Arts feature
The great pretenders
There is fakery in the air. And maybe the French are done with deconstruction. A drone operated by a French…
Gaudy! Bright! Loud! Fun!
Best of postmodernism: is that an oxymoron? Jonathan Meades thinks not
Gaudy! Bright! Loud! Fun!
In any epoch most of what is built is mediocre, though we may not realise it at the time because…
Death metal
We in the West may snigger at heavy metal, but in some parts of the world its practitioners face the death penalty. Karen Yossman reports
Death metal
With its loud guitar riffs and even louder fashion, heavy metal has always been ripe for ridicule. In its mid-1980s…
Deluded divas
Were Florence Foster Jenkins and her fellow culprits touchingly heroic, cynically fraudulent or just plain bonkers? Rupert Christiansen reports
Deluded divas
When the Fat Lady Sings, everyone is primed to chortle, even if she is Montserrat Caballé and doing it wonderfully…
Filming the Final Solution
Amid the abundant cinema of Nazi atrocity, Son of Saul is exemplary. Ian Thomson explains why
Filming the Final Solution
In July 1986, nine months before he died, I met the Italian author and Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi at his…
All the world’s a stage
James Woodall talks to the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, who has brought a swathe of Shakespeare’s history plays to the stage in Dutch (four hours of it)
All the world’s a stage
In this much-heralded Shakespeare anniversary year, one might expect a certain respect for the works to prevail. In Holland it’s…
‘Do black movies really not sell?’
Don Cheadle talks to Jasper Rees about the long, hard road to bringing Miles Davis’s life to the big screen
‘Do black movies really not sell?’
The musical biopic is a staple of the Hollywood economy. Like an Airfix model kit it comes with the necessary…
The rise and fall of Sicily
There are lessons to be learned from the disintegration of this once majestic multicultural Norman kingdom, says Martin Gayford
The rise and fall of Sicily
A few weeks ago, I looked out on the Cathedral of Monreale from the platform on which once stood the…
The future is here
With the release of Oculus Rift – virtual reality you can buy from a shop – cinema will never be the same again, says Peter Hoskin
The future is here
Oculus Rift. It sounds like something from a science fiction novel, and in many ways it is. Its release this…
Sins of the fathers
Damian Thompson admires a Chilean film about paedophile priests which, unlike Spotlight, dares to explore social and psychological complexities
Sins of the fathers
A feature film about priests who abuse children is being released on 25 March. Which happens to be Good Friday.…
Rebel angels
The reverence for those involved in the Easter Rising is evident in an exhibition devoted to its centenary, says Harry Mount
Rebel angels
This is the first exhibition I’ve been to where the Prime Minister joined the hacks at the press view. A…
God’s messenger
Damian Thompson talks to the great Bach conductor — and strict Calvinist — Masaaki Suzuki
God’s messenger
When the Japanese conductor Masaaki Suzuki leads his forces in a performance of a Bach cantata, does he worry that…
The rite stuff
Theo Hobson explores the enduring appeal that religion has for dramatists
The rite stuff
Religion remains a surprisingly popular subject for plays. It’s partly because there’s already a core of theatricality there, in the…
