Best of Enemies
Buckley vs. Vidal. 2 Men. 10 Debates. Television Would Never Be the Same.
A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers, and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, "What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?"
- 7.2
- 2015
- Released
- 1h 27m
William F. Buckley Jr.
Self
Kelsey Grammer
Voice of William F. Buckley
John Lithgow
Voice of Gore Vidal
Dick Cavett
Self
Christopher Hitchens
Self
Noam Chomsky
Self (archival)
Andrew Sullivan
Self
Todd Gitlin
SelfBrooke Gladstone
Self
Paul Newman
Self (archival)
Muhammad Ali
Self (archival)
Sam Donaldson
Self (archival)
Norman Mailer
Self (archival)
Godfrey Cambridge
Self (archival)
John McWhorter
SelfChristopher Lehmann-Haupt
SelfJames J. Kilpatrick
Self (archival)
Richard J. Daley
Self (archival)Everett Dirksen
Self (archival)James Wolcott
Self
Released
en
$1,000,000.00
- #chicago, illinois
- #miami, florida
- #politics
- #intellectual
- #author
- #debate
- #archive footage
- #television network
- #1960s
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Reviews
Interesting watch. Vidal's name was recognizable to me but I had never really known how successful he was as a author (and playwright!). It is interesting to see how profit-seeking capitalism in media (in this case TV, but now also on social media platforms) really incentivizes content that is belligerent and argumentative. I have a hard time believing that anyone would say that this is the ideal