Best of Enemies

Name: Best of Enemies
Genre: History, Documentary, News
Released: July 31, 2015
Duration: 87 min
Rating: 77
Cast: Dick Cavett, Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, William F. Buckley

2015

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Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews

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Best Of Enemies

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Movie Details & Credits

Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: July 31, 2015 | Not Rated

Starring: Dick Cavett, Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, William F. Buckley

Summary: In the summer of 1968, television news changed forever. Dead last in the ratings, ABC hired two towering public intellectuals to debate each other during the Democratic and Republican national conventions. William F. Buckley Jr. was a leading light of the new conservative movement. A Democrat and cousin to Jackie Onassis, Gore Vidal was aIn the summer of 1968, television news changed forever. Dead last in the ratings, ABC hired two towering public intellectuals to debate each other during the Democratic and Republican national conventions. William F. Buckley Jr. was a leading light of the new conservative movement. A Democrat and cousin to Jackie Onassis, Gore Vidal was a leftist novelist and polemicist. Armed with deep-seated distrust and enmity, Vidal and Buckley believed each other’s political ideologies were dangerous for America. Like rounds in a heavyweight battle, they pummeled out policy and personal insult—their explosive exchanges devolving into vitriolic name-calling. Live and unscripted, they kept viewers riveted. Ratings for ABC News skyrocketed. And a new era in public discourse was born. [Magnolia Pictures]… Expand

Director: Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon

Genre(s): History, Documentary, News

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 87 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Bilge Ebiri

Aug 2, 2015

Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville’s masterful Best of Enemies leaves you with an overwhelming sense of despair. It’s not just a great documentary, it’s a vital one. Read full review

Chris Nashawaty

Jul 30, 2015

This deliciously feisty doc contextualizes their verbal brawls and the odd love-hate (mostly hate) rivalry between two men who seemed able to regard their own sense of heroism only through the other’s villainy. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Godfrey Cheshire

Jul 31, 2015

Provides a rich, extraordinarily fascinating account that’s sure to have many viewers’ minds constantly shuttling between then and now, noting how different certain things about politics and media were in that distant era, yet marveling at how directly those archaic realities led to many of our own. Read full review

Empire David Parkinson

Jul 21, 2015

Outstanding account of a pivotal moment in small-screen history. Read full review

Joe Morgenstern

Jul 30, 2015

A must-view film for our media-besotted age. Read full review

Kyle Smith

Jul 29, 2015

Best of Enemies illustrates how even literary swashbucklers can be reduced to schoolboy behavior. Read full review

Mark Jenkins

Aug 6, 2015

Best of Enemies exists mainly as an occasion to replay the footage of Vidal’s smug taunt and Buckley’s seething response. It’s great television, but it has been available on YouTube for some time now. Read full review

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User Reviews

Olgga

Jul 26, 2016

Vidal's and Buckley's TV encounters are presented in a dynamic and enjoyable manner. The film artfully paints the two personalities, at the same time provoking thought about the most important ideological struggles of our time.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

SirNilesIV

Aug 10, 2015

A very curious movie, indeed. I watched and loved every minute of it. Vidal's narcissistic smug cadence with, what was at the time, a novel neo pagan Caligula-esque Progressivism; the likes of which would be totally overshadowed (read: forgotten) by the dripping decadence and ennui of theA very curious movie, indeed. I watched and loved every minute of it. Vidal's narcissistic smug cadence with, what was at the time, a novel neo pagan Caligula-esque Progressivism; the likes of which would be totally overshadowed (read: forgotten) by the dripping decadence and ennui of the Seventies to come. It's said that in music, the generation (decade or so) before is responsible for the music after; so 70's Disco was largely the construct of the Sixties and 80's transhumanism/New-Ro et al. were mostly a product of kids growing up in the decadent 70's and so forth. In that sense, the tumult and sheer myopia of the 70's can be seen as a gift of Progressives *enfant terrible*, Mr. Vidal. It's a shame that they vivisected his quiet erudite and lucid prose (despite it being total nonsense) and turned out talking heads like Jon Stewart et al. What a world we could have lived in with both smarmy and intellectual conversation. But alas, this is why we cannot have nice things.

Really this movie can be seen as a bifurcation of two worlds, torn apart by all the politics, identity, and anomie that make up the so called glorious Sixties. If you've ever wanted to see the tip of the spear as it were or be the fly on the wall while some great event happens, this is as close as I have ever seen in documentary form. It's well worth the watch.

Highly recommend.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

misadventurer

Jan 1, 2016

This is where it started. This subject of this documentary, is the genesis of how we cover politics today. All because ABC didn't have the money to capture to do the same thing as CBS and NBC. A tight budget, changed the face of American Politics. Which is kind of amazing. Over the course ofThis is where it started. This subject of this documentary, is the genesis of how we cover politics today. All because ABC didn't have the money to capture to do the same thing as CBS and NBC. A tight budget, changed the face of American Politics. Which is kind of amazing. Over the course of 10 nights, conservative wunderkind William F Buckley Jr, would 'debate' the liberal libertine, Gore Vidal, during the 1968 Republican and Democratic National Conventions. With diary excepts read by John Lithgow and Kelsey Grammer, its odd, to see how polite, even through gritted teeth these two men, who were the loudest voices of their respective political movements were. Though neither made eye-contact, and both showed the other the coldest of shoulders, its interesting to see two political pundit prototypes verbally battling each other. Their level of discourse is seldom seen today, both men being so erudite and effete, there's hardly anyone in the political arena that has their level of elitism. Both talking heads had failed political runs, years before these debates, and each had the other matched in nearly every respect. Bringing to mind the adage of "Who would win, the unstoppable force or immovable object?" and it turns out to be neither. By the time this film was complete, both Buckley and Vidal had passed, Vidal staying around just a bit longer than Buckley. Their animosity towards one another was intense.

I was born in 1983, and never really knew about these debates until fairly recently. I'm a fan of Gore Vidal's work and was interested in seeing this, I knew Vidal had a nemesis, but kept thinking his rival was Norman Mailer... though they had no love for each other, either. It was enlightening to see this level of discourse, it was like a barbed tongue version of Mortal Kombat, with both men trying to keep their cool, but it wasn't until the finale that Buckley broke, he looked at Vidal and said "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in your goddamn face and you'll stay plastered." With that Buckley lost whatever good will he might have gained. The Republicans might have won that presidential election with Richard Nixon, ABC won the network war for political coverage, but Gore Vidal won those debates, by infuriating his opponent to the point of rage quitting.

Whats kind of upsetting about this documentary is seeing the level that political coverage has dragged itself to, based off of these debates. There are now easily 10 networks whose sole duty is to cover every aspect of American Politics and over sensationalize every thing. Creating a great sound and fury over what amounts to be nothing. While it is nice to see the faces of these pundits changing with the times, there isn't anyone on either side that has the respectability of a Buckley or Vidal. The closest modern comparisons would be Bill O'Reilly and Bill Maher, but neither are pundits, they're hosts, and Maher is a comedian. Maher fancies himself the modern Dick Cavett, giving opportunity for all comers to make their points, though he then spends the rest of the panel berating the conservative panelists, and Cavett would only resort to self defense if a panelist became hostile to Dick himself.

This is a great film for political junkies, history buffs and fans of either Buckley or Vidal, their both painted very complimentarily warts and all.

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

MeritCoba

Feb 5, 2016

While Best of Enemies is a documentary it could have easily been turned into a movie as it views like a dramatic story that works towards a climax at the end of the ten headon collissions between the progressive liberal Gore Vidal and the (neo) conservative William F. Buckley. TheWhile Best of Enemies is a documentary it could have easily been turned into a movie as it views like a dramatic story that works towards a climax at the end of the ten headon collissions between the progressive liberal Gore Vidal and the (neo) conservative William F. Buckley. The exchanges are cloaked as debates with the intent to comment on the national conventions of both parties in 1968 prior to the elections, but are more like verbal brawls. They remind me of the Nixon vs Frost interview in the way it exposes the participants in full view of the television audience. But these are not interviews, commentaries , debates or exchange of ideas. These are dirty below the belt catfights of the most shameful kind.

The apex is reached when Vidal entices Buckley to fall into a trap and has him commit the worst of acts that ends all debates: to turn to threats of physical violence. It is the word cryptonazi that does the trick, foreshadowing the famous Reduction ad Hitlerum fallacy in a way: any debate ends when Hitler or Nazis become an argument in the discussion. When Buckley recoils from his own rage Gore gives him a supreme smile so thick with glee that it even shames his supporters: he has gotten what he wanted, that is: to expose the 'real' Buckley that lurks under the charming veneer: a lout, a ruffian and a brute.

But at what price?

After Gore carried away the flag in triumph, his initial victory turns into pyrrhic one and overtime becomes a sound defeat for the nation, so the documentary has it. For these representatives of two opposing political worlds are not without influence, Vidal being an famed writer, essayist and commentator and Buckley important publicist and more on less on of the founders of the neo-conservative movement. And their fight does not end with the last of the debates. Instead in extends up to the death of the two into the 21st century. The distaste and hatred that isolates influential groups do nothing to make that country more stable. It would go a bit too far to state that this debate is the root of all evil , but it shows for the public eye something that was already in the make: the rising antagonism between (neo)conservatives and progressives that hijacks a nation. As the documentary has it: coming into being are two worlds that hardly communicate.

It is hard to judge if the documentary is biased, but it states, and this is impression I got, that Vidal went into the debates with the sole intent to tear down Buckley and what he stands for. Buckley seems to have had less of a purpose, but he quickly geared up. Yet I got the impression that Buckley was more honest and more personally affected by these discussions than Vidal was. The latter struck me as a cold calculating bastard to be honest. But maybe this is because Buckley seemed far more charming than Vidal was.
It is sad to know that one man can hate another so much as to state the fact in the public eye. And it is sad that to see how people lap this up.

And this is probably the weakest part of the documentary. It doesn't tell us much about the fanning of the hatred. It never tells us that nobody had the decency to tell them to stop or that ABC gloated because of soaring numbers of viewers. The documentary basically forgets about those large masses who were drooling over this live soap, foreshadowing the downfall of television as a serious means to inform and educate a nation. For when ABC got the most viewers with their entertainment, the other networks, with their boring serious distant coverage of the conventions lost theirs. And they saw what was happening and adapted.

The documentary is one of the best I haves seen and therefore quite unsettling. It not only concentrates on the debates themselves but glances at what happened before and how Vidal and Buckley fared after and gives us an impression of the participants. I would certainly recommend it, even if it is not a pretty sight.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Brent_Marchant

Aug 8, 2015

A wickedly funny (though quietly distressing) look at the debates that unwittingly changed television forever -- and not necessarily for the better. Yet this startlingly insightful documentary also gives us a revelatory look at where the polarized society in which we find ourselves got itsA wickedly funny (though quietly distressing) look at the debates that unwittingly changed television forever -- and not necessarily for the better. Yet this startlingly insightful documentary also gives us a revelatory look at where the polarized society in which we find ourselves got its start, how diametrically opposed ideologies that had long been simmering beneath the surface of the nation's collective consciousness suddenly exploded onto the scene in a very public way that has only grown into a menacing leviathan ever since. This documentary about a curious time from our past is must-see viewing for anyone who genuinely cares about our future, for even if it doesn't show us our way clear, it at least identifies the problem with pointed, in-your-face candor.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

JamesL

Aug 26, 2015

I thought the film could have used more depth about the times and the two men. That said, I really enjoyed it because it was the year that shaped my political views. I watched those conventions and the nightly news and became convinced that the war was wrong. The conservative view voiced byI thought the film could have used more depth about the times and the two men. That said, I really enjoyed it because it was the year that shaped my political views. I watched those conventions and the nightly news and became convinced that the war was wrong. The conservative view voiced by Buckley has not really changed today which I thought was fascinating. I hear the same nonsense about God, military superiority America rules, minorities don't count, etc every night on the television today from the conservatives. The boiling point moment is timeless..… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

LamontRaymond

Aug 6, 2015

It's a solid documentary, but nothing spectacular. I'll say that William F. Buckley clearly wins the battle between the 2 men - it was decided after he died, when Gore Vidal had to make one more dig: "Rest in Peace - in Hell!" That shows what little class the dude has ever had. HappyIt's a solid documentary, but nothing spectacular. I'll say that William F. Buckley clearly wins the battle between the 2 men - it was decided after he died, when Gore Vidal had to make one more dig: "Rest in Peace - in Hell!" That shows what little class the dude has ever had. Happy Warrior? Hardly.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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