FREE Screening/Ticket Required
An Indie Lens Pop-Up screening presented by Independent Lens
Directors: Morgan Neville & Robert Gordon
USA, 2015, 85 mins
* Both screenings free and open to the public* Best of Enemies is a documentary about the legendary debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, which came to define a new era of public discourse in the media, demarcating the moment that TV’s political ambition shifted from narrative to spectacle.
In the summer of 1968, ABC News hired Buckley, leading light of the nascent neo-conservative movement, and Vidal, a leftist novelist and polemicist, a Democrat by heritage, a cousin to Jackie Onassis. Each thought the other’s political ideologies were dangerous for America. Like rounds in a heavyweight battle, they slugged out policy, political insult and revisionist histories. These discussions beg the question, “What has television done to the way we talk about politics?”
Wed. 9/21, 7pm, Bush
Thur. 9/22, 5:30pm, WPL