How much do we need to know about the lives of writers to appreciate their work? Is the life all — or is it nothing? Should we read poetry, for example, with an eye on biography, or merely focus on ...

In Star Trek there’s the “prime directive,” Starfleet’s code of noninterference. What do filmmakers abide by? Should documentaries interfere with their subjects’ lives? But how could they not? I don’t ...

The enhanced e-book — a digital text that comes garnished with multimedia material — is one of those ideas that sound terrific in theory but are rarely satisfying in execution. Economics is largely to ...

One hundred years ago this December, "The Waste Land" was first published. T.S. Eliot’s famous poem has been described as highly influential, irregular, and innovative. Its theme — the spiritual and ...

Photo from the film "Waste Land," Artwork Courtesy of Vik Muniz Studio. Jeffrey Brown spoke with "Waste Land" director Lucy Walker last year about the film for NewsHour Art Beat. Since its release, ...

One of the powers of great portraiture is its ability to make us wonder about the complete strangers captured within enigmatic works of art. Vik Muniz’s recent series does that: After years of ...

“We are not pickers of garbage; we are pickers of recyclable materials,” Tião, an impoverished Brazilian catadore, or trash picker, declares to a talk-show host in Lucy Walker’s inspiring documentary ...

Can art change lives? Waste Land is an inspiring documentary that follows Brazilian artist Vik Muniz in his attempt to do just that. Lucy Walker directs the film about trash as art, and art as a ...

The film "Waste Land" follows artist Vik Muniz as he creates portraits of a band of self-designated pickers of recyclable materials in Brazil, using the trash that surrounds them. This excerpt is part ...

This article has been updated below. “Waste Land” is a vibrant and exciting documentary about the unlikely collaboration between Vik Muniz, a prominent Brazilian-born artist who now lives and works in ...