Culture

ExplainerThe Unconscious in the Digital Age: What Freud and Lacan Would Have Seen on Our Screens

David Sahyoun 10/09 18:00 - Reading : 5 minute(s)

Psychoanalysis Freud Lacan Social Media Culture Unconscious

Freud repeatedly insisted that the unconscious cannot be grasped directly; it reveals itself instead through slips of the tongue, dreams, fantasies, and symptoms. Today, the web provides a stage where these formations of the unconscious assume new forms. Each Google search, each video watched on repeat, each story posted—or deleted—becomes the ...

Elina Garanca Defends Opera Amid Digital Age Challenges

This is Beirut 10/09 13:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Elina Garanca Vienna Mezzo-soprano Netflix Opera Music

In her decades-long career, star Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca has seen the ups and downs of the music industry first hand. But the business has changed drastically with the rise of social media, even impacting the way many people inside and outside the industry approach classical music — namely "without patience or time", she told ...

Colin Farrell Bets Big in Macau For New Film Alongside Tilda Swinton

This is Beirut 10/09 10:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Colin Farrell Cinema Film Culture Art Toronto International Film Festival

Colin Farrell plunges into an intoxicating fever dream among the high-stakes baccarat tables of Macau casinos with Ballad of a Small Player, a rare major Western film shot on location in Asia's gambling capital. The surreal, dark and twisty drama co-stars Tilda Swinton as an investigator in pursuit of Farrell's velvet-suited conman and gambling ...

StoryThe Model Behind Courbet’s 'L’Origine du monde'

Bélinda Ibrahim 09/09 19:00 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Gustave Courbet Model Culture Painting Constance Quéniaux

It is hard to imagine today the scandal Courbet’s painting sparked in 1866. Commissioned by Ottoman diplomat Khalil Bey, the canvas depicts, without embellishment, the genitals of a reclining woman — with no face and no background. Rendered with almost photographic realism, it disturbed, shocked, and unsettled. For more than a century, the ...

The Creator of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ Returns With Ambitious New Thriller

This is Beirut 09/09 14:35 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Literature Books Dan Brown US Culture

Best-selling American author Dan Brown, creator of the publishing phenomenon The Da Vinci Code, released his latest thriller Tuesday in 16 languages simultaneously. The Secret of Secrets, which runs to nearly 700 pages in English, marks Brown's return eight years after his last novel, Origin. Brown called it "by far the most intricately plotted ...

Dwayne Johnson’s Oscar Journey Begins at Toronto Premiere

This is Beirut 09/09 13:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Cinema Toronto International Film Festival Canada The Rock Dwayne Johnson Actor

Wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's surprise Oscars campaign for his first arthouse role in The Smashing Machine barreled into the Toronto Film Festival Monday. Johnson, 53, who has earned rave reviews playing fighter Mark Kerr, sat down with an audience before the movie's North American premiere to reflect on a unique ...

Super Mario’s Global Impact: A Phenomenon in Numbers

This is Beirut 09/09 10:30 - Reading : 3 minute(s)

Super Mario Nintendo Games Art Hit Bookstores

Nintendo's chirpy Italian mascot Mario has run and jumped his way to four decades of global stardom, broadening the appeal of the video game industry as one of its most beloved characters. 40 Million Cartridges The original Super Mario Bros. cartridge game was released in 1985 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console in the United ...

Giorgio Armani’s Family Bids Private Farewell at Historic Rivalta Church

This is Beirut 08/09 14:45 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Fashion Luxury Funeral Giorgio Armani Italy Culture

The private funeral of fashion legend Giorgio Armani was set to take place Monday in a picturesque village near Piacenza, in the northern Italian region where the designer grew up. Only about 60 people were expected at the 3:30 pm (1330 GMT) ceremony, according to local media, at the 14th-century Church of San Martino in Rivalta, south of ...

Channing Tatum Earns Acting Credibility in 'Roofman' Role

This is Beirut 08/09 14:00 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Channing Tatum Actor US Cinema Culture Art

Channing Tatum says his performance in Roofman, which tells the true story of a man who robbed dozens of McDonald's and hid out in a toy store, helped the stripper-turned-actor overcome "imposter syndrome." "I was getting (acting) jobs before I knew anything about what I was doing," Tatum told reporters Sunday, a day after the film's world ...

Maestro Christoph von Dohnányi Dies in Munich Aged 95

This is Beirut 08/09 13:25 - Reading : 1 minute(s)

Music Obituary Christoph von Dohnanyi Conductor Germany Culture

German conductor Christoph von Dohnányi, hailed as one of the greats of his generation, has died aged 95, public broadcaster NDR said Monday. Dohnanyi, who was long music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, died in Munich "a few days before his 96th birthday", which would have been Monday, NDR said. Dohnanyi was principal conductor of the NDR ...

Vienna State Opera Celebrates Season with Free Gala Concert

This is Beirut 08/09 12:00 - Reading : 2 minute(s)

Vienna Opera Music Opening Culture Art

No dress code, no stiff atmosphere, and no entry fees: Thousands flocked to a Viennese park Sunday as the Vienna State Opera opened its 2025-26 season with a star-studded open-air gala concert for the first time. The free, open-air concert was the state opera's latest effort to «open the house to all – especially new listeners», it said in a ...

Russell Crowe Stuns at Toronto International Film Festival with Chilling Nazi Role

This is Beirut 08/09 10:30 - Reading : 4 minute(s)

Toronto International Film Festival Cinema Awards Canada Culture Art

Russell Crowe's nerve-shredding portrayal of a notorious Nazi on trial and Angelina Jolie's deeply personal dive into the world of French fashion led a busy Sunday of world premieres at the Toronto Film Festival. Crowe's depiction of the second-ranking Nazi, Hermann Goering, in Nuremberg, as he plays a cat-and-mouse game with a psychiatrist (Rami ...