An outspoken gay man and largely self-taught writer, Gore Vidal was a liberal iconoclast whose opinions challenged
conventional thought and whose acerbic wit frequently
eviscerated those who dared to cross him. William F. Buckley, Jr. was the opposite side of a similar coin, an outspoken, controversial conservative who founded National Review.
Each was born in 1925 to patrician families. Buckley’s father was a lawyer and oilman. Vidal’s father was an aviation pioneer and his grandfather a senator. Each became writers immersed in politics; thus, their grappling with the issues of the day seemed inevitable, cresting with their now-iconic debates during the 1968 presidential conventions.
Co-directors Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville’s engrossing documentary Best of Enemies focuses on the pair’s battles during the ’68 conventions, which were broadcast live on ABC. Anchors like Walter Cronkite — straight-ahead newsmen who did everything they could to present events in a balanced manner — dominated news coverage in those days. Viewers had never seen anything like Buckley and Vidal, curiously mannered linguistic masters whose passionate political jousts would result in the rise of the conflict-driven TV programming that now passes for news analysis.
The directors use a number of articulate talking heads to recreate the context under which the duo’s convention debates took place, but the most illuminating tool remains the vintage black-and-white footage of Buckley and Vidal squaring off, culminating in the infamous exchange wherein Vidal called Buckley a “crypto-Nazi.” Buckley responded, “Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.” Grade: B+
This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2015.