SIFF 2015: Best of Enemies ***1/2

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 16, 2015)

http://www.trbimg.com/img-55b95e17/turbine/la-et-mn-buckley-vidal-best-of-enemies-20150730

In their absorbing documentary, Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon recount ABC’s 1968 Democratic/Republican conventions coverage debates between William F. Buckley (from the Right!) and Gore Vidal (from the Left!), culminating in an apoplectic Buckley’s threat (live, on national television) to give Vidal a right, and a left (after calling Vidal a “queer”). You’ll witness not only the birth of TV punditry, but the opening salvo in the (still raging) “culture wars”. This one’s a must-see.

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