Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal
Released: July 31, 2015Runtime: 87 min
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?"
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Top billed cast
Gore Vidal
as Self - Debater
William F Buckley
as Self - Debater
Dick Cavett
as Self - Talk Show Host
Noam Chomsky
as Self
Todd Gitlin
as Self - Media Studies, Columbia University
Brooke Gladstone
as Self - Host, NPR's On the Media
Richard Wald
as Self - Former President, NBC News
William Sheehan
as Self - Former President, ABC News
Frank Rich
as Self - Writer, New York Magazine
Sam Tanenhaus
as Self - Biographer, William F. Buckley Jr.
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