The Common Good hosted a special screening of “Best of Enemies” and held a panel discussion and Q&A with the directors of "Best of Enemies", Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, and legendary talk-show host Dick Cavett, moderated by Alex Witt.
'Best of Enemies' is a documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. “Best of Enemies” delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, “What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?”
Alex Witt hosts the MSNBC show Weekends with Alex Witt on Saturdays and Sundays. Since joining the network in 1999, Alex has hosted across both dayside and primetime platforms, as well as reported from the field during Presidential election seasons and overseas. Alex contributes to NBC Nightly News, the Making a Difference series and Today.
Dick Cavett was the host of The Dick Cavett Show, which aired on ABC from 1968 to 1975 and on public television from 1977 to 1982. Dick Cavett is the author of Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets, and is the co-author of Cavett (1974) and Eye on Cavett (1983). He has also appeared on Broadway, on television, and in films.
Robert Gordon is a Grammy Award-winning writer, producer, and director. He has made 8 feature documentaries and is the author of 6 books, including Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. Gordon is also the author of It Came From Memphis, a book about Memphis music and culture, and he produced the book’s two companion CD’s.
Morgan Neville is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Through a series of films on important music subjects (including The Brill Building, Sam Phillips and Sun Records, Nat King Cole, Brian Wilson, Leiber & Stoller, The Highwaymen, and Burt Bacharach), Neville has documented stories of songwriters and producers who helped shape 20th-century music.
