Category: Queen of the Desert

Happy Birthday Charles Doughty-Wylie – Can’t Wait to Meet YOU!

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Happy Birthday to Charles Doughty-Wylie — he was born 147 years ago today. We cannot wait to finally meet him in Queen of the Desert!

By now, you all know that one of the highly anticipated Damian Lewis projects this year is Queen of the Desert, directed by celebrated director Werner Herzog and starring Nicole Kidman, Damian Lewis, Robert Pattinson and James Franco. The movie had its World Premiere at Berlinale 2015 and will be coming to the US movie theaters, according to the official movie website, late 2015 or early 2016.

Queen of the Desert is essentially a biopic of Gertrude Bell, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, political attaché and a spy for the British Empire in the Middle East in the early 20th century. She shaped the politics of the Middle East and drew up the borders of modern Jordan as well as Iraq. Think of more or less  a female Lawrence of Arabia. Continue reading “Happy Birthday Charles Doughty-Wylie – Can’t Wait to Meet YOU!”

Camel, elephant, or bison? Oh my.

An extended trailer for Queen of the Desert was released last week and I wouldn’t be the ‘forensic fan’ I am unless I did a frame by frame analysis for you, our dear readers.

In an interview clip shown on Danish TV,  Damian Lewis does a spot on impression of Werner Herzog’s description of this film.

This film is like a camel, and an elephant and a bison on top of a donkey, and I’m the donkey. But together we will make a wonderful movie.

So Herzog is the donkey, but who are the camel, elephant and bison? Believe it or not, the trailer coupled with some background reading may provide some clues!

Continue reading “Camel, elephant, or bison? Oh my.”

Charles Doughty-Wylie: Rogue Steeped in Romance


“Write to me there…while I am alone, let’s be alone.” – Charles Doughty-Wylie

Damian Lewis is set to hit limited big screens September 15, incarnated as Charles (Richard) Doughty-Wylie in Queen of the Desert. What can we expect or hope to see? As discussed in Georgina Howell’s book, Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, the love affair between CDW and Gertrude Bell was lived largely on paper and pen. The two rarely spent time together, and when they did it was often in mixed company. Among that mixed company they would be the ones last at the table or next to the fire, still talking after the party had drifted off, still exchanging ideas and observations about the places in the Middle East they both had the privilege to travel and explore. Before GB started her diaries for Richard, which I spoke of in my last post, they had a rich correspondence. In these letters, they spoke to each other and about each other with a lavishly poetic vocabulary that leads to all kinds of imaginings on what we’ll see between Damian Lewis and Nicole Kidman enacting this couple on screen. Continue reading “Charles Doughty-Wylie: Rogue Steeped in Romance”

Queen of the Desert, some notes

As a “hyper-engaged” fan, one truly enters a state of mourning when one’s favorite is no longer on one’s screen. We know what he’s working on now: American Buffalo on stage in London’s West End. And we (the royal we) know we won’t be able to see him unless the play comes to the States and the stars align for us to get to where it’s playing. (Damianista IS seeing the play though, lucky so-and-so she is…so stay tuned for her story on seeing Damian as Teach, live). And we know his next project to start filming June is Billions on Showtime. So there we are with what’s he doing now and what he will be doing soon.

Now for what he has already done and what hasn’t made it to screen yet. We know that Damian Lewis has completed several films that are waiting on distribution. A film recently announced to have a U.S. distributor and set for limited release in September is Queen of the Desert, the story of Gertrude Bell, the female counterpart to that great explorer who got not one but two (or possibly more? ) films made about him, T.E. Lawrence, who we know as Peter O’Toole’s first, then Ralph Fiennes’ (and now Robert Pattison’s) Lawrence of Arabia. This post will be some theorizing on what we may be seeing in the film Queen of the Desert. Hopeful, longing, desirous theorizing, much like the letters Gertrude Bell (played by Nicole Kidman) exchanged with Charles Doughty-Wylie (played by Damian Lewis) for the few years of their problematic courtship. Continue reading “Queen of the Desert, some notes”

TOP Damian Lewis moments at Berlinale 2015

Ladies and Gentlemen, Queen of the Desert has finally arrived!

source: Berlinale

Queen of the Desert, the highly anticipated biopic about Gertrude Bell, a historian, novelist and member of the British Secret Service, directed by Werner Herzog, and starring Nicole Kidman, Damian Lewis, James Franco and Robert Pattinson has arrived at Berlinale 2015 complete with a photo shoot, press screening followed by a press conference with some FUN moments and, of course, the Red Carpet. We were extremely lucky to be able to see both the Press Conference and the Red Carpet LIVE on the festival website. That’s what I call public service 🙂 You can now watch the Press Conference and the Red Carpet here. Thank you, Berlinale! Continue reading “TOP Damian Lewis moments at Berlinale 2015”