VOL. CLXXV NO.83
SUNNY HIGH 53 LOW 38
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018
State to vote on constitutional amendments
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Indigenous Peoples’ Week celebrates community
By Andrew Culver The Dartmouth
OPINION
FREEMAN: THE EFFECT OF VISUALIZATION PAGE 4
MALBREAUX: ‘MAKE KANYE 2005 AGAIN’ PAGE 4
ARTS
‘IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE CITY’ CAPTURES THE ESSENCE OF CAIRO PAGE 7
REVIEW: IAN MCKELLEN BLURS REALITY AND FICTION IN ‘KING LEAR’ PAGE 8 FOLLOW US ON
TWITTER @thedartmouth COPYRIGHT © 2018 THE DARTMOUTH, INC.
Taxpayer rights and individual privacy are on the ballot this November. In addition to electing local, state and federal r e p r e s e n t a t i ve s, N e w Hampshire voters will have the chance to approve two new amendments to the state constitution. Question 1 would amend the constitution to allow any registered voter to sue the state over alleged misuse of taxpayer dollars, and Question 2 would add language to the document establishing the right of all individuals to “live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information.” Specifically, Question 1 will amend Article 8 of the state constitution so that any taxpayer is able to sue when “public funds” are used “in violation of a law, ordinance,
or constitutional provision.” The proposed text stipulates that “the taxpayer shall not have to demonstrate that his or her personal rights were impaired or prejudiced beyond his or her status as a taxpayer” in order to establish standing for the suit. T he amendment, which passed the New Hampshire House of Representatives with a vote of 309-73 and the New Hampshire Senate 22-2, comes after the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that Bill Duncan, a former member of the New Hampshire State Board of Education, had no standing to challenge a new set of education tax credits on the grounds that Duncan could not SEE CONSTITUTION PAGE 2
SARAH ALPERT/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Students marched in protest of Colombus Day, celebrating indigenous culture and heritage.
B y Jennie Rhodes The Dartmouth Staff
On Oct. 8, the Native A mer ican Prog ram at Dar t mout h k icked of f a week-long celebrat ion of the Indigenous community on campus, beginning with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a nation-wide holiday that initially began in 1992 as a counter- celebrat ion to Columbus Day. “It is a day to recognize
our political right to speak and support our cause,” Ty Fierce Metteba ’20 said. “ Da r t mout h ha s a long history with Natives. It’s good we get to encourage one another that we are still here.” Metteba said he believes D a r t m o ut h’s w e e k- l o n g celebrat ion of its Nat ive communit y members prov ides v isibi l it y to Indigenous communities on campus.
The week began with the lighting of a bonfire, which burned for the duration of the week, according to Selena Neptune-Bear ’20. On the eve of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the Nat ive c om mu n it y c h a l ke d t he sidewalk and then proceeded to the Green at midnight, accord ing to Nept uneBear. She added that for the duration of the night, SEE INDIGENOUS PAGE 2
Biathalon Club joins DOC Researchers link video games and aggression
B y graYce gibbs The Dartmouth
T h i s fa l l , a new club will join the wide range of Dartmouth Outing Club activities: the Biathlon Club. Not to be confused with a triathlon, a biathlon combines cross-country skiing with accuracy rifle shooting. In a typical biathlon, competitors will crosscountry ski a certain
distance, then stop and use rifles they have been carrying on their back to shoot at targets. If they hit the target, they resume skiing, but if they miss, a penalty distance is added to their ski route. Though uncommon at the collegiate level, the modern-day biathlon has been part of the Winter Olympics since 1960. Biathlon Club leaders Steven Hadley ’21 and Nolan Sankey ’21 got the
idea to start a biathlon c lub at Da r t mout h while watching the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, according to Sankey. “We thought that it was a really cool event and would be a lot of fun to participate in,” Sankey said. “Looking at Dartmouth and our outdoor campus, we thought there could be a space for it here. Even SEE CLUB PAGE 3
B y SAVANNAH ELLER The Dartmouth Staff
Parents may need to better monitor children who enjoy playing violent video games. A recently published meta study by Dartmouth researchers found a statistically significant link between playing violent video games and adolescent aggression. The study analyzed previous research on the subject in the hopes of offering
definitive evidence that violent video game play can increase aggressive tendencies in teens. The study analyzes a group of 24 experimental studies from around the world with over 17,000 participants. By comparing the results of the studies, the researchers found an increase in overt physical aggression with violent video game play, according SEE GAMES PAGE 3
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018
THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Native students celebrate community FROM INDIGENOUS PAGE 1
members of the Native community bonded with cider and donuts. In previous years, events such as f ilm screenings, meals and workshops were held in celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Week. On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Rachel Hobart, a graduate student, and Metteba gave speeches on the Collis Patio. Metteba said he began his speech by reciting the quote, “If you don’t have to mind or consider today, that shows the level of privilege you’re coming from.” Metteba said that his speech focused on encouraging the Native community. “It is a miracle to think that there are so many Natives alive today,” he said. “It is a beautiful thing. Every Native [who] makes it into a white-dominated space is a victory against colonialism.” A 15-minute silent protest of Columbus Day followed Hobart and Metteba’s two speeches. “[The day] raises awareness that Columbus doesn’t actually symbolize a great American hero,” Metteba said. “We use his holiday to raise awareness of what the day represents — genocide and colonization.” This celebration of indigenous culture also coincides with the C ol leg e’s I nd i g enou s F ly- I n Program for prospective students. P rospect ive st udent s get t he opportunity visit the College, become familiar with the Native c om mu n it y on c a mpu s a nd partake in events as if they were enrolled Dartmouth students, according to Joshua Olin ’21. “They get to experience the multiple events that take place during a regular week, like baking a nd bond i ng at t he [ Nat ive American House] to Indigenous People’s Day, our biggest event,” Olin said. Neptune-Bear said she believes t he most i mpor t a nt pa r t of Indigenous Peoples’ Day is the community coming together to feel connected to the Native culture and feel less homesick. “Coming from a reservation,
it’s a culture shock to come to a white-dominated space [in] a white-washed institution,” she said. “We come together as [a] community and are proud of our culture.” Last year, the event changed its name from Native American Heritage Week to Indigenous Peoples’ Week to include other Indigenous communities’ voices, including the Native Hawaiians, according to Neptune-Bear. “Columbus Day contributes to erasure. Protests can make our presence known on campus,” she said. “[They are] an attempt to combat the [erasure] and let the campus know we are still here. We care and are proud to be here.” Metteba said that Dartmouth’s campus is built on the lands of the Abenaki, a Native American tribe originally from northeastern North America. The College was originally intended to educate the Native American population of New Hampshire. Since its found ing, nearly 70 0 Nat ive students have attended the College, representing over 200 tribes — more than at all other members of the Ivy League combined. “The Nat ive A mer ican Program here is bigger than anywhere else,” Olin said. “It’s a real establishment. Most other schools don’t have that platform for Natives. I know a lot of Native students choose to come here because of the vibrant, lively community.” However, Metteba sa id he believes the College still needs more of a balance between the Native community and the rest of campus. “Given that the charter [of the College] was to assimilate the Natives into the College, we need to redefine what that means,” he said. “There must be a balance of our culture with white colonization.” Metteba added that Indigenous Peoples’ Day helps inform the campus that the Native community has a strong support system and preser ves t he ident it y of t he community on campus. “Our existence is resistance,” he said.
CORRECTIONS Correction appended (Oct. 12, 2018): This article has been updated to correctly identify Asch’s family friend as Sarah Rose, not Sarah Roberts. It has also been updated to provide the correct title for executive director of Chabad Rabbi Moshe Gray. We welcome corrections. If you believe there is a factual error in a story, please email editor@thedartmouth.com.
Taxpayer rights and privacy on ballot FROM CONSTITUTION PAGE 1
prove personal injury. The decision struck down a 2012 amendment to state law allowing taxpayers to establish standing for a lawsuit without proving impairment of their personal rights. According to Duncan, shortly after the ruling, legislators began working with widespread bipartisan support to craft the “best language on which everyone could agree” for an amendment that would legitimize suits like Duncan’s. New Hampshire Representative Polly Campion said she believes that the issue covered by Question 1 is important for taxpayers. “Taxpayers need to have the ability to hold their government officials accountable for how taxpayer funds are spent,” Campion said. University of New Hampshire School of Law professor Albert Scherr said that the approval of Question 1 would be a return “to the way things used to be” before the 2014 Supreme Court ruling. “The world existed fine when there was taxpayer standing,” Scherr said. He noted that the previous existence of taxpayer standing is evidence that the proposed amendment would not create an absurd number of law suits against the state. However, Campion expressed reservations regarding the specifics of the amendment, mainly concern that the amendment, as worded, would create “a multitude of lawsuits that would end up clogging up an already over-burdened judicial system.” Despite these reservations, however, Campion said she still supports the amendment. Frivolous lawsuits, resulting in an increased burden on the judiciary, were a key component of the 2014 Supreme Court decision, according to New Hampshire Representative Mary Jane Mulligan. Question 2, which passed the House with a vote of 235-96 and the Senate 15-9 , essentially “gives a status to information privacy and the expectation of privacy one should have in their personal information,” according to Scherr, who helped New Hampshire Representative Neil Kurk draft the language of the amendment itself. Scherr added that in the digital age, where personal information exists in many locations and forms, “there is no article in the New Hampshire constitution that directly takes on information privacy.” Part 1, Article 19, the essential equivalent of the United States Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, protects against unreasonable search and seizure, but Scherr said that this
most often applies to “locations, places and physical items” rather than information. Scherr noted that in today’s society, with information existing in many forms online, in medical records and in our DNA, information is accessible in ways never imagined when the New Hampshire Constitution was written in 1784. As described in a one pager arguing for the importance of Question 2 provided in an email from Kurk, the United States Supreme Court has established a two-part test to determine whether personal information can be seized by the government. In order for an individual’s privacy to be protected, the individual must first demonstrate an expectation of privacy — like closing a door — to show that privacy is desired, and this expectation of privacy must be “reasonable.” However, Kurk’s document argues that courts and ordinary people often have quite different definitions of “reasonable.” As stated at the end of Kurk’s document, the amendment aims to establish ordinary people’s expectation of privacy as “the norm, not the exception.” However, this same sweeping protection of privacy that Kurk and others cite in support of Question 2 is the very reason Campion is not supporting Question 2. “The language is so broad as to lead to real challenges and misinterpretations,” Campion said. She added that the amendment may pose challenges to government employees who deal with issues of information access on a day-to-day basis, most notably law enforcement officers and others working to maintain public safety. For instance, Campion said that the amendment could possibly prevent the Department of Motor Vehicles from asking a driver license applicant if he or she is visually impaired, potentially requiring a long and arduous process to obtain the information. Mulligan, who also opposes Question 2, agreed that the language of the amendment is too broad. H o w e v e r, C a m p i o n d i d acknowledge the importance of protecting information technology in the digital age. “Times have changed,” she said. “The constitution, as it is worded now, does not address digital information. There will be a need to address that over time.” C a m p i o n a d d e d t h at “ a constitutional amendment is a large hurdle to create” and “an even larger hurdle to undue.” She said she would be more supportive of legislation aimed at the protection of information privacy which could be changed over time to ensure it solves more problems than it creates.
Mulligan agreed, saying that the protection of privacy should be pursued in a more “step-by-step” fashion, through legislative and statutory action rather than jumping immediately to a constitutional amendment. Scherr disagreed with concerns about broadness of language. “ [ T h e c o n c e r n ove r t h e amendment’s language] is a misunderstanding of how constitutional language should be written,” he said. “The point of amendments is not to lay out specifics in great detail ... [amendments] act as statements of principle.” Scherr added that the principle is then implemented by the legislature and interpreted by the courts, which decide specific cases in light of the principle. College Democrats policy director Dean Anderson ’21 said in an email statement to The Dartmouth that the club supports both amendments. He noted the importance of privacy rights and added that citizens should have to express their opinions through the legal process. College Re publicans vice president Daniel Bring ’21 said he personally supports “any legislation which strengthens the right to privacy of private citizens and rights of taxpayers to defend from cumbersome government interferences in their finances.” He added that he believes this to be the general sentiment of other College Republican members. While both ballot measures have garnered significant bipartisan support and passed the state House and Senate, disagreement still exists over the language of the amendments. Both opponents and supporters of the amendments, including Campion, Mulligan and Scherr, have expressed concern that the ballots for this November, as printed, fail to properly inform the voter of the ways in which the actual constitution will be amended, specifically with regard to Question 1. According to Campion, the ballots show the proposed new text of the sections in question with nothing bolded or underlined to show what text would be added. While Question 2 is fairly easy for the average voter to understand, Campion said that without previous understanding of Question 1, she “would not have the ability to make sense” of the amendment with the information on the ballot. Scherr agreed, saying that “if people don’t understand it, they don’t vote for it.” Two-thirds of voters must vote “yes” to approve the amendments, meaning that unclear ballots could have an effect on voting outcomes this November, Scherr added.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018
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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
Club competes in skiing and shooting Violent video games linked to aggression FROM CLUB PAGE 1
though we really had no experience — Steven has some shooting experience [and] I had some crosscountry skiing experience — we took it as a challenge to make it happen here at Dartmouth.” This past spring, Hadley and Sankey began talking with the DOC to figure out how to get the club started, Sankey said. Working w it h DOC genera l ma nager Rory Gawler ’05 and program coordinator for student advising Andrew Crutchfield ’18, Sankey discovered that a biathlon club at the College existed about 15 years ago, but fizzled out due to lack of interest. However, much of the infrastructure for the sport still remains, including cross-country trails leading from the Oak Hill Cross Country Ski Center to the nearby Dartmouth shooting range and a set of biathlon rifles being stored in Safety and Security’s gun locker, according to Crutchfield. Crutchf ield added that the existing resources made the new club’s startup “immensely easier.” “Because it’s a club that has existed in the past, it was easier to start than some other clubs that were brand new concepts, like the recently gained surf and snowboard clubs,” DOC president John Brady ’19 said. T hough t he club has just restarted, Sankey said that there
are already several dozen people interested. With no snow to practice cross-country skiing on, Sankey said he hopes to take the club to the shooting range one or two times in the fall. He is preparing for the winter season and working on partnering with the Nordic Ski Club. Biathlon Club is hoping to do maintenance on the original biathlon trails that have become overgrown, Sankey added. “We want to be able to bring the two sports together as they were intended — to ski and then immediately go into shooting,” he said. For the moment, however, club members will be doing separate ski and shooting practices. “We look forward to a time when we can mend the two together for the full experience,” Sankey said. Nine members of the Biathlon Club attended their first event on Oct. 6, in Craftsbury, Vermont, Sankey said. In place of skiing, the race consisted of running five onekilometer laps with four shoots in between each lap. Sankey added that before the race began, a group of Olympic and experienced biathletes led a shooting clinic. “It was a good way to start off the Biathlon Club,” Sankey said. “The majority of us had never shot biathlon before, and a decent number of us had never shot before [at all]. I went into the competition
hoping it would be fun and a great introduction for a lot of individuals, but we also had some fairly successful results.” Gracie Durham ’21 said that while she signed up for the race “on a whim,” it turned out to be a “fun experience” for her. “I had never shot before, so I ended up missing over half the shots and taking a lot of extra penalty laps,” Durham said. “Other than that, I had a really good time.” Benjamin Alford ’22 placed in third place in the novice category. “This was much bigger than any of the races I had been to before,” Alford said. “It was really fun being around that many people and there was a lot of energy. I’m excited to see where the club will go.” The first Dartmouth Biathlon Club was created in 1980. The club competed in races in northeastern U.S. and a few club members even qualified to compete in the 1983 World Universiade competition in Sofia, Bulgaria. According to Crutchfield, the last time the club existed was around 15 years ago. “If there’s a lot of interest in a club being formed or continuing, it will start and continue, but if the interest dies down or not many students are interested, it’s not necessarily worth continuing,” Crutchfield said. “We always keep in mind that, like the Biathlon Club right now, it can always be started up again if another student wants to start it up again.”
COURTESY OF BIATHALON CLUB
Steven Hadley ’21 and Nolan Sankey ’21 started the biathalon club, combining cross-country skiing and shooting.
FROM GAMES PAGE 1
to lead researcher and psychological and brain sciences professor Jay Hull. “Essentially, we supported conclusions that people have drawn for quite a while — that violent video game play seems to be associated with increases in aggression,” Hull said. The meta-analysis differs from previous studies on violent video games. According to Hull, the study was compiled to refute specific criticisms of recent research on the topic. The analysis addresses three criticisms of the conclusion that violent video games can increase adolescent aggression. First, the researchers addressed concerns about studies that only record small, lab-generated measures of aggression without proof of realworld behavioral changes. To refute this criticism, the Dartmouth study limited the scope of its analysis to studies that evaluate overt, physical manifestations of aggression in the real word. Examples included the frequency of hitting non-family members and getting sent to the principal’s office. The researchers also only looked at experimental studies that examined the effects of co-variants like gender on the aggression documented. This addressed recent critiques that have noted that violent video game studies often ignore such factors. By comparing results with and without the consideration of co-variants, the study found that the change in documented aggression is negligible. “What we found is they don’t lead to much, and the effect that’s still there is statistically significant,” Hull said. Lastly, the study countered faultfinding that reasoned that studies on the topic with positive results were more likely to be published in scientific journals than those that came out with null effects. To test this theory, the researchers compared a theoretical model created for the study to actual published results. The comparison convinced them that no such bias existed. “We found a nice, nor mal distribution of effects,” Hull said. Hull coauthored the study with two other researchers, Anna Prescott A&S’16, a graduate student at the time, and psychological and brain sciences professor Jim Sargent. Sargent said he was intrigued by the research and its possible implications for childhood wellbeing, noting that even a small effect on a
child’s level of aggression could be the tipping point for delinquent or dangerous aggressive behavior. “This is the kind of effect that can bring you over the edge,” Sargent said. Hull said he hopes the results of the study will convince others that violent video games do have a measurable negative affect on behavior. He added that the questions researchers should now be facing are ones of causation. “It’s time to move beyond the question of, ‘Does an association exist?’” he said. “Clearly, an association exists. It’s time to basically seriously address the mechanisms responsible for these effects.” Hull has been working on research that examines the causes of increased aggression, including analyzing different video games to discover what themes and game features contribute most to behavioral changes. A 2014 study coauthored by Hull examined the relationship between negative behavioral changes and three popular video games: “Grand Theft Auto III,” “Manhunt” and “Spiderman 2.” However, many who accept the connection between virtual violence and real-world aggression do not consider violent games the cause of aggression, but rather a manifestation of inherent tendencies and preferences among developing children. Hull refers to this as the “bad seed” hypothesis. Ivan Duong ’19, Dartmouth Super Smash Bros Club event organizer, said he subscribes to the “bad seed” theory. According to Duong, he started playing what he considers violent games around the age of 9. “I think it does depend on the person,” he said. “Their baseline level of aggression does matter a lot.” To counter the “bad seed” theory, Hull pointed to a recent experimental study that compared children who minimized their interaction with violent media to those who continued consumption at the same rate. The study found that decreased exposure to violent media can produce a decrease in aggressive tendencies. Hull also noted the ethical difficulty of conducting experiments with adolescents. He said that this makes it difficult for a study to be purely experimental. Ultimately, Sargent said he hopes the study will provoke more research. “We’re exposing kids to these games before we really understand the risks and benefits,” he said.
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THE DARTMOUTH OPINION
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018
STAFF COLUMNIST JILLIAN FREEMAN ‘21
STAFF COLUMNIST TYLER MALBREAUX ‘20
The Effect of Visualization
‘Make Kanye 2005 Again’
Actions and opinions must reflect one’s values.
As a child, I always pictured sayings in my head. When people claimed something was the “best thing since sliced bread,” I’d picture sandwiches being made between two huge half-loaves. For some reason, “break a leg” was a chair, lopsided due to a snapped leg. But a more significant phrase had a very specific picture, and it was one I had to face in many important moments of my life. The phrase was “let it go,” and the picture was a small girl hanging off the edge of a cliff. This image, and the idea of letting go that it created in my mind, caused me to hang on to many things throughout my childhood and into my young adult life. I felt stuck in lifestyles I no longer wanted: I held on to ideas that I no longer believed in; and I was left confused when my thought process matured, but my actions did not follow. I saw letting go of anything as a purely negative decision. There was no turning back, and no predictable outcomes. Letting go was a loss of much more than whatever was being released. I continued to support beliefs and values that I had grown out of, for fear of losing my idea of myself in the process. This caused me to become complacent in the progression of my opinions and concerns, a complacency that stuck painfully with me as I entered Dartmouth. I strived to retain as much of who I had been in high school as I could, even though I had fully outgrown her. Holding me back was the fall off the cliff, and to what? When I look back now, I don’t know what I was scared of falling into. That which scared me most could have been that I couldn’t see below the drop. If I didn’t know exactly who I’d be without these things, where I’d fall when I departed from the edge of the peak, why change? Why stop doing the things that I felt defined me, the things that were normal and natural? I decided not to let go. I would not allow myself to fall to an unknowable result. Throughout my first year at Dartmouth, I struggled with defining my priorities. I had aspirations for myself that I could not achieve if I continued to concentrate on old habits and old values, but whenever I came close to change I remembered falling off the cliff. I convinced myself that I would keep everything and still succeed: I would expand my horizons academically while still holding on to the high school girl with whom I had become so comfortable. My persuasion did not get me far. As my
struggle started to affect my academics and my relationship with those closest to me, I realized that something had to give. I was stuck between a life and personality I had loved, and a new world showing me the person I wanted to become. To this day, I remember the exact moment I gained clarity in this inner conflict. Speaking with a close friend about indecisiveness, she said to me: “People need to let things go. It weighs them down.” Weighed down? I was confused. I pictured the girl holding on to the side of a mountain, and added a heavy bag to her back –– this still didn’t make sense. I drew a blank, and a new thought popped into my mind. I was walking down a hallway, holding way too many books. I had taken more than I could carry out of my middle school locker, and I wasn’t sure how I would make it to class with it all. As I turned a corner, I tripped, and the books came tumbling out of my arms and on to the ground. I was surprised when I felt relief as I looked upon the mess. I had let them go. Although I did have a rather large mess on my hands, it was manageable. I realized that letting go wasn’t about losing my life, my identity or my sense of place in this world. Letting go meant easing the weight I was holding in my hands. After my realization, I was able to do this for the first time by allowing myself to pick apart each “priority” I thought I had –– and if it turned out I didn’t value it, I finally let it go. This enabled my opinions and actions to become what I believed, unaffected by what the people around me thought or valued. More importantly, as my beliefs progressed, my actions and opinions followed. What one values directly influences the opinions they form, and they must be open to changing these values –– and, in turn, opinions –– as they hear new facts. One should not support ideologies that they don’t think are true or right, simply because of their political or personal identity; and this can only occur when one does not examine the reasoning behind their values. Or, in my case, when they are too afraid to let them go. However, there is never a reason to be afraid of letting go of beliefs or habits, because one is not defined by the things they prioritize. Rather, one is defined by what they believe is true or right. Through self-examination, their actions will always reflect this.
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ISSUE
NEWS LAYOUT: Claudia Bernstein, Kyle Mullins, Cassie Thomas
SUBMISSIONS: We welcome letters and guest columns. All submissions must include the author’s name and affiliation with Dartmouth
College, and should not exceed 250 words for letters or 700 words for columns. The Dartmouth reserves the right to edit all material before publication. All material submitted becomes property of The Dartmouth. Please email submissions to editor@thedartmouth.com.
He was a respected icon. Then Trump happened.
Reporters were treated to a one-of-a-kind However, I distinctly remember my parents’ show in the Oval Office this past Thursday. gasp. Then, there was a pregnant pause, While it may have been sloppy journalism, as the camera panned over to a speechless the White House spectacle did not fail to Chris Tucker, with microphone in hand cover a wide range of important topics: and script ready. That pregnant pause said everything from stop-and-frisk, Chicago and a lot. While Kanye himself was ineloquent, Larry Hoover, to manufacturing, Foxconn there was an unspoken accordance with the and hydrogen-powered airplanes. spirit of his words. One that couldn’t quite All with commentary provided by self- be articulated. proclaimed experts and activists. There was All of this is to say that 2005 Kanye was Jim Brown, the NFL Hall of Famer turned still the attention-grabbing, media-savvy civil rights activist, who calls himself an raconteur he still is today. The difference American first and believes players should now is that, while he claims to be an stand for the national anthem. There was independent “free-thinker,” the truth is Kanye West, a celebrity salivating for that he is being used by President Trump. attention, who never fails to sell himself in His summit at the White House serves to the presence of cameras and microphones. legitimize Trump’s own nefarious political And of course, there was President Donald agenda in the black community, by casting Trump, who, for the first time in two years, a black man who obsequiously agrees with was at a loss for words. him. Kanye embraces Wa t c h i n g t h e “All of this is to say that Trump as someone he highlights of this episode 2005 Kanye was still “loves.” He denounces brings to mind memories the attention-grabbing, the supposed reality of 2005. My family and media-savvy raconteur that many black people I were watching the he still is today. The live on a “Democratic aftermath of Hurricane plantation” chained to difference now is that, Katrina. I sat on the the idea of “victimized” wooden floor of my while he claims to be and “welfare” mentality. parents’ house, some an independent “freeYet Trump has called two hours west of New thinker” the truth is those white nationalists Orleans. Our power had that he is being used by in Charlottesville blacked out for some President Trump.” “fine people,” and has days, but we were spared supported failed stopthe worst of the storm. and-frisk policies that The sandbags guarding the front door had target already over-policed communities. done their job. As Charles Blow writes for The New York Meanwhile, in New Orleans, entire homes Times, “The spectacle was watching Trump were drowned, save for the rooftops. In the pretend to care about remedying a problem following days, then-Governor Kathleen that he is consciously continuing to not only Blanco held televised press conferences cheer but worsen.” on relief efforts with FEMA authorities. But Kanye’s role as perverse pitchman Helicopters filmed National Guardsmen for the White House trying to neatly descending into the sunken city in life boats. package and sell harmful policy to black And then, a “Concert for Hurricane folks is nothing new in the world of politics. Relief ” aired on NBC. Actors and musicians Nadifa Mohamed writes in The Guardian pledged to donate money to the Red Cross about Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born and pleaded the public to do the same. American, a woman lauded by the political And then there was Kanye. “George Bush right and former fellow at the conservative doesn’t care about black people.” Those American Enterprise Institute. A selfseven words stole the show. Producers could proclaimed feminist, Mohamed writes that not cut away in time. Everyone had heard she “conveniently sidestepped her former it. Then-President George W. Bush would feminist convictions to support Brett later call this moment, the celebrity accusing Kavanagh’s nomination to the U.S. supreme him of racism, the worst of his presidency court.” Such tactics are also employed (ostensibly, worse than Katrina’s death toll abroad. Mona Walter, a Somali-born of nearly 2,000). Swedish activist, condemned the election There was a subtle, palpable truth to of a fellow Somali migrant, Swedish MP Kanye’s words that those living in New Laila Ali Elmi. Walter, herself a former Orleans felt. A key levee breech occurred Muslim, denounced Elmi on the grounds in the city’s Lower Ninth Ward, a majority- that her election would bring Sweden one black neighborhood, with one of the highest step closer to a complete “Muslim takeover rates of black homeownership in the country. of the country.” And media coverage in the aftermath treated It would be a mistake to dismiss Kanye as blacks unfairly. The Associated Press showed an aberration. His words are consequential, a black man trudging through water after and he has the platform — and now, the “looting” a local store for groceries, while political agency — to back it up. While a white man was only “finding bread.” it is unclear how this will all play out, the Kanye even noted the discrepancy American people, particularly black people, during his primetime spot on the telethon. must remain vigilant, so as to not be fooled by Watching this unfold on my living room floor, the grand show of faux friendship between I couldn’t grasp what was happening, exactly. Kanye and Trump.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018
Q&A with math professor Sergi Elizalde B y ARIELLE BEAK The Dartmouth
Sergi Elizalde is a math professor whose research focuses on enumerative and algebraic combinatorics. He came to the College in 2005 as a postdoctoral fellow and was hired as a professor in 2007. Elizalde is currently the East Wheelock house professor. He lives on campus with his wife and two children. Can you briefly discuss your background and how you became interested in your field? SE: I grew up in Spain, and when I was taking math classes there, I always liked math and I thought it was easier than other subjects. When I was in high school, there was this competition called the Math Olympiad, and I went to that and I did well, so then I went to the International Olympiad. I realized that it was something where I was better than some other people, so then I decided to apply to college in math. So the way it works in Spain, and I guess most European countries, you choose your major before you start. Math was actually even better in college because you learn why things are true, to prove things and to deduce other things. I also like how it’s sometimes like solving puzzles. It’s something I like doing, and even if I wasn’t paid for it, the fact that some of these “puzzles” are problems that people are interested in and have applications to other areas, I find fascinating. I can be doing something that I enjoy doing and also solving questions that other people care about. W hat are you currently researching at Dartmouth? SE: My field is called combinatorics. Combinatorics is about studying discrete structures you can count, so usually there’s a finite number of ways to do something and you count the number of ways it can be done. Some of my research is about DNA sequence alignment — there’s a lot of math in combinatorics behind DNA sequence alignment. I was able to use some math tools from probability to create what’s called a “Markov chain” that describes the evolution of a random cell in the model. We have written two papers already and we are working on another one. Some of my research is more in pure math, like combinatorics problems that aren’t directly related to biology necessarily, but this particular project right now is coming from biology. It’s something that cancer biologists really care about. How has your experience been as the house professor of East Wheelock House? SE: This is my fifth year [as a house professor]. Even before the house communities started, I already lived in this house, and the position was
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THE DARTMOUTH NEWS
DARTMOUTH HEROES ASSEMBLE FOR THE CHAD
called faculty director of the East Wheelock cluster. East Wheelock already functioned very much like a house community with a difference that you had to apply — now it’s randomized. My position transitioned into house professor, and it’s been great. It’s been a lot of fun to interact with students, organize events and host dinners with faculty and artists. Now that the house communities have been going on for a couple of years, the students are getting more involved. Actually most of the events we do now come from students, and I just supervise them a little bit. How has your experience been living in such close proximity to the school and raising your young children on campus? SE: I have two kids, who are 9 and 3. My older one is at a public school in Hanover and my younger one is at Dartmouth daycare. They love having students around and will ask me when the next event will be. They know some of the students well so when they see them outside, they go out and play with them. It’s convenient for me to just walk to the math department, as it is very close by. I get to see students all the time through the window or when I go to the front porch. What is your favorite part of your work here at Dartmouth? SE: I feel the College has a lot of resources. For example, with the Formal Power Series & Algebraic Combinatorics conference I was asked to organize, the College helped a lot. I was able to apply for money from the College, which made the event run very smoothly. The school is very supportive. I feel the students are also very talented and motivated and it’s a great place to teach. I like the location too, and it’s such a nice place to raise kids. Whatisacommonmisconception people have about the field of mathematics? SE: Sometimes people think it’s either not very useful or they think it’s just computing the tip at a restaurant. When I’m with friends who are not in math and we have to compute the tip, they will be like, “Oh Sergi, you should be good at this,” but I don’t think I’m any better at computing a tip than people who don’t do math. It’s really not what we do — it’s not like we’re computing things in our heads and doing calculations. It’s more like abstract thinking and coming up with new ways to do something, so it’s very creative and not just applying a formula. That’s partly also why I like math research — you have to come up with new ideas all the time to solve problems no one has solved before. It’s the opposite of being repetitive.
MICHAEL LIN/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Runners gathered on the Green Sunday morning before the races began.
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DARTMOUTHEVENTS
THE DARTMOUTH EVENTS
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018
THE CAMPUS COLD
CECILIA MORIN ’21
TODAY
5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Lecture: “Corporate Political Influence and the Chinese Air Pollution Challenge,” with Villanova University professor Deborah Seligsohn, sponsored by Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society, Life Sciences Center 200
5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Gallery: “#MeToo: Assessing the Impact,” sponsored by women’s gender and sexuality studies, Kappa Delta Epsilson Sorority House
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Game: Big Green v. Lehigh Mountain Hawks, Burnham Field
TOMORROW
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Town Hall with executive vice president Rick Mills, sponsored by Office of the Executive Vice President, Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts
3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Visit with Winston the Therapy Dog, sponsored by Student Wellness Center, House Center B
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m
Panel: “Global Iterations of #MeToo,” sponsored by women’s gender and sexuality studies, One Wheelock
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018
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THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
Review: Ian McKellen blurs reality and fiction in ‘King Lear’ By WILLem GERRISH The Dartmouth
One of my fondest memories of my senior year of high school is when my English class read, performed and studied William Shakespeare’s epic tragedy “King Lear.” At that time, the play captivated me with its stark and honest portrayal of human fallibility and tragic loss and it quickly became one of my favorite works of literature. Naturally, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to watch legendary British actor Ian McKellen star as the titular Lear in a performance broadcast live from London to the Black Family Visual Arts Center this past Sunday evening. This particular performance of “King Lear” was put on by the Chichester Festival Theatre group at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London. It is McKellen’s second shot at playing the complex and tortured Lear, and though I have never seen his first attempt, it’s hard to imagine it being quite as viscerally real and powerful as in this production of “King Lear.” McKellen’s performance is a work of dynamic genius. He plays the part with a nuanced and organic blend of haughtiness, humor, madness and devastation, and the result is a Lear in whom we can all find familiarities, whether it be with ourselves or with
those we know and love. I, for one, was reminded of my own maternal grandfather, and the connection brought me even closer to the character and made him come alive both on the screen and in the context of my own life. I think that one of McKellen’s greatest touches upon the character of Lear is his use of humor. At the start of the play, his Lear is an angry curmudgeon spurning his daughter and advisor alike, but he also has a certain degree of churlish playfulness that builds sympathy and affection from the viewers. His acts of revelry with his band of knights are debaucherous and humorous and his playful banter with the Fool shows that he doesn’t take himself so seriously as one might imagine. These moments give us flashes of a Lear who once had his days of joy and youth in years past, and it makes the character all the more complex and fully realized. And yet the dramatic scenes are still the most affecting, and McKellen handles these with courage, intensity and pure, raw emotion. During Lear’s culminating speech before he runs angrily out into the raging storm, McKellen follows the progression from rancor and derision to tragedy and madness with startling naturality and ease. He begins with a riotous delivery
of the famous opening line, “O, reason, not the need!” and concludes with a heartfelt and profound utterance of its starkly beautiful conclusion: “…but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I’ll weep. — O Fool, I shall go mad!” It’s followed by a prolonged pause so full of emotional tension that you can feel its effects seeping through everyone bearing witness, characters and viewers alike. While McKellen’s incredible performance is certainly the main draw and spectacle of this production of “King Lear,” it is by no means the only boon to its success. The rest of the cast is talented and impressive, with particular highlights being Danny Webb as the Earl of Gloucester and Kirsty Bushell as Lear’s middle daughter, Regan. Bushell’s performance is remarkable for its unbridled and diabolical evilness, creating a version of Regan that is especially terrifying and villainous. She comes across as scheming, violent, sexually devious and borderlinemasochistic; a perfect villain in this Shakespearean world of passion and vice. Stylistically, director Jonathan Munby transports the play from 8th century Britain to the modern day, and by and large I found this change to be welcome and effective, if somewhat superfluous. Munby leaves the entirety
of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English intact but changes the backdrops and costumes to fit a contemporary vision, and in doing so he brings the universal themes of this centuries-old play into the immediacy of the present day. It’s a subtle change that hardly alters the play’s essence and effect, but it does make it slightly more relevant and relatable. In many instances, though, the modernity of the play’s setting fades from consideration as the sheer power of Shakespeare’s words consumes the viewers’ experience. Beyond the physical implements of costume and set design, the play’s production value as a whole is rich and engrossing. From the dramatic music and lighting during transitional scenes to the unfettered use of blood during the play’s violent moments, this performance is aurally and visually captivating alongside its requisite emotional and dramatic significance. I was particularly awestruck by Munby’s intense and gripping rendition of the infamous eye-gouging scene at the end of Act III. He pulls no punches in depicting this gruesome act of torture with uncensored blood and gore, and as a result it comes alive with horror and drama. Munby also sets the scene in the eerie confines of a slaughterhouse, complete with bloody animal carcasses hanging
in the background. This dark and foreboding set is a perfect backdrop to the horrifying actions depicted, and it’s hard not to feel the sheer intensity as the Duke of Cornwall screams “Out, vile jelly!” and uses a meat hook to gouge out the eyes of the old and helpless Earl of Gloucester. It is a strikingly realistic and violent portrayal that draws viewers even deeper into the terrifying realities of this tragic play. By the end of the near four-hour performance, I was left floored by the immense emotional and philosophical weight of this grand and complex play. Munby has taken the infamously difficult source text and presented it with verve and aplomb, and the result is a production replete with captivating gravitas and enduring passion. And at its center is the incomparable Ian McKellen, tackling the role of King Lear as only an aging dramatic legend is capable. McKellen is 79 years old, nearly the same age as Lear, and there’s something in his eyes as he plays the part that tells me the work’s treatments of human error and regret in old age are the most real and pertinent they’ve ever been for him. Perhaps that is exactly what makes him such a revelatory presence on stage: the line between fiction and reality breaks down as McKellen is not so much playing King Lear as becoming him.
Review: ‘The Front Runner’ asks about the cost of accountability By MIA NELSON The Dartmouth
“The Front Runner,” directed by Jason Reitman of “Juno,” “Up in the Air” and “Tully,” stars Hugh Jackman as U.S. senator Gary Hart during the final three weeks of his 1988 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. The movie seeks to present the campaign, which is derailed by the reporting of Hart’s affair with Donna Rice (Sara Paxton), as a turning point in our nation’s political sphere wherein a candidate’s personal life is used as a litmus test for their governing ability. Reitman is decidedly on a soapbox, but he does not have a clear stance on whether or not we are better for the investigative reporting that brings cameras into bedrooms and back alleys. There are points where Reitman displays the cruelty of such reporting, as with Rice’s wide, teary eyes as she naively asks if her parents will find out about the affair, or through the suffering of Lee Hart (Vera Farmiga) when her husband’s affair becomes a household obsession. But there are moments when Reitman’s screenplay (which was co-written by Matt Bai and Jay Carson) seems to instruct the audience on the necessity of such cruelty by having one female reporter claim,“He is a man with power, and that takes certain responsibility.” It’s up to the viewer to decide whether
this responsibility is on the newspaper to report what Hart calls “sleaze and gossip,” or on the politician to be of resolute morals. My own opinion of the balance between personal and public life continues to oscillate. There are actions that decidedly make someone unfit for a position of power — sexual assault, prejudice, perjury and anything criminal — and I hope that the media seeks to fulfill its watchdog duties in those respects. But I also believe that reporting too closely on a politician’s private life, even in benign ways such as reporting on Joe Biden’s obsession with ice cream, dilutes our understanding of what we are fighting for and about in this country. During the movie, Jackman explodes at his aides, claiming that his aversion to capitulate to the media and get ahead of the story is based on his belief in the “sanctity of [the election] process.” He claims he simply does not believe his personal life should be included in the story of his bid, and that his story is instead one of progressive ideals, not rumors. Jackman is able to adroitly portray Hart as a man who could plausibly believe in a lofty principle such as issues-first campaigning. And indeed, the press from the Miami Herald are depicted as bum bling, g ras ping and unprofessional. They ambush Hart in his alley after falling asleep during
their stakeout, missing whether or not Hart’s alleged mistress left during the day or was still inside. The integrity of their reconnaissance is also damaged as they didn’t realize there was a back door to Hart’s D.C. home. Their journalism is half-baked and sloppily done, a story rushed for headlines and punchiness. The Miami Herald publishes the story to great national intrigue, not bothering to fact check. The article receives a degree of mockery, but later, in the fast talking room of the Washington Post, the editors decide to investigate further and publish an expose on the affair. One young reporter (Mamoudou Athie), who had become close with Hart on the campaign trail, interrupts the gaggle of senior reporters and says, “Just because some other paper uses gossip as front page news doesn’t mean we have to.” The screenplay attempts to delineate the “before” and “after” of journalistic ethos — from when newspapers and the public kindly turned a blind eye to the indiscretions of politicians and public figures to after the Hart campaign, where we became obsessed with the private lives of those with power. The “after” is clearly defined when the Washington Post’s editor tells Athie’s character that “it does [mean we have to report the story]; it does now.” Athie is characterized as a man with morals, while the editors and
the reporters from the Miami Herald are presented as power-hungry and slovenly in their desire for the story. Athie gets screen time devoted to the intricate character building — such as a bout of nervousness in airplane turbulence — that Reitman uses to demonstrate Athie is a person first, reporter second. It is clear that Reitman prefers this kind of journalist to the undeveloped characters of the Miami Herald, whose only given personality traits seem to be a rabid hunger for “gotcha” moments. But what do we owe to those in dogged pursuit of truth? Aren’t our secrets as dirty and disheveled and embarrassing as the reporter’s conduct during the investigation? I see Reitman’s decision for the ill-preparedness of the Herald reporters as a parallel to the public’s ill-preparedness to hold men and women of power accountable without the admittedly dirty work of investigative reporting. That Hart was a progressive with progressive values gives nuance to the story, as the movie claims Hart would have likely been both the Democratic Party’s nominee as well as highly competitive against the Republican nominee. We are led to believe that Hart might very well have been president over George H.W. Bush if the sex scandal with Rice had not occurred or not been reported on.
But neither the audience nor Reitman is prophetic; we can never know how the hope and promise of the Hart campaign would have stood independent of the story. The only thing we can decide on is whether or not we are better off in the “after,” where a candidate’s suitability for office is intertwined with their disposition. We must also decide if the obsession with the minutia of our public figures’ private lives has desensitized us from truly disqualifying acts, and thus caused us to fail (and fail again) in the voting booths, in the halls of the senate and behind the cameras of the world’s most important publications. Coming away from this film, audiences will have to grapple with their stance on a politician’s ability to have a private life. In the case of Gary Hart, the true victims were not him and his political career but his wife and daughter who bore the brunt of the judgement from the public. With Reitman’s sympathetic direction toward Lee Hart and her daughter, the audience is forced to consider the trade-off of assessing the moral character of our leaders at the expense of the innocent peripheral characters. What we do with our ability to hold public figures accountable is still unfolding, but I’d like to hope that in the here and hereafter, we will do something with it.
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018
THE DARTMOUTH ARTS
‘In the Last Days of the City’ captures the essence of Cairo By MADISON WILSON The Dartmouth
Is it possible to capture the essence of a city in a film? Director Tamer El Said’s film “In the Last Days of the City” attempts to do just that. The film was shown at the Lowe Auditorium in the Black Family Visual Arts Center this past Saturday after an introduction by professor Tarek El-Ariss, Middle Eastern Studies department chair, and a preface by director Tamer El Said. Following the film, the two held a Q&A for the audience. “In the Last Days of the City” started shooting in 2008 but was not released until eight years later in 2016, to wide international acclaim. The film follows protagonist Khalid, a filmmaker in the middle of an allconsuming documentary project, in his home city of Cairo. Khalid struggles with many problems in his personal life: he needs a new apartment, his mother is in the hospital for an unknown ailment, and the love of his life is leaving Egypt and ignores his calls. His three best friends, other filmmakers living in Beirut, Baghdad and Berlin, respectively, send him footage of their home cities to help him finish his own project on Cairo. These friendships underpin the relationship Cairo has
with other cities in the Middle East and beyond. “Cities are not insular, are not selfcontained,” El-Ariss said. “They are connected to other cities both in the Middle East and outside the Middle East.” However, the city, not the actors, is the main character, and character drama takes a side seat to the action of the city. Through centering the film on the life of just one man, El Said makes Cairo real to the viewer by exemplifying how the city has a tangible effect on its residents, these residents are also an integral thread in the fabric of the city itself. There is a contract between resident and city where neither can exist without the other. The film is set in the larger context of the Arab Spring. According to El Said, all the shooting occurred before the revolution in Egypt, but the editing occurred after, giving the film unique hindsight. While El Said said he wanted to stay true to the nature of Cairo at the time of shooting, there’s an unmistakable sense of political freefall and uncertainty underpinning the film. He captures Cairo on the edge of something radical — what, we are not sure, but the viewer leaves with a feeling of Egypt’s impending chaos. “It’s not a film about the
revolution,” El Said said. “It’s a film about the moment before. It was very exhausting, but also very inspiring to live [in] the moment of the revolution in reality while living [in] the moment before [the revolution] in the film. It allowed me to look at the moment of the revolution in a different way. These two moments were in dialogue, all the time.” As a resident of Cairo who lives in both Cairo and Berlin, El Said is uniquely positioned to comment on the theme of displacement. The film opens with Khalid looking for a new apartment with his clueless real estate agent. Even from the beginning, it feels unstable. Khalid doesn’t really have a home base. Later on, one of Khalid’s friends from Baghdad decides to seek political asylum in Berlin, while another friend also living in Baghdad decides to stay there, even amidst the violence. There’s an obvious moral dilemma here: to abandon your home or to stay despite the risk. While moving physically displaces a person, it also emotionally and morally displaces them as well. El Said’s film explores the meaning of home and how it shapes our identity and experience. Can a person be themselves without home? Can Khalid be himself without Cairo?
FINDING SOME PEACE AND QUIET AT SANBORN LIBRARY
ELIZABETH JANOWSKI/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
Sanborn Library provides a quiet, warm and comfortable place for students to Astudy during this rainy midterms season.
El-Ariss commented on this theme of displacement, saying that it translates across many major cities in the Middle East, connecting Cairo to places like Beirut and Baghdad. El-Ariss added that unintentionally, displacement has become the theme of much of the Middle Eastern studies department’s programming this year. Middle Eastern Studies senior lecturer El Mostafa Ouajjani also commented on this theme of displacement, explaining how some of his own students connected the same theme to the larger context of the modern Middle East. “Cairo epitomizes the Arab city. It’s deteriorating; it’s losing its identity,” Ouajjani said. “And [the students] said that the fact that Khalid in the movie was looking for an apartment [meant that] he was looking for a home; he was without identity, he doesn’t feel at home in the city.” Ouajjani believed his students that saw the film were able to draw on its central themes to contextualize not only the Egyptian uprisings and the Arab Spring, but also to gain a better understanding of Arab film and art. In this way, the film provides viewers with a political and cultural experience, as well as a sensory one. El-Ariss commented that the film is just one way that the new Middle Eastern Studies department is bringing the reality of the Middle East to Hanover. By bringing filmmakers, authors, artists and other prominent figures to campus, the department is participating in a cross-national dialogue and provides opportunities for students to do the same. “I’m very excited about showing and bringing to our classrooms, to our auditoriums, to our performance centers, events and courses, authors and filmmakers that capture the modern Middle East that is undergoing momentous political and social changes,” El-Ariss said. The film is as much a soundscape as it is a visual landscape. There’s the constant din of the city — cars honking, people yelling and street vendors selling flowers and balloons — but the real art comes in playing with volume. There are moments in the film where the background clamor lulls and we hear singing or plaintive instrumentals as Khalid enters more meditative moments, and there are other moments where Khalid is stressed and the noise of
the city is so overwhelming we almost want to cover our ears. Again, El Said creates a relationship between the Khalid and Cairo, where the city mimics the man and the man mimics the city. The two are connected in a constant conversation. Khalid’s perspective shapes his experience of Cairo as much as Cairo shapes him, and while the relationship is love-hate, it’s also central to Khalid’s identity. “The idea is to make it a Cairo experience,” El Said said. “That’s why I think watching the film on a small screen is very different. The idea is to be inside the city and feel the vibes from the city and the visuals of the city, which is only offered if you are in a dark room with a big screen.” “In the Last Days of the City” took almost a decade to produce from first shot to release, but El Said said the time was absolutely necessary. El Said grew up in Cairo and said that the film was a way to visit and reckon with his own personal history. Editing down from over 200 hours of film to less than two was a daunting task, but it allowed El Said to choose the most necessary shots, not just the best ones. El Said added that the editing process was a personal journey for him. He sees filmmaking as a way of life that allows him to discover more about himself and the city where he grew up, he said. He also commented on the necessity of discovering the film’s final form without forcing it — the process must be organic, there cannot be a path; every film has its own pace. El Said said that in the end, the film was the best version he could make it. “I learned, in the very early stages of the film, that the only way is to surrender,” El Said said. “You can’t impose something [on the film]. I had to stop myself from having an image and imposing it on the city, I did the opposite. I started with an empty head and allowed the city to produce its image, and I took it and built on it.” Ultimately, El Said had to surrender the film to Cairo itself as an entity. While fictional, “In the Last Days of the City” feels like a documentary in style and content, are the lines between fiction and reality really as strict as they seem? It’s often said that art imitates life. What if, instead, art is life and a film can be as real as a city itself ?