World-historically

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor met while filming Cleopatra in the late 1950s, and both were married. Their affair was considered hardly less sensational and world-historically important than that of the characters they played.

Seen this way, the video feels more mercenary: Its severe mood was, in part, a performance, meant to reassure a world-historically anxious and distrustful audience that they had not been led astray for the last eight years.