Best of Enemies
Best of Enemies
Release: 2015-07-31
·Runtime: 87m
·★ 7.2
Documentary
History
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?"
Production Countries
United States of America
Production Companies
Tremolo Productions
Media Ranch
Motto Pictures
Magnolia Pictures
Participant
ITVS
JustFilms / Ford Foundation
Cast
Gore Vidal
as Self
William F. Buckley Jr.
as Self
Kelsey Grammer
as Voice of William F. Buckley
John Lithgow
as Voice of Gore Vidal
Dick Cavett
as Self
Christopher Hitchens
as Self
Noam Chomsky
as Self (archival)
Andrew Sullivan
as Self
Paul Newman
as Self (archival)
Arthur Miller
as Self (archival)
Muhammad Ali
as Self (archival)
Sam Donaldson
as Self (archival)
Norman Mailer
as Self (archival)
Godfrey Cambridge
as Self (archival)
John McWhorter
as Self
Richard J. Daley
as Self (archival)
Woody Allen
as Self (archival)
