridley Scott is quite busy guy these days. Apparently, he’s now involved in directing a biopic about Renaissance woman Gertrude Bell. Sounds familiar?
Well, of course it does, I’m sure you already remember the project Queen of The Desert that comes from director Werner Herzog and has Naomi Watts set to star as above mentioned lady.
At this moment, not much is known about the whole thing, but we do know that Scott has hired screenwriter Jeffrey Caine, man responsible for The Constant Gardener, to write the script, and, according to Deadline, Scott will produce with Giannina Facio for Scott Free under the production shingle’s deal at Fox.
And what’s so special about this lady? Gertrude Bell was an English writer, traveler, political officer, administrator and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia.
She is regarded as the person who- by virtue of her knowledge and standing among the various tribes of the region – as having shaped the country now known as Iraq early in the twentieth century. Bell has also been described as “one of the few representatives of His Majesty’s Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection.”
Anyone excited about this one? Let us know, and stay tuned!
With Herzog and the talented Naomi Watts, it will be an epic.
With Scott, and whoever playing Bell, it can only be a good entertaining film at best.
Even with Herzog directing it will be fantasy because Watts does not look much like Bell. Mark Sykes,
the MP who negotiated the Sykes-Picot agreement with France to determine
control of former Ottoman territory in the Middle East, described Bell as a
“silly chattering windbag of conceited, gushing flat-chested, man-woman,
globe-trotting, rump-wagging, blethering ass.”