
Independent Lens
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
Remember the lessons, ethics, and legacy of iconic children's television host, Fred Rogers.
Nationally televised debates in 1968 between two intellectuals defined the moment TV’s political ambition shifted from narrative to spectacle.
Morgan Neville is an award-winning filmmaker who has spent twenty years working as a cultural documentarian. Neville has been nominated for three Grammys for his music films: Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story, Muddy Waters Can't Be Satisfied, and Johnny Cash’s America. His other films include Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues The Cool School and Troubadours… Show more
Grammy Award-winning writer and filmmaker Robert Gordon has focused on the American south — its music, art, and politics — to create an insider’s portrait of his home that is both nuanced and ribald. His first book, It Came From Memphis, careens through the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, riding shotgun with the weirdoes, winos, and midget wrestlers. In 2003, he… Show more
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Best of Enemies captures the legendary 1968 debates between two famed intellectuals and ideological opposites: leftist Gore Vidal and neoconservative William F. Buckley. Dead last in the ratings, ABC hired Vidal and Buckley to debate each other during the Democratic and Republican national conventions. Buckley, who founded National Review magazine in 1955, was a leading light of the new conservative movement. Gore Vidal, lifelong Democrat and cousin to Jackie Onassis, was a leftist, taboo-smashing novelist and polemicist. Both believed each other’s political ideologies were dangerous for America. Their televised sparring shaped a new era of public discourse in the media, marking the moment TV’s political ambition shifted from narrative to spectacle.
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