A chronicle of Gertrude Bell's life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.A chronicle of Gertrude Bell's life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.A chronicle of Gertrude Bell's life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOn their first day of filming, James Franco and Nicole Kidman climbed a tower, where a vulture sat. Prior to filming the scene, Werner Herzog had found the vulture by coincidence, with its owner, by the side of the road and decided to put it into the film. The vulture was not trained for such screen roles, and tried to peck Kidman, but luckily it was on a leash. This scene is one of Kidman's favorite in the film.
- GoofsGertrude Bell and Winston Churchill 's wife Clementine were cousins on her father's side i.e. via his sister. In spite of the first scene where Churchill asks "Who is this Gertrude Bell?", in real-life he was very much aware of who she was.
- Quotes
Gertrude Bell: Nightingale with drops in heart bleed. A fed red rose. Then came the wind. And catching her, jealous branches. I have coiled heart with a hundred thorns
- Crazy creditsThe credits are shown over footage of sand blowing across the desert.
- Alternate versionsA new cut with a running time of 110 minutes was presented at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles on Nov.8 2015. The original version, which premiered in Feb. 2015 at the Berlinale and was released in some countries, has a running time of 128 minutes.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer (2022)
- SoundtracksLes Nubiemes Valse
from the ballet "Faust"
Written by Charles Gounod
Performed by Vaughan Jones and The Manor House String Ensemble
Featured review
Atypical Herzog
Queen of the Desert breaks form with several other Herzog movies: A female lead character, a grand Hollywood-like production and most interesting: a different perspective on the culture-nature dichotomy and the effects of cultural distance that almost forms the core of Herzog's work.
It tells the story of Gertrude Bell (Kidman), an English writer and traveler who became more and more influential in the Middle East region through her unprecedented travels where she formed bonds with several future postcolonial leaders. Later in life she became involved in politics and helped to found several nation states (and determine its borders), along which Jordan and Iraq through the Hashemite dynasties. She worked in close cooperation with T.E. Lawrence (Pattison).
It is always interesting to see what's left out of the story: her efforts to establish the new countries were far more extreme and tiresome (plus the real reason Iraq was founded: cost-cutting by the British Empire), her witnessing of the Armenian genocide and slave trade, her actual spying role, her relative poverty, illness and depression later in life. What is paid attention to elaborately are her love interests (well played by Franco and Lewis), both ending in tragedy. But too much are we watching a watered-down, Hollywood interpretation of Bell by Kidman and not the real strong and intelligent woman she obviously had to be handling the complexities of deal making in the region.
Yet some typical trademarks of Herzog still shine through: travel to unknown, unmapped places where people find their cultural beliefs and visions on reality tested. In Herzog's world, venturing into nature from the cultural boundaries of existence always leads to suffering and destruction, mankind being unable to conquer the forces of nature. What makes this movie then atypical in the work of Herzog is that Bell finds solace and fulfillment through that process. Also atypical is the time we spent inside: these scenes inside the bastions of power are unfortunately not the best in the movie, and in the landscape scenes, Herzog seems much more on his turf.
Herzog always saw himself as resisting the banality of the images film is projecting, but here he somewhat contributes to that process. Despite that Queen of the Desert is still very watchable, informative and yes, even entertaining.
It tells the story of Gertrude Bell (Kidman), an English writer and traveler who became more and more influential in the Middle East region through her unprecedented travels where she formed bonds with several future postcolonial leaders. Later in life she became involved in politics and helped to found several nation states (and determine its borders), along which Jordan and Iraq through the Hashemite dynasties. She worked in close cooperation with T.E. Lawrence (Pattison).
It is always interesting to see what's left out of the story: her efforts to establish the new countries were far more extreme and tiresome (plus the real reason Iraq was founded: cost-cutting by the British Empire), her witnessing of the Armenian genocide and slave trade, her actual spying role, her relative poverty, illness and depression later in life. What is paid attention to elaborately are her love interests (well played by Franco and Lewis), both ending in tragedy. But too much are we watching a watered-down, Hollywood interpretation of Bell by Kidman and not the real strong and intelligent woman she obviously had to be handling the complexities of deal making in the region.
Yet some typical trademarks of Herzog still shine through: travel to unknown, unmapped places where people find their cultural beliefs and visions on reality tested. In Herzog's world, venturing into nature from the cultural boundaries of existence always leads to suffering and destruction, mankind being unable to conquer the forces of nature. What makes this movie then atypical in the work of Herzog is that Bell finds solace and fulfillment through that process. Also atypical is the time we spent inside: these scenes inside the bastions of power are unfortunately not the best in the movie, and in the landscape scenes, Herzog seems much more on his turf.
Herzog always saw himself as resisting the banality of the images film is projecting, but here he somewhat contributes to that process. Despite that Queen of the Desert is still very watchable, informative and yes, even entertaining.
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- The Queen of the Desert
- Filming locations
- Ait Benhaddou, Morocco(exteriors caravan scene)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $15,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $1,592,853
- Runtime2 hours 8 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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