A Panopticon?

Cairo Station seen from a Foucauldian perspective

Aryanne Rocha
Arabic Cultural Production
Mr. Mark Sedgwick
Aarhus University

In the movie Cairo Station (1958), director Youssef Chahine depicts the station itself as a
living cell, in which life is continuously constructed and transformed through the various social
relations taking place there. In this way, the attempt of this analysis is to draw a parallel between
Foucault's main aspects of his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison and life in Cairo
Station. The general aim is to show the role played by surveillance throughout the movie and how
ultimately it enabled Hanouma to be saved from Qinawi.

Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, further analysed by Foucault, consists of a inspetion-house,

an architectural espherical building divided into cells, extending the width of the place. In the center
there is a watchtower where someone is responsible for observing the individuals in their cells but
the individals are not capable of seeing the inspector. (Foucault, 1995: 200) Bentham's central idea
is that by the feeling of being constantly watched, discipline is created with minimal effort.
Foucault adds to it by stating that this spatial unit suits different forms of institutions that needs
surveillance, such as prisons, hospitals, factories and schools, for example. By the arrengement of
the place, a state of conscious and permanent visibility assures the automatic functioning of power,
of order. (Foucault, 1995: 201)

In this regard, the first assumption that can be made is that the Cairo Station, as a locus of a
multiplicity of individuals on whom a certain type of behavious is expected is a Panopticon
(Foucault, 1995: 206). According to Foucault, a panoptic schema can be identified and it is
applicable to to all establishments whatsoever, in which, within a space not too large to be
covered or commanded by buildings, a number of persons are meant to be kept under inspection
(Bentham, 40) (1995:206). Moreover, Foucault states that:

This Panopticon, subtly arranged so that an observer

may observe, at a glance, so many different individuals,
also enables everyone to come and observe any of the
observers. (1995: 2007)
 This constant surveillance, operated by everyone is what keeps the machine going: the first
scene, for example, depicts Madbouli, the newspaper seller, talking about how his job allows him to
read about strange incidents through the newsagent but what he sees is even stranger.
The movie's story itself was possible through an act of seeing, inserted in the big Panopticon
that is the Sation. Madbouli sees Qinawi lying in the street, feels sorry for him for he was lame and
decides to give him a job selling papers.
Another noticible example is Hannuma's moments of selling cold drinks. As she is an ilegal
drink seller, she needs to go away and hide when the police comes around. Further in the plot, her
fiance Abu Serih also asks her to stop working because he can care for her. What happens is that the
legal stand owner constantly keeps an eye on her, letting her fiance or the police men know when
she is out selling the refreshements.
Qinawi's hiding of the knife he's bought also exemplies the awareness of constantly being
watched. He lets the knife falls one time and he is acts carefully not to raise suspicion he is caring it
or that he is planning something bad.

Aditionally, the panoptic establishment, that is, the Cairo Station deals with power and
function. In this sense, it arranges power in a way that it is distributed and exercised by each
individual subtle coercion. In this regard, the police only appears in the movie a couple of times,
exemplifying that in this societal model the exercise of power rarely comes from the outside. Also,
it deals with function in the way that individualizes the people: subordinating bodies and forces to
increase the utility of power, making everything more economic and effective. To exemplify, the
general basis of the movie lies on everyone working and doing their jobs, being as more effective as
possible.

The panopticon's most efficiency is seen towards the end of the movie, when Qinawi, being
a subjected of visibility has its power constraints by the other individuals in the station. It's the
reaching peak, atesting the establishment of order when someone fails to behave accordingly.
Watching over the other, Madbouli realizes Qinawi was up to something when he says and behaves
oddly when talking to him. Moreover, the mechanism attempts to discipline and punish who wasn't
able to fit in the social order, just as happened with Qinawi, who, unable to fit, was put a
satraitjacket and sent to a mental prison. While everyone, to a certain extent, is able to police
themselves and constitute a docile body in order not to be punished, Qinawi fails to do so and
suffers the consequences.
References

Foucault, M. (1995) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, New York: Vintage Books.

Talhami, G., & Chahine, Y..(1958). Cairo Station. Egypt: Al-Ahramm Studios.