Best of Enemies (2015)
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?"
Directors: Morgan Neville, Robert Gordon.
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Gore Vidal as Self |
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William F. Buckley Jr. as Self |
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Kelsey Grammer as Voice of William F. Buckley |
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John Lithgow as Voice of Gore Vidal |
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Dick Cavett as Self |
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Christopher Hitchens as Self |
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Noam Chomsky as Self (archival) |
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Reid Buckley as Self |
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Andrew Sullivan as Self |
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Todd Gitlin as Self |
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Brooke Gladstone as Self |
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Paul Newman as Self (archival) |
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Arthur Miller as Self (archival) |
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Muhammad Ali as Self (archival) |
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Sam Donaldson as Self (archival) |
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Norman Mailer as Self (archival) |
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Matt Tyrnauer as Self |
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Godfrey Cambridge as Self (archival) |
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John McWhorter as Self |
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Christopher Lehmann-Haupt as Self |
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James J. Kilpatrick as Self (archival) |
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Richard J. Daley as Self (archival) |
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Everett Dirksen as Self (archival) |
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James Wolcott as Self |
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Woody Allen as Self (archival) |
| Camera | David Leonard | Director of Photography |
| Directing | Morgan Neville | Director |
| Directing | Robert Gordon | Director |
| Writing | Morgan Neville | Writer |
| Writing | Robert Gordon | Writer |
| Camera | Graham Willoughby | Director of Photography |
| Camera | Mark Schwartzbard | Director of Photography |
| Sound | Jonathan Kirkscey | Original Music Composer |
| Editing | Aaron Wickenden | Editor |
| Sound | Pete Horner | Supervising Sound Editor |
| Production | Morgan Neville | Producer |
| Production | Robert Gordon | Producer |
| Production | Julie Goldman | Executive Producer |
| Editing | Eileen Meyer | Editor |
