There are so many documentaries out these days that seemingly serve no other purpose than to force an agenda down our throats. Few filmmakers dare to present both sides of an issue, and you come away feeling as if you’ve just been beaten over the head with a spiked propaganda stick, no matter how you originally felt about the issue. I was both delighted and fascinated when I watched Best of Frenemies, a striking documentary about the 1968 debates between William F. Buickley, Jr. and Gore Vidal. The film shows clips from those groundbreaking debates and paints both participants with the same startling, objective brush.

That might sound like a snore at first, but stay with me. By covering the clash between Buckley, the leading light of the new conservative movement, and Vidal, bestselling liberal novelist, the film shows a striking image of American culture in the late ’60’s that contrasts wildly with the political environment of today. It borders on incredibility, but it is absolutely riveting.

At the time, ABC news was dead last in network ratings, and was looking to pull a rabbit out of a hat. So in a move that would change network television news forever, the alphabet network hired two towering public intellectuals (who had zero YouTube followers and had never made a sex tape — imagine being famous for your intellect and eloquence, rather than your exhibitionism!) to debate each other during the Democratic and Republican national conventions–and the public became obsessed by this oh so refined verbal slug fest.

I also became obsessed just listening to these two ultra-affected intellectuals absolutely eviscerate each other in the most erudite of terms. Both with the clench-jawed patrician accents that the East Coast culturally elite favored at the time, and Buckley smoking a cigarette in a long holder, it was the verbal smack down of the century. They were basically saying the same things disgruntled recording artists yell about each other today, but it sounds so much more refined the way Buckley and Vidal put it. It reminds me of the difference in dialogue in films of the 50’s and films of today. Screenwriters managed quite well without the F-word and the S-word and the C-word, etc.

And yet, up to that point, televised debates were white, gentlemanly, issues-only affairs that never got personal. The Buckley/Vidal debates ushered in a new era in public discourse that made it a highbrow blood sport marking the dawn of pundit television as we know it today. Morgan Neville (Academy Award winner for 20 Feet From Stardom) and Robert Gordon wrote and directed the film, which has clips of the two iconoclasts, as well as many others. Kelsey Grammer reads quotes from Buckley, and John Lithgow reads Vidal. The film absolutely flies by, and I was sorry to see it end.  If you only see one documentary this year, this should be it.

Rated R

1 Hour 27 Minutes

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BEST OF ENEMIES Review — Best of Docs