When I was younger, I used to long for the days when US news shows were just the news, and when talk shows had actual intellectuals on, on occasion, to debate. I remember once seeing a clip many years ago where Gore Vidal – whom I have a love/hate relationship with – and Norman Mailer – who I don’t know beyond one novel – had a debate…on Dick Cavett. The tone of the debate, and the substance (despite a few insults), was so different than now.

But this fantastic film shows the downside of what I idealized. I had never seen the famous Buckley-Vidal debates before – beyond a clip of the infamous outburst – but this film makes a compelling case that these debates not only changed television but helped change politics in The United States forever, and for the worse.

The film doesn’t just focus on the debates, but it touches not on the lives of the two men – their antipathy towards each other and their failed political ambitions – but the history of news media on television in the US, the rise of identity politics, the crisis of New Deal-style liberalism and the rise of neo-conservativsm. And it is both an informative and entertaining film to boot.

Probably the best documentary I’ve seen from 2016 so far.

9/10

• Directed by Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville
• Produced by Julie Goldman, Clif Phillips, Caryn Capotosto
  Written by Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville
  Featuring:
  • John Lithgow (off-camera voice for Vidal)
  • Kelsey Grammer (off-camera voice for Buckley)
  • Sam Tanenhaus, Buckley’s authorized biographer
  • Dick Cavett
  • Christopher Hitchens
  • Brooke Gladstone
  • Ginia Bellafante
  • James Wolcott
• Music by Jonathan Kirkscey
• Cinematography: David Leonard, Mark Schwartzbard, Graham Willoughby
• Edited by Eileen Meyer, Aaron Wickenden
• Production companies: Media Ranch, Tremolo Productions
  Distributed by Magnolia Pictures, Participant Media
• Release date: January 23, 2015
• Running time: 88 minutes
• Country: United States
• Language: English
• Budget: $750,000
• Box office: $904,119