Andrei rublev, the masterpiece of the great Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, opens with a failed attempt to conquer God. A man attached to a hot-air balloon floats to the upper domes of an imposing church, the tallest structure that a mob of fifteenth-century monks and peasants will ever see in . . . . Continue Reading »
Christopher Nolan reminds us that cinema—not just consumable movies, but cinema as an art to be experienced in a particular way—is not entirely lost to nostalgia. Continue Reading »
Derek Brooks joins the podcast to discuss beauty's effect on the soul and his work at Benedictus Art providing schools with high-quality fine art reproductions. Continue Reading »
Derision of Christianity merely offers smug affirmation of the triumph of one of the most powerful lobby groups within Western culture. Continue Reading »
Twenty years after publishing his first novel—years he spent establishing himself, in incisive, often fearsome essays and reviews and nonfiction books, as a leading literary–cultural critic—Pankaj Mishra had a Damascene moment of sorts. He describes it in a recent essay for . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s about a quarter to ten at night on August 17, 2019, and I’m standing outside the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, smiling. It’s one of those Edinburgh Festival nights when the streets are still crowded but there’s already a foretaste of autumn in the air, a warning chill in the sea breezes that . . . . Continue Reading »
Seen today, Jazz on a Summer’s Day shimmers with its glimpses of a world in which people, for all their differences, shared so much. When was the last time so many people got together with such geniality and grace? Continue Reading »