Best of Enemies

During the 1968 presidential election, ABC News—a perennial also-ran among the networks and critically short of resources—decided to forgo gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Republican and Democratic party conventions, opting instead for abbreviated broadcasts that included debates between William F. Buckley, Jr. and Gore Vidal, representing conservative and liberal viewpoints. Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's engrossing documentary focuses on the face-off between these two celebrity intellectuals, drawing on clips from their sessions (along with other quotations from the men, recreated by Kelsey Grammer and John Lithgow, respectively) to illustrate how each attempted to verbally eviscerate the other. Their confrontation culminated in an acrimonious exchange that was set against the street riots at the Democratic convention, when Vidal (who carefully rehearsed his bon mots while Buckley extemporized) called his opponent a “crypto-Nazi” and Buckley lost his temper, referring contemptuously to Vidal's sexual orientation and threatening to punch him—a meltdown that left Buckley deeply embarrassed for the rest of his life (while Vidal reveled at having effectively baited Buckley). Observations from Christopher Hitchens, Dick Cavett, and Buckley's brother Neil add to the already substantial wit supplied by the two men, and it's equally amusing to watch network anchorman Howard K. Smith try to maintain a semblance of decorum. Best of Enemies also suggests that the Buckley-Vidal dustup began the decline of civil discourse on TV news broadcasts, which has degenerated into today's steady diet of vitriolic punditry. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include additional commentator interviews (65 min.), an interview with directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon (7 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a winning doc.] (F. Swietek)