Articles & Videos
The Surprisingly Complicated Politics of Richard Burton
Richard Burton’s legacy is one of contradictions. He is both a towering figure of 20th-century popular culture and a bright, brief candle whose peers made indelible marks on the 21st, too. He managed to achieve success as both a classical stage actor and marquee-name movie star at a time when slippage between those worlds was at a minimum. He was nominated for an Oscar seven times, but never won. His relationship with Elizabeth Taylor—with whom he co-starred in many films and stage productions, most famously Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—is remembered as an epic love story despite their twice divorcing. He described himself as a socialist, or indeed a communist, but moved to Switzerland to avoid paying taxes, wryly commenting, “I believe that everyone should pay them—except actors.” Famously an alcoholic, he claimed to drink to stave off the deadness of being offstage. Sometimes his alcoholism was functional; other times he was reportedly so drunk, like while filming The Klansman (1974), that he had to shoot all his scenes sitting or lying down. By his forties, he had become frail and weak. By 58, he was dead.
Death of the Holocaust Industry
The genocide in Gaza has exposed the weaponization of the Holocaust as a vehicle not to prevent genocide, but to perpetuate it, not to examine the past, but to manipulate the present.
Saudi Arabia exports its art scene through global exchange programs
Drawing the human form was once considered haram, but now the kingdom is investing in its creative class.
Being Black in America Almost Killed Me Part 2
When Trymaine Lee began writing his first book, he didn’t realize that the gun violence he was reporting on was such a central part of his own story. But then he began digging into his family history, only to fully learn about a series of racially motivated murders involving his ancestors. Lee’s book, A Thousand […]
How to be elite in the age of populism, with the FT’s Roula Khalaf
What does it mean to serve the elite in a growing age of populism, and what are the consequences of high-quality journalism only being available to the 1%?
How media drove America crazy, with Thomas Chatterton Williams
Five years since the start of the pandemic and the racial reckoning post-George Floyd, we’re still seeing the effects that 2020 had on culture and politics.
Saudi Arabia lures The Met Opera with $200M deal
The New York company will perform in Riyadh for three weeks each winter for five years, in exchange for a financial lifeline.
Pope Leo XIV names first millennial saint
Carlo Acutis, a British-born Italian, documented miracles in his website before he died aged 15, gaining the nickname 'God’s influencer.'