Best of Enemies

Overview

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?"

Details

Cast

Gore Vidal

Self

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)

Reid Buckley

Self

Andrew Sullivan

Self

Todd Gitlin

Self

Brooke Gladstone

Self

Paul Newman

Self (archival)

Arthur Miller

Self (archival)

Muhammad Ali

Self (archival)

Sam Donaldson

Self (archival)

Norman Mailer

Self (archival)

Matt Tyrnauer

Self

Godfrey Cambridge

Self (archival)

John McWhorter

Self

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

Self