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Best of Enemies
- Director: Robert Gordon; Morgan Neville
- Writer: Robert Gordon; Morgan Neville
- Producer: Caryn Capotosto; Julie Goldman
CGiii Comment
The prig and the prog: William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal.
These two chaps were thrown together - for a series of debates - in a valiant effort to boost television ratings for the struggling ABC network.
It's theatrical...it evolves from the respectfully polite to the downright savage...
Vidal called Buckley a “sort of crypto-Nazi”. Buckley retaliated: “Listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.”
And that was it...Vidal won.
Interesting for those interested...it is television history...but, alas, not on the same playing field as the Nixon/Frost debacle.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
'Best of Enemies' is 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?'
Cast & Characters
Dick Cavett as Himself;
Gore Vidal as Himself;
Noam Chomsky as Himself;
Christopher Hitchens as Himself;
Matt Tyrnauer as Himself;
Brooke Gladstone as Herself;
Ginia Bellafante as Herself;
Sam Tanenhaus as Himself