Best of Enemies

In 1968 the third placed television network in America cannot afford to cover the party conventions. It finds a cheap idea: put two men in a studio and let them argue. One is the conservative writer William F. Buckley, the other the leftist novelist Gore Vidal. They detest each other. Ten debates are scheduled. The early broadcasts trade barbs, then the tone hardens, and in the ninth Buckley loses control; he insults and threatens on live television. Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville direct. The documentary rests on recordings from the network's archive and the debates are shown in full. Its argument is this: those broadcasts began a pattern in American television. News programming built on confrontation, and argument becoming spectacle rather than information, starts here. What became of the two men is also covered: they sued, they wrote about each other for years, and both carried that night as a defeat. The documentary keeps equal distance from both and vindicates neither. The archive material is of high quality and the rhythm of the debates sets the rhythm of the film. Who it is for: viewers who follow American political history and documentaries about the media. Who it is not for: some references are closed without knowledge of the politics of the period, the structure repeats, and the film concentrates on a single event.