The Education of Gore Vidal is pretty damn entertaining (it airs Wednesday night on PBS stations, but check local listings). It was more fun watching it in a packed theater last month at the SF Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, but it still held up watching it on tape.
Vidal is often shown speaking publically, speaking to journalists (including this interview from Salon). There are scenes of the Broadway revival of "The Best Man" starring Spalding Gray and Chris Noth. It also shows footage of the debates between Vidal and William F. Buckley at the 1968 Democratic convention which I'd often read about but never seen.
I've read many of Vidal's essays, but none of his novels. The readings of excerpts from the novels by actors including Paul Newman, Tim Robbins, and Elli Wallach made me want to start reading them. Suprisingly, Harold Bloom is among the critics praising his fiction.
Article comments
1 - mike
Gore Vidal is one of the greatest living Americans, and one of the greatest Americans ever. He is a real patriot, unlike the fuckers who supported Operation Invade Iraq, Take Their Fucking Oil, Give Likud Everything It Wants, Turn This Country Into An Oligarchic State Capitalism, and Then Be Totally Fucking Unable to Find the Middle East On A Map.
Canada: It's the New America. See you there, if you're a real American.
2 - dave
I agree. Gore Vidal and Alec Baldwin are the only real intellectuals left in America.
3 - Bharat Jashanmal
I have just finished reading 'Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta'.
As my wife will testify, I have been 'boring' people for years about the foreign policy of the United States since the end of the Second World War,and therefore found this book enormously interesting.
The problem is how do we get this message across to a population (America), who only spend 10 minutes a day on matters 'foreign'?
Therefore, every administration has free reign, and 'Empire Building' will continue!