Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

The New World Order

Buckle up, friends. This is war. We’ve finally identified our real enemies, and we’re taking strong measures to stop them from destroying us. And not a moment too soon.

The Axis of Evil — Canada, Germany, Great Britain, France, and the other democracies of Europe — has for far too long been trying to undermine the very foundations of our economy with their nefarious “trade” policies and their so-called “friendship” and “mutual self-defense” alliances. Their evil leaders — Trudeau, Merkel, May, Macron, and the others — must finally face the wrath of President Donald Trump, the Master of the Deal.

If it’s war they don’t want, it’s war they shall get!

But we’re not going into this conflict alone. Oh, no. Thankfully, our allies — North Korea, China, and Russia — are stepping up to help. Last week, for instance, North Korea’s second-in-command (and former spy chief), Kim Yong-chol, personally delivered a letter to the White House in a really huge envelope. It was so big, the president said he liked the letter even before he read it. In that diplomatic missive, North Korea agreed to possibly agree to discuss the possible discussion of a meeting between President Trump and Kim Jung Un. Winning! The only stipulation DPRNK made is that the U.S. would have to pay for the North Korean leader’s hotel room and parking, which is no big deal, really. I mean, it was a really big envelope, and probably expensive. Plus, we have Trivago.

And let’s not forget China, one of our oldest allies, which, as a gesture of good will, has just granted licenses and permits to some of Ivanka Trump’s fabulous companies. Ivanka, of course, would love to have her clothing manufactured in the United States, but it would be such a hassle to move everything over here, so who can blame her for staying? Well, maybe Samantha Bee, but nobody normal.

All we have to do in return is rescind the ban on the sale of American equipment to ZTE, China’s phone company, which was sanctioned for trading with Iran and stealing American technology. Sure, ZTE phones can be set up to collect all user data and send it back to China, and sure, Congress is almost unilaterally opposed to the deal, but I think most of us would agree with the president that it’s a small price to pay for such a terrific friendship and cheaper purses.

And, of course, it goes without saying that Russia is behind us 100 percent. Russian President Vladimir Putin is just itching to help us in our efforts to destabilize the economies of Canada, England, Germany, and France. A better ally, you couldn’t ask for. Especially, since the president wisely decided not to implement any of those horrible economic sanctions against Russia for election meddling that were unanimously passed by Congress last year. That kind of forward thinking is finally paying off. Three-dimensional chess. Boom. And, as a bonus, the Russians have agreed to help with our elections again this year!

So, my fellow Americans, no more of those lousy Volkswagens, Mercedes, and BMWs. It’s Kias and Hyundais all the way, baby. And sure, you might like the occasional LaBatt’s and that weird Canadian “bacon,” but wait till you try Tsingtao and Korean kim chi. Plus, French wine is overrated, anyway. Two words: cheap vodka! And you won’t even miss your iPhone, once you’ve gotten your hands on a ZTE ChiPhone. The president says it’s important that we save Chinese jobs, and who could disagree with that?

On the domestic front, the president’s wartime economic policy is equally forward-thinking. He’s demanding that American companies buy coal from failing U.S. mining companies, despite the increased energy prices and manufacturing costs that will result. Sure, higher consumer prices are never fun, but we all have to sacrifice in times of war. Besides, everyone knows that capitalistic free-hand-of-the-market stuff is old news. It just can’t compete with a government-controlled, impulse-driven economy. Thankfully, Russia, China, and North Korea have shown us the way to the future.

And with allies like that, who needs friends?

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Best of Enemies Premieres on WKNO Tonight

Best Of Enemies, the acclaimed political documentary with Memphis connections, makes its free TV premiere on WKNO tonight at 8 PM. 

William F. Buckley and Gore VIdal in Best of Enemies

The documentary, which premiered at Sundance 2015, had a successful theatrical run last year and garnered rave reviews from critics worldwide. It tells the story of the series of televised debates between conservative William F. Buckley and liberal Gore Vidal that aired on ABC during the 1968 Democratic and Republican national conventions. The film was co-directed by Memphis filmmaker Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, who won an Academy Award in 2013 for 20 Feet From Stardom.

The timely documentary airs on WKNO as part of PBS’ Independent Lens series at 8 PM.  You can read much more about the film in this Memphis Flyer cover story from last August. 

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

The Year in Film 2015

It’s fashionable to complain about how bad Hollywood movies have become. But from the perspective of a critic who has to watch it all go down, it’s simply not the case. At any given time in 2015, there was at least one good film in theaters in Memphis—it just may not have been the most heavily promoted one. So here’s my list of awards for a crowded, eventful year.

Worst Picture: Pixels

I watched a lot of crap this year, like the incoherent Terminator Genysis, the sociopathic San Andreas, the vomitous fanwank Furious 7, and the misbegotten Secret in Their Eyes. But those movies were just bad. Pixels not only sucked, it was mean-spirited, toxic, and ugly. Adam Sandler, it’s been a good run, but it’s time to retire.

Actually, I take that back. It hasn’t been a good run.

Most Divisive: Inherent Vice

Technically a 2014 release, Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s ode to the lost world of California hippiedom didn’t play in Memphis until January. Its long takes and dense dialogue spun a powerful spell. But it wasn’t for everyone. Many people responded with either a “WTF?” or a visceral hatred. Such strongly split opinions are usually a sign of artistic success; you either loved it or hated it, but you won’t forget it.

Best Performances: Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay, Room

Room is an inventive, harrowing, and beautiful work on every level, but the film’s most extraordinary element is the chemistry between Brie Larson and 9-year-old Jacob Tremblay, who play a mother and son held hostage by a sexual abuser. Larson’s been good in Short Term 12 and Trainwreck, but this is her real breakthrough performance. As for Tremblay, here’s hoping we’ve just gotten a taste of things to come.

Chewbacca

Best Performance By A Nonhuman: Chewbacca

Star Wars: The Force Awakens returned the Mother of All Franchises to cultural prominence after years in the prequel wilderness. Newcomers like Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver joined the returned cast of the Orig Trig Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in turning in good performances. Lawrence Kasdan’s script gave Chewbacca a lot more to do, and Peter Mayhew rose to the occasion with a surprisingly expressive performance. Let the Wookiee win.

Best Memphis Movie: The Keepers

Joann Self Selvidge and Sara Kaye Larson’s film about the people who keep the Memphis Zoo running ran away with Indie Memphis this year, selling out multiple shows and winning Best Hometowner Feature. Four years in the making, it’s a rarity in 21st century film: a patient verité portrait whose only agenda is compassion and wonder.

Best Conversation Starter: But for the Grace

In 2001, Memphis welcomed Sudanese refugee Emmanuel A. Amido. This year, he rewarded our hospitality with But for the Grace. The thoughtful film is a frank examination of race relations in America seen through the lens of religion. The Indie Memphis Audience Award winner sparked an intense Q&A session after its premiere screening that followed the filmmaker out into the lobby. It’s a timely reminder of the power of film to illuminate social change.

Best Comedy: What We Do in the Shadows

What happens when a group of vampire roommates stop being polite and start getting real? Flight of the Conchords‘ Jemaine Clement and Eagle vs Shark‘s Taika Waititi codirected this deadpan masterpiece that applied the This Is Spinal Tap formula to the Twilight set. Their stellar cast’s enthusiasm and commitment to the gags made for the most biting comedy of the year.

Best Animation: Inside Out

The strongest Pixar film since Wall-E had heavy competition in the form of the Irish lullaby Song of the Sea, but ultimately, Inside Out was the year’s emotional favorite. It wasn’t just the combination of voice talent Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Phyllis Smith with the outstanding character design of Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness that made director Pete Docter’s film crackle, it was the way the entire carefully crafted package came together to deliver a message of acceptance and understanding for kids and adults who are wrestling with their feelings in a hard and changing world.

It Follows

Best Horror: It Follows

The best horror films are the ones that do a lot with a little, and It Follows is a sterling example of the breed. Director David Robert Mitchell’s second feature is a model of economy that sets up its simple premise with a single opening shot that tracks a desperate young woman running from an invisible tormentor. But there’s no escaping from the past here, only delaying the inevitable by spreading the curse of sex and death.

Teenage Dreams: Dope and The Diary of a Teenage Girl

2015 saw a pair of excellent coming-of-age films. Dope, written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa, introduced actor Shameik Moore as Malcolm, a hapless nerd who learns to stand up for himself in the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Inglewood, California. Somewhere between Risky Business and Do the Right Thing, it brought the teen comedy into the multicultural moment.

Similarly, Marielle Heller’s graphic novel adaptation The Diary of a Teenage Girl introduced British actress Bel Powley to American audiences, and took a completely different course than Dope. It’s a frank, sometimes painful exploration of teenage sexual awakening that cuts the harrowing plot with moments of magical realist reverie provided by a beautiful mix of animation and live action.

Immortal Music: Straight Outta Compton and Love & Mercy

The two best musical biopics of the year couldn’t have been more different. Straight Outta Compton was director F. Gary Gray’s straightforward story of N.W.A., depending on the performances of Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. playing his own father, Ice Cube, for its explosive impact. That it was a huge hit with audiences proved that this was the epic hip-hop movie the nation has been waiting for.

Director Bill Pohlad’s dreamlike Love & Mercy, on the other hand, used innovative structure and intricate sound design to tell the story of Brian Wilson’s rise to greatness and subsequent fall into insanity. In a better world, Paul Dano and John Cusack would share a Best Actor nomination for their tag-team portrayal of the Beach Boys resident genius.

Sicario

Best Cinematography: Sicario

From Benicio del Toro’s chilling stare to the twisty, timely screenplay, everything about director Denis Villeneuve’s drug-war epic crackles with life. But it’s Roger Deakins’ transcendent cinematography that cements its greatness. Deakins paints the bleak landscapes of the Southwest with subtle variations of color, and films an entire sequence in infrared with more beauty than most shooters can manage in visible light. If you want to see a master at the top of his game, look no further.

He’s Still Got It: Bridge of Spies

While marvelling about Bridge of Spies‘ performances, composition, and general artistic unity, I said “Why can’t all films be this well put together?”

To which the Flyer‘s Chris Davis replied, “Are you really asking why all directors can’t be as good as Steven Spielberg?”

Well, yeah, I am.

Hot Topic: Journalism

Journalism was the subject of four films this year, two good and two not so much. True Story saw Jonah Hill and James Franco get serious, but it was a dud. Truth told the story of Dan Rather and Mary Mapes’ fall from the top-of-the-TV-news tower, but its commitment to truth was questionable. The End of the Tour was a compelling portrait of the late author David Foster Wallace through the eyes of a scribe assigned to profile him. But the best of the bunch was Spotlight, the story of how the Boston Catholic pedophile priest scandal was uncovered, starring Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo. There’s a good chance you’ll be seeing Spotlight all over the Oscars this year.

Had To Be There: The Walk

Robert Zemeckis’ film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philippe Petit, the Frenchman who tightrope-walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, was a hot mess. But the extended sequence of the feat itself was among the best uses of 3-D I’ve ever seen. The film flopped, and its real power simply won’t translate to home video, no matter how big your screen is, but on the big screen at the Paradiso, it was a stunning experience.

MVP: Samuel L. Jackson

First, he came back from the grave as Nick Fury to anchor Joss Whedon’s underrated Avengers: Age of Ultron. Then he channeled Rufus Thomas to provide a one-man Greek chorus for Spike Lee’s wild musical polemic Chi-Raq. He rounds out the year with a powerhouse performance in Quentin Tarantino’s widescreen western The Hateful Eight. Is it too late for him to run for president?

Best Documentary: Best of Enemies

Memphis writer/director Robert Gordon teamed up with Twenty Feet From Stardom director Morgan Neville to create this intellectual epic. With masterful editing of copious archival footage, they make a compelling case that the 1968 televised debate between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal laid out the political battleground for the next 40 years and changed television news forever. In a year full of good documentaries, none were more well-executed or important than this historic tour de force.

Best Picture: Mad Max: Fury Road

From the time the first trailers hit, it was obvious that 2015 would belong to one film. I’m not talking about The Force Awakens. I’m talking about Mad Max: Fury Road. Rarely has a single film rocked the body while engaging the mind like George Miller’s supreme symphony of crashing cars and heavy metal guitars. Charlize Theron’s performance as Imperator Furiosa will go down in history next to Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven and Sigourney Weaver in Alien as one of the greatest action turns of all time. The scene where she meets Max, played by Tom Hardy, may be the single best fight scene in cinema history. Miller worked on this film for 17 years, and it shows in every lovingly detailed frame. Destined to be studied for decades, Fury Road rides immortal, shiny, and chrome.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said… (August 20, 2015)

Greg Cravens

About Chris McCoy’s cover story, “Best of Enemies” …

Thanks for a good article. Having known Mr. Buckley and written at length about him, I can assure you that this infamous moment with Vidal was highly uncharacteristic. In fact, he had great friendships with many of the leading liberal/left-thinkers of the era: John Kenneth Galbraith, Murray Kempton, Norman Mailer, Al Lowenstein, etc.

Vidal, on the other hand, managed to alienate seemingly everyone with whom he engaged, including Mailer, Podhoretz, Truman Capote, and Robert Kennedy. I look forward to the film, but the reality is that Buckley set the standard for civil discourse for decades, but for his exchanges with Vidal.

George Shadroui

About Susan Wilson’s column, “Gen X Marks the Spot” …

Generation X is considered to be anyone born between 1962 — sometimes 1961 — and 1981.

wutisay

I’ve heard 1964 ended the baby boom. So I’ve considered myself a boomer for years. You’re messing with my claim to curmudgeonliness.

Brunetto Latini

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Master Debaters, Near and Far” …

I like the Trumpster being in the midst of the current slate of GOP presidential candidates. There’s never a dull moment with Trump’s politically unorthodox behavior and tactics he uses against the cowering blue-blood establishment — milquetoast Republicans and the in-the-Democrats’-back-pocket media.

I think there’s deep resentment of the political scum in Washington, who have been governing over the last nine years or so against the will of the majority of Americans. Trump’s ever-rising poll numbers are indicative of their angst and disgust. The more Trump rants about illegal aliens, closing our borders, Marx-Obamacare, tax rates and structures, foreign enemies, the higher his numbers.

The RNC, DNC, and media have to be scratching their heads about Trump’s poll numbers. None of their playbooks have instructions on how to deal with non-politicians like him. Especially ones worth $10 billion.

Will Trump make it to the White House? Not likely. But candidates are definitely paying close attention to Trump — his poll numbers and his tactics — and they’re taking notes. Needless to say, the next 14 months of American politics should be interesting and entertaining.

Nightcrawler

Abortion was certainly a major topic during the recent Republican debates. There were passionate denunciations of abortion made by most of the candidates. But I think much hypocrisy is shown by these “pro-life” candidates who are so concerned with protecting unborn life but who seem to lack compassion for people after they are born. The candidates would all repeal Obamacare and offer no plan to help the 50 million people who would then lack access to health care. The suffering of millions of Americans and the deaths of thousands of others each year because they lack health coverage does not seem to be a problem for them. These candidates and other conservatives look at the poor as deadbeats waiting for government handouts, when the overwhelming majority of poor people work and pay taxes. Poor people struggle, because they are paid wages a person cannot live on. Sister Joan Chittister recently said a person can be against abortion but not deserve to be called “pro-life,” because they do not care about a child after it is born. She said instead of being truly pro-life that these people are really just pro-birth. I would characterize all Republican presidential candidates as pro-birth, not pro-life.

Philip Williams

The fact that Trump can rise in the polls after supporting a single-payer heath-care system at the RNC debate ought to establish once and for all that the Republican base is driven more by animus than by any concern for policy. He can run to the left of Bernie Sanders if he wants, as long as he keeps saying mean things about women and minorities.

autoegocrat

Categories
Book Features Books

For the Record

It’s been a busy year for writer and publisher Tom Graves, and August has been an especially busy month. Best of Enemies, a documentary on the famed series of television debates between William Buckley and Gore Vidal by filmmakers Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, premiered in Memphis on August 14th, and a book signing for the print edition of Graves’ Buckley vs. Vidal: The Historic 1968 ABC News Debates — published by the Devault-Graves Agency (Graves’ Memphis-based publishing house, co-founded by Darrin Devault) — was a few days earlier.

Graves was consulting producer on Best of Enemies, but the other news this month is the arrival in print form (an e-book edition with “bonus” material is also available) of another title, again published by Devault-Graves. This one, though, is all Graves. It’s a “retrospective” of his journalism over the past several decades, a collection that, as Graves says, “reflects me and my muse and my years of toiling away at this thing called writing.”

The book opens with a muse by the name of Louise Brooks and what, by anyone’s measure, was a real coup for a young journalist in Memphis in the early 1980s: Graves’ meeting with Brooks in Rochester, New York, where the reclusive silent-screen actress was living. Graves had planned on writing a full-scale biography of Brooks, and, as Louise Brooks, Frank Zappa, & Other Charmers & Dreamers explains, that biography never happened. But the beginnings (and background) to that project are here, as is an interview with Frank Zappa, which ran in 1987 in Rock & Roll Disc, the magazine Graves edited and published. Among the writers who appeared in that magazine and who also appears in a Q&A conducted by Graves in the e-book edition of Louise Brooks, Frank Zappa, & Other Charmers & Dreamers: music critic Dave Marsh.

There are other musicians featured to reflect Graves’ wide taste: the Blackwood Brothers, Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere & the Raiders, and what Graves calls “a guilty pleasure”: Tennessee Ernie Ford.

For another muse, though, go to actress Linda Haynes. Graves did, thanks to the contact information he received from another Haynes fan: Quentin Tarantino. But when it comes to literature (third in the trio of Graves’ ongoing interests), see the Q&A Graves conducted with Southern grit-lit master, Harry Crews.

Turns out, Graves’ collection is right in line with the mission of the Devault-Graves Agency: bringing out-of-print but deserving titles back to the screen (in e-book form) or into readers’ hands (in traditional print form).

That’s what Devault-Graves will be doing next month with a new print edition of Sun Records: An Oral History by John Floyd, former music editor of the Flyer. (The e-book is available now from Amazon and the Barnes & Noble website.) It’s what Devault-Graves did earlier this year when it received major media attention for publishing Three Early Stories by J.D. Salinger. The company is also restoring, in uncensored print form, Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac. This week, however, the focus of attention is Tom Graves, journalist.

He’s a novelist too (Pullers), a biographer (Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson), and co-author (with Devault) of a photography book (Graceland Too Revisited). Louise Brooks, Frank Zappa, & Other Charmers & Dreamers fulfills a dream that is entirely the author’s.

“I wished there was something I had that people could focus on me as a writer — the way I tell a story, my style,” Graves says. “I’d like to think that when people think of Memphis writers that I’d be in that group.”

Not only in that group but in a subset of local writers known for their long-form journalism. From a writer who’s done decades of interviews, there’s really nothing to it. But in Graves’ words: “You’ve got to be very super prepared going in. If you’ve got 50 or so questions, you have to be prepared to not touch ’em once you start the ball rolling. A conversation takes on a life of its own.” And no telling where a series of such conversations can lead. In the case of Tom Graves, it could amount to an impressive career — and to more than a few greatest hits.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Best Of Enemies

It was 1968. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, giving the civil rights era a tragic coda. In June, Bobby Kennedy, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, fell to an assassin’s bullet. The Republican and Democratic conventions were to be held in August, and the three television networks were planning the same gavel-to-gavel coverage they had been doing since 1948.

But ABC had a problem. As the perpetual third-place network, they couldn’t afford to send a horde of reporters scurrying over the convention floor. So they settled on a cheaper alternative: They would invite two intellectuals, one conservative and one liberal, to a no-holds-barred political debate live on the air. The choice to represent the conservative side was easy: William F. Buckley Jr., founding editor of the political magazine National Review. His writings had formed the foundation of what we now call the conservative movement, and two years earlier he had started his own political television program called Firing Line.

Buckley immediately accepted the invitation. Who would you like to debate, ABC asked? Anyone but Gore Vidal, he replied. The unabashedly liberal, sexually ambiguous author of Myra Breckinridge was the antithesis of everything Buckley stood for. He hated that guy.

Naturally, ABC called Gore Vidal.

Fundamental Issues

Memphis director Robert Gordon’s new documentary, Best of Enemies, tells a story that has been lost amid the greater drama of a country tearing itself apart. The televised debates between Vidal and Buckley reverberate across the years, setting the stage for the political and media landscape where we find ourselves as we gird for another political battle for the future of the nation. “It — 1968 — was such a volatile year,” Gordon says. “It was when the frame that held America together came undone.”

Gordon co-directed Best of Enemies with Morgan Neville, whose Twenty Feet from Stardom won Best Documentary at last year’s Academy Awards. The pair have previously collaborated on films about Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters, and Cowboy Jack Clement. Since their work (as well as Gordon’s other books and films, such as the Stax Records history Respect Yourself) has dealt primarily with musical subjects, a political documentary seems like a big departure. But Gordon says it wasn’t a stretch. “Morgan and I both liked using the subject of the film to explore deeper, wider territory. So the documentary on Stax is a lot about the civil rights movement in America. Johnny Cash’s America is about the fundamental issues of democracy in America.”

Prize Fighters

The 1968 Republican convention in Miami was a well-oiled political machine, with Buckley acolytes Ronald Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller lining up behind nominee Richard Nixon. The ABC coverage of the convention was a comedy of errors. The only thing that went right was the 15 minutes every night when the cameras were trained on Buckley and Vidal. The pair circled each other like prize fighters, unleashing flurry after flurry of verbal attacks, with neither seeming to lay a glove on the other. It was riveting television.

“You just don’t ever get to see fully completed thoughts on TV any more,” Best of Enemies editor Eileen Meyer says. “You don’t get to see people like Buckley. His sentences were two or three minutes long. You can barely comprehend what he’s talking about. I had to watch the debates over and over and over again before I fully comprehended everything that was in there, and I still don’t get maybe a third of it. They were just so far above anyone’s intellect, and yet they were entertaining and fun to watch.”

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Gore Vidal in Best of Enemies.

A Long Memory

Best of Enemies took five years to make, but its roots go back to the early 1970s when writer and publisher Tom Graves was a Memphis State student interested in politics. “I knew of Vidal as a novelist and Buckley as a conservative spokesman who was on TV,” Graves recalls.

His interest was piqued when he came across their dueling articles in Esquire that were published in the aftermath of the 1968 debates. “I was absolutely amazed by what I had read. These two guys going head to head was better than Muhammad Ali’s ‘Thrilla in Manila.’ This is incredible word-slinging. What a mass of rhetoric! It was verbal fencing,” he says.

Graves wanted to see the debates for himself, but in the pre-VCR era, it proved impossible. “I never lost interest in this, ever,” he says.

He wasn’t the only one. Years later, Graves discovered Vidal had copies of eight of the debates, but in an obsolete video format. Graves arranged with the writer’s camp to have the tapes professionally transferred to DVD. “I thought maybe I could turn this into some kind of Frost/Nixon kind of play. But I’m not a playwright.”

In 2010, he arranged a screening of the debates at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. He didn’t expect much interest, but “it was not only sold out, they had to turn quite a few people away.”

Among those in the audience was Gordon. He saw the potential in the footage and contacted Graves, who recalls him saying, “My partner’s Morgan Neville, and if I were to do this as a solo project, he would never forgive me.”

Blood in the Streets

Three weeks after the Republican convention, the Democratic Party gathered in Chicago. The death of Kennedy had thrown the Democratic race into chaos, and the convention devolved into a fiasco of historic proportions. The floor fight between Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern was soon overshadowed by the events outside the hall, where Mayor Richard Daley’s heavy-handed police force helped escalate anti-war demonstrations into all-out riots.

On the air, Buckley and Vidal went at it again. Word had spread of the verbal fisticuffs, and the nation tuned in. They were not disappointed. Buckley was smug, confident he could exploit Democratic divisions. Vidal, the radical, was incandescent, railing against Buckley’s brand of conservatism and the Democratic pro-Vietnam war faction, led by President Lyndon Johnson, whose back-room dealings secured the nomination of Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

By the penultimate night of the convention, with blood flowing in the Chicago streets, the gloves had come off in the ABC studios. Vidal baited Buckley relentlessly, and when he equated Buckley’s conservatism with outright fascism, Buckley’s carefully constructed patrician demeanor slipped. He called Vidal a “goddamn queer,” and the debate was on the verge of physical violence when moderator Howard K. Smith stepped in. Backstage, Buckley flew into a rage while Vidal declared victory and partied with Paul Newman.

But the real winner was ABC, which, over the course of August, went from last to first in the ratings.

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Gore Vidal and Paul Newman in Best of Enemies.

Digging Into the Past

“ABC was supportive from the beginning,” Gordon says. “They didn’t understand immediately, but I won their trust. Then I called Morgan and told him I had this great idea, and could I send him a DVD?”

Unexpectedly, Neville had a connection with the material. “His first job out of college was fact-checker at The Nation, and he was Vidal’s fact-checker,” Gordon says. “It was the worst job he ever had. Gore did not like being told he made mistakes. Morgan saw the same thing I did — that these debates represented the culture wars in America today and that they were articulating both sides so well, yet it was 45 years old. We both saw this as a very contemporary project.”

Gordon, Neville, and Graves set up interviews with political and media figures, including talk-show host Dick Cavett, columnist Frank Rich, and Vanity Fair editor James Wolcott. “They saw what we saw, that they could talk about all kinds of contemporary issues by talking about the enmity between these two guys,” Gordon says. “When we finished the first interview with Wolcott, I knew we had a great movie.”

They managed to secure one of the last interviews with the late writer Christopher Hitchens. “I was so nervous going in there,” Gordon says. “It was two weeks before he was diagnosed with cancer. He wasn’t ill yet. It was a delightful evening of cocktails and talk.”

“We had so much fun. I hope it comes across,” Graves says.

Hollow Victory

In August 1968, the consensus was that Vidal had won the debates. But it was a hollow victory. With the Democratic Party in disarray, Nixon handily defeated Humphrey. “In the immediate days and weeks after the convention, Buckley’s ideas won out,” Gordon says. “They reached their epitome with Reagan, who is still the icon of the Republican Party. Though people no longer know who Buckley is, they know Buckley’s ideas, because they know Reagan. But it’s been interesting to see, in the past half-dozen years or so, the turn to where Vidal’s ideas are having their moment: Gay rights, marijuana legalization, these ideas that seemed so far out back then are finding their way into the American mainstream.”

Although it was not obvious at the time, the Buckley-Vidal debates marked the beginning of the modern age of political punditry. By the time the 1972 conventions rolled around, all three networks had teams of ideologically opposed commentators debating the issues of the day. Gavel-to-gavel convention coverage was a thing of the past.

Greenlit

“It was one of those stories that we had to find it as we went along,” Neville says. “And it was one of these rare experiences on a film where every stone we turned yielded some nugget that just made it richer and richer. Oftentimes, in a documentary, you’re searching for the characters or for dramatic tension. This film had all that in spades.”

Work on Best of Enemies was on and off. The team struggled to secure funding, get interviews, and uncover new archival footage. “Morgan probably made five documentaries in the interim, and he was piggybacking shoots for this onto those.”

Memphian David Leonard shot many of the interviews, and Meyer edited scenes and trailers together, which were used to try to secure funding from investors and grants from Independent Television Service (ITVS).

“When Robert came to me to talk about the project five years ago, I said, ‘Who?,’ and he said ‘Cool!'” Meyer says. “I hadn’t really thought about the fact that people under 40 don’t know who these guys are. In making the film, it was a fun exercise to try and make it accessible to people who were alive during the events and who knew everything about these guys, and then also to introduce a whole new generation to these two amazing characters and this event.”

Finally, after three years, a grant from ITVS greenlit the project. The final budget was approximately $750,000. “It’s a 90-minute film, and 80 minutes of screen time is archival [footage],” Gordon says. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars went into licensing.”

The money opened up new sources of material. “Everything changed when we got into the ABC archive. They had so much we didn’t know they had, like convention coverage. These films hadn’t been seen in decades. Every time we would hit a splice, it would turn to dust,” Gordon says.

For Neville, the biggest discovery was that the debates were a Hail Mary by ABC. “The real character that emerged while we were making the film was ABC. As the film became more and more the story of ABC, everybody got a little nervous about how they would react. But I have to say, at the end of the day, when we finished the film and showed it to their business affairs, they wrote back and said, ‘It’s a film of quality. We’re a news organization. We don’t believe in censorship. You can use anything you want.’ That’s the kind of thing you want to believe a news organization would say, but I guarantee not every news organization would say that.”

Two Things You Should Never Turn Down

After 1968, Buckley and Vidal both went on to greater successes. For the next three decades, Buckley would take on all comers on Firing Line. National Review became the blueprint for the conservative movement that swept America. Vidal found himself in demand, famously quipping that there were two things one should never turn down: sex and appearing on television. His career as a writer flourished with a series of historical novels, such as Lincoln, Burr, and The Golden Age, earning him the sobriquet “America’s biographer.”

As political TV shouters proliferated, the Buckley-Vidal debates were largely forgotten. But the combatants didn’t forget. Their deepening hatred for each other is echoed in the widening divide between the two forces in American politics, the right and the left. Buckley died in 2008. His son, Christopher, refused to be interviewed. “This was a festering wound in the Buckley family. I understood why he didn’t want to talk,” Gordon says.

Vidal died in 2012, while the film was in production. “We interviewed Vidal, which we did not use in the film,” Graves says. “He was real cranky, and he didn’t give us any sound bites we could use. But without Bill in the film, it just seemed off-balance.”

Uncivil Discourse

Gordon and Neville’s masterful storytelling help the lessons of Best of Enemies go down easy. “I think the role of the documentary filmmaker is to be a filmmaker,” Neville says. “Remember that movies, whether scripted or unscripted, are about character and story.”

Scenes from the debates alternate with biographical details and contemporary interviews. “We came up with that idea pretty early in the process,” Neville says. “As much as it’s about political debate, it’s also about a championship fight. We knew we had 10 rounds, with a knockdown in the ninth. We wanted that to be the structure of the film.”

But Best of Enemies is about more than a spectacular clash of ideologies and egos. “We wanted to step back and talk about how we argue,” Neville says. “We’re not choosing sides, and not being objective for the sake of being objective. We’re not choosing sides, because we want to make the bigger point.”

That point is simple. “When did civil discourse become uncivil?” Gordon says. “Where are the adults?”

The contrast between Buckley’s and Vidal’s carefully constructed arguments and today’s button-pushing political discourse couldn’t be clearer. “You see a dumb person on television, and you say, ‘They’re dumb like me! That’s cool!'” Meyer says. “I wish people would say, ‘Wow, that dude is so smart. I want to sit and listen to him all day long.'”

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Morgan Neville

Neville agrees. “The dumbing down of our media has led to the dumbing down of our politics. That’s something that’s mutually beneficial to the companies who make money off of news and the companies that make money off of politicians.”

The message has resonated with critics and audiences. The film was snapped up by Magnolia Pictures the night of its premiere. “When we sold the film at Sundance, the night we were negotiating with our distributor, Robert said, ‘As long as you open the film in Memphis. That’s a term of selling it to you.’ And they said okay!”

On Friday, August 14th, Best of Enemies goes into wide distribution after earning rave reviews from critics and early Oscar buzz in limited release.

Indie Memphis will host the Memphis premiere on Friday at 7:15 p.m. It will feature a Q&A with Gordon and the sale of Buckley vs. Vidal (The Devault-Graves Agency) by Graves, a transcript of the debates with an introduction by Gordon. There will be another Q&A with Gordon after Saturday’s 7:15 p.m. screening.

Gordon says making the film helped him appreciate how increasing political polarization threatens the very fabric of civil society. “We don’t listen to each other, because we don’t have to. But at some point, we’re going to have to.”

Editor’s note: Our thanks to Malco Theatres for allowing us to use the lobby and projection room of the Ridgeway Cinema Grill for Justin Fox Burks’ photographs.

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Robert Gordon Strikes Gold At Sundance

Memphis writer/director/producer Robert Gordon’s new project Best Of Enemies was sold to Magnolia Pictures and Participant Media today for a “high six-figure sum”. The documentary film, which was co-directed with Morgan Neville, whose last film 20 Feet From Stardom, won last year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary, premiered last Friday at the Sundance Film Festival. 

William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal square off in this still image from Best Of Enemies.

Best Of Enemies chronicles the series of debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley staged by ABC during the 1968 Republican and Democratic conventions, which the film credits as kicking off the contemporary cable news shoutfest style of political programming. 

Reviews for the film by the cadre of industry professionals who descend on Park City, Utah every January have been nothing short of rapturous. The Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy wrote “For American viewers of an intellectual/historical persuasion, there could scarcely be any documentary more enticing, scintillating and downright fascinating than Best of Enemies.” Writing for Variety, Joe Leydon says “Best of Enemies never gets heavy-handed while attempting to illustrate the true historical importance of what might still be viewed by many as nothing more than an obscure and eccentric bit of prime-time misadventure.” The Guardian‘s four-star review, written by Jordan Hoffman, says  “Directors Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom) and Robert Gordon (Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story) have unearthed outstanding footage and interviewed many of today’s best thinkers for a juicy and thrilling documentary about two intellectual titans who truly loathed one another.” 

In addition to Gordon, who directed and produced, the film’s strong Memphis roots include editor Eileen Meyer, composer Jonathan Kirkscey, director of photography David Leonard, consulting producer Tom Graves, and production assistant Andrew Paisley. 

Magnolia Pictures and Participant Media will reportedly give Best Of Enemies a theatrical release sometime this year, with home video, television, and streaming deals to follow. You can watch a short interview with directors Gordon and Neville at CraveOnline.