If I were to have dinner with anyone living or dead, I would choose Jafar Panahi, the Iranian director of The White Balloon (1995), This is Not a Film (2011), Taxi (2015) and this year’s It Was Just An Accident. Even though Mr. Panahi speaks no English and I speak no Farsi, I believe there would understanding through his entrancingly beautiful films and the humility he shows in every interview I know.

Mr. Panahi and I would talk about films and books, living in this chaotic world and the American Tragedy. Mr. Panahi understands that there is no such thing as the American Dream, no success story of rising to the top of the capitalistic ladder, that there is only tragedy, a sacrificing of everything for personal greed.

This tragic tale has been told throughout Western history – from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon slaughtered by his wife, Clytemnestra, through Scotland’s Macbeth beheaded by Duncan to the American’s Daniel Plainview sitting in blood and piss – each furiously violent stories of how the attainment of power leaves you desolate and dead.

The fates of Gates, Zuckerberg and Musk are not hard to determine; like Trump, the bitter and ignominious final chapter is coming fast. None of us will be sad. Mr. Panahi and I would laugh and nod about that and then talk about better things, films to come and maybe even of one day living in a tolerant and empathetic world