Best of Enemies (2015) Reviews

• Brilliant.

  JoshuaDysart2015-08-14

  "Best of Enemies" is incredibly effective at achieving multiple thematic ends without coming off as dense. Here's a few of things it managed to touch on. It's a sound, but passive, attack on the current state of our discourse, giving us a history lesson on the genesis moment of television punditry. It's a fascinating look inside network news in the time of American political convention "gavel- to-gavel" coverage. The last time that ever happened. It's an exploration of how TV changes us, or at the very least, reveals us to ourselves, both as people who long to sit in front of its cameras, and as a nation who watches its images. It's about how the two sides of the late 60's culture war found their primetime voices. It's about class, and how where we come, or how we where we wish we had come from, affects how and what we think. It's about the personal journeys of the intellectuals at the center of it - gay-left leaning best selling counter-culture author Vidal and establishment defending policy-affecting conservative Buckley - and how their confrontation never really left the center stage of their own minds. But most spectacularly, it's about how the issues of a turbulent period (our republic caught in an ongoing war of attrition, race riots in the streets, the all too familiar rhetoric of income and racial inequality at the center of the political debate) never really ended. And it does all of those things with a sense of real legitimacy, never once feeling like it's assigning more importance to the story than it deserves. A perennial fault in the doc genre. But it's not just a good story. It's a good story told well. The whole thing is brilliantly structured, wonderfully cut together, incredibly funny and tragic, and far-reaching in its ambition. It's political positioning is measured, either because of or in spite of it's co-director being affiliated with the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation. It features great talking heads, including political historian Sam Tanenhaus (who I sorely miss as the New York Times Book Review editor) and avowed socialist/Marxist/anti-leftist/cultural contrarian Christopher Hitchens, who manages to bloviate even from beyond the grave. This is one of my favorite documentaries of the year. A perfect double feature with last year's excellent, "Last Days in Vietnam". Catch it if it interests you. It didn't do as well at the box office as it should've.

• The erosion of TV debate

  stubbornpanda2015-07-27

  For anyone interested in how we arrived at todays angry confrontations and four way screaming matches on news programs - this documentary might be for you. "Best of Enemies" covers the ten televised debates from 1968 between conservative William F Buckley Jr and liberal Gore Vidal. The debates,for all the wrong reasons, helped inspire TV networks to move towards the format of screamfests we now know. The focus being the act of conflict of opposing opinions, rather than substance. Today you can almost hear the producers scream at debating participants "energy people.. energy! And Go! " The film homes in on the verbal confrontations of Buckley and Vidal. The arrogance and intellectual wit of both men combined with their serious character assassination attempts of each other is a spectacle. It is however, also the very distraction from the subjects they discuss and you can almost hear the future echos of a Jerry!.. Jerry!.. in the wings (be it a highbrow jerry springer chant). This is emphasized by the fact the debates are not shown in their entirety but instead edited to fit the documentary. Instead commentators in each corner of Buckley and Vidal provide the social and political context around the subjects. The film hereby focuses mainly on the confrontational segments. A deliberate choice of the documentarians, but it comes at the expense of the viewer missing the very important piece to understanding why Buckley and Vidal were the debating heavyweights of their time - detailed positioning of argument! The accompanying storyline is the struggle of ABC news and their bid for ratings. It does detract from the debates but provides more media history context. The film can be seen as an introduction to Vidal and Buckley but will not provide a thorough insight to either of these two political warriors. Mainly The documentary shines a light on the subject of TV debate and where the erosion of TV journalism might have started. With the recent loss of Christopher Hitchens and an ageing Noam Chomsky,it seems that the times of fearless intellectual exchanges between debating parties is over. Gutsy political commentary, social criticism and satirical wit appear to no longer be coming from intellectuals but comedians. Once Bill Hicks and George Carlin. Now Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. But even they cant live forever. Who will replace… Gore Vidal was asked as one of the last living legends of the literary scene why no one seemed to be taking on the mantle of work and standard of writing of him and his peers. Vidal replied "Because no one took on the mantle of reader". Maybe we also didn't take on the mantle of viewer.

• "Confrontation of life styles"... dawn of a new TV era

  paul-allaer2015-10-24

  "Best of Enemies" (2015 release; 88 min.) is a documentary about the infamous 10 televised debates that took place during the 1968 Republican and Democratic Presidential Conventions (in Miami and Chicago, respectively), between conservative William Buckley Jr. and liberal Gore Vidal. As the documentary opens, Vidal is commentating about old pictures hanging up in his house and one of them is showing Buckley and Vidal at one of those debates. We then get some background as to who these 2 guys are, and why ABC veered away to bring the "unconventional Convention" coverage. And then we get to the first debate... To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out. Couple of comments: this documentary is co-directed by Morgan "20 Feet From Stardom" Neville and Robert Gordon, who is affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank. If you think that means the documentary is kinder to Buckley that to Vidal, think again. The two men are pitted against each other, and vehemently disdain each other, even before these debates, and much more so afterwards. "It was a confrontation of life styles", as someone comments. Yes, it was, but as it turns out, these debates had another unexpected consequence: ABC's ratings went through the roof, and the other mainstream networks quickly realized they had to have their own versions of these "point-counterpoint" programs. In other words, the Buckley-Vidal debates set into motion what would eventually become the Fox's and MSNBC's news channels. Apart from the historical legacy created by these debates, the documentary also examines the long shadows cast be the debates over the personal lives of both Vidal and (even more so) Buckley. If you have any interest in politics and/or in TV history, you will not want to miss this documentary. It makes for completing viewing, period. "Best of Enemies" made quite a splash at the Sundance film festival earlier this year. The movie's been out for months and I didn't think it would reach theaters here in Cincinnati, but then out of the blue t showed up this weekend at my local art-house theater here. I figured this would not be playing very long and went to see it right away, The matinée screening where I saw this at turned into a private screening, as in: I literally was the only person in the theater. A shame, as this is a riveting documentary. If you get the chance to see this, be it in the theater, on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, do not mist it! "BEst of Enemies" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

• Provocative and terrific entertainment

  howard.schumann2015-08-09

  Gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Republican and Democratic national conventions was still being offered by CBS and NBC in 1968, but ABC, lacking their resources, limited their coverage to a few hours in the evening and highlighted it with a ten-night debate between conservative author and commentator William F. Buckley Jr. and flamboyant liberal novelist and playwright Gore Vidal. These debates are chronicled in the powerful documentary Best of Enemies directed by Robert Gordon ("Johnny Cash's America") and Morgan Neville ("Twenty Feet From Stardom"). In addition to fully restored original broadcast footage, the film includes commentaries from people who knew Buckley and Vidal such as former TV talk show host Dick Cavett, journalist Frank Rich, authors Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan, Buckley biographer Sam Tanenhaus, Vidal's last magazine editor, Matt Tyrnauer among others, while actors Kelsey Grammar and John Lithgow read passages from the writings of both men. Though both men had previously run for public office (Vidal for Congress, Buckley for Mayor of New York), their forte was not politics but writing. Buckley was the founder and editor of the influential conservative magazine The National Review, and Vidal was a controversial novelist and playwright whose sexually liberated views were in evidence in his novels "The City and the Pillar" and "Myra Breckinridge." Both men spoke in the accents of Eastern elites, what Neil Buckley, Bill's surviving brother, describes as "patrician, languid accents," yet both were erudite with acid tongues. To say that Buckley and Vidal did not get along is like saying Bobby Kennedy and James Hoffa were not the best of friends. Vidal knew that Buckley had supported using nuclear weapons against North Vietnam and China, and called him "a bloodthirsty neurotic," while Buckley retorted, "We all know that your tendency is to be feline." The Democratic Convention was held in Chicago where protests against the Vietnam War and the subsequent police overreaction threatened to derail the nominating process, creating a highly-charged atmosphere for the debates that only enhanced the acrimony. One of the highlights occurred in the ninth of ten debates where the debaters clashed over the extent of the police response against the demonstrators and both stepped out of their well-calculated cool, intellectual personas. The discussion began with the revelation that the police had removed a Viet Cong flag from the demonstration. While Vidal defended the right of the demonstrators to state their political views, Buckley noted that during World War II, people were free to ostracize pro-Nazi spokesman even though they were free to speak their views. Vidal responded by saying that "the only sort of crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself." Though the moderator Howard K. Smith warned both men against name calling, a red-faced Buckley, his hands trembling, shouted, "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in your goddamn face, and you'll stay plastered." It was a moment that Buckley regretted, though the feud continued with competing articles in Esquire Magazine and subsequent law suits. Best of Enemies is provocative and terrific entertainment but while the edited debates are pure theater, full of witty banter and relentless thrusts and parries, they are less than illuminating as a contribution to the troubling issues of the time and include no discussion of the most important issue of the day, the Vietnam War. Although issues such as economic inequality, foreign involvements, and issues of morality and culture were discussed, the debates were not a conflict over positions on issues as much as they were a battle between two individuals convinced the other was a threat to the health and well-being of the country. Many commentators in the film are full of nostalgia for the day when intellectuals were seen on television and point to today's cable news pundits screaming at each other (rather than the corporatization of the media and the over-dependence on ratings) as evidence of the decline of American television, but if the Buckley-Vidal debates are an example of the intellectual vitality of television in the sixties, I think I'd rather stick with Rachel Maddow.

• The genesis of punditry journalism

  attorney-397692015-08-15

  A well-constructed must-see documentary for anyone who is the least bit interested in the politics of journalism. Don't worry that you won't recall/aren't aware of the background. The filmmakers do an excellent job of setting the stage, and an even more impressive job of avoiding the actual political issues in order to focus on the medium. If you want to know how we got where we are, start at the beginning. This is the genesis of punditry and personality-driven journalism. This is not to say that this little slice of evolution is necessarily bad. As the film points out, prior to 1968 the presentation of news was quite static, with little, if any, chance for anything out of the mainstream to make it out of the studio. Now the genie has been loosed from the bottle, and he has truly been feeling his oats for the past several years. It's up to us to rein him in, give him focus, and pray that we can find some common ground before the growing political mitosis reaches the point of no return.