ABSTRACT
In a startling dramatic moment in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) an Arab chieftain loyal to the old ways confiscates and smashes the camera of an American reporter because he thinks the reporter has captured his image. This incident, which may feel assaultive to the audience imagining itself behind the other camera, the movie camera, testifies not only to differences in religious belief, East and West, but also to a historical moment of technological intervention: the moment when the image of T.E. Lawrence, dressed in the flowing skirts of an Arab prince, captured the imagination of the newspaper-reading public.
