5/25/2014

Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia, a Documentary - NYTimes.com

http://nyti.ms/TzcHDu

MOVIES

MOVIE REVIEW

An Intellectual and His Lofty Contempt

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NYT Critics' Pick

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

MAY 22, 2014

When Gore Vidal declared in an old television debate with William F.

Buckley Jr. that 5 percent of Americans had 20 percent of the income and
the bottom 20 percent had 5 percent, he was raising an alarm. That
observation may be the most shocking moment in Gore Vidal: The United
States of Amnesia, Nicholas Wrathalls admiring documentary portrait of
Vidal, who died in 2012 at 86.
Why shocking? It illustrates the astounding degree to which
perceptions have changed over time. By the standards of today, when
income inequality has widened exponentially and the middle class is
shrinking, statistics that infuriated Vidal sound like the answer to a
socialists prayer.
Intellectual celebrities nowadays eschew the lofty, disdainful tones
affected by Vidal and Buckley, his conservative opponent, who died in
2008. Public discourse is louder, angrier and coarser. No liberal of
comparable eloquence has taken Vidals place in the public square,
although Christopher Hitchens, who died in 2011, deemed himself Vidals
heir apparent, until the two men had a falling out.
Heavily seasoned with epigrams worthy of Oscar Wilde, this
entertaining documentary portrays Vidal as a pessimistic political prophet
with streaks of paranoia and misanthropy, but a truth teller nonetheless.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/movies/gore-vidal-united-states-of-amnesia-a-documentary.html?rref=movies&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Hea

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5/25/2014

Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia, a Documentary - NYTimes.com

In carefully selected excerpts from interviews and conversations conducted

during all phases of his career, he exudes a patrician hauteur fed by a
reservoir of chilly rage. For this champion of democracy and freedom of
speech was an aristocrat who blamed many of Americas blunders on the
short memory, or amnesia span, of the body politic.
Envy is the central fact of American life is a typically acute remark
from a man whose default attitude was a lofty contempt. It must be said
that Vidal, an avid student of history, was better informed than most
people and had a sweeping global perspective.
The film opens with an image of Vidal, cane at his side, sitting on the
tomb in which he will be buried. What follows is a thorough, skillfully
assembled chronology of the life and times of this all-around man of letters
and public gadfly whose historical novels are widely regarded as his finest
achievements.
Born into a well-connected political family, Vidal attended Phillips
Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, then joined the Army and plunged
into a writing career. His grandfather, whom he idolized, was a blind
senator from Oklahoma; his father, a director of air commerce for
Franklin D. Roosevelt, taught him to fly at the age of 10.
Vidals first novel, Williwaw, was published when he was 19. The
City and the Pillar, which dealt frankly with homosexuality when the
subject was taboo, was a best seller. He later claimed that the literary and
critical establishment, particularly The New York Times, had blacklisted
him because of the book. He turned his energies to writing for the theater
(The Best Man) and the movies (Ben Hur).
The documentary only glosses his private life, which is thoroughly
dissected in Tim Teemans recently published book, In Bed With Gore
Vidal. Vidals radical theories about sexuality, which earned him a fan
letter from Dr. Alfred Kinsey, are mentioned briefly. The success of his
comic transgender novel, Myra Breckinridge, which landed him on the
covers of Time, Newsweek, Look and Life magazines, is noted, but the
books vision not analyzed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/movies/gore-vidal-united-states-of-amnesia-a-documentary.html?rref=movies&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Hea

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5/25/2014

Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia, a Documentary - NYTimes.com

The film warmly acknowledges Vidals relationship with Howard

Auster, with whom he had a domestic partnership for 53 years, until
Austers death in 2003. The saddest moments show Vidals departure from
the gorgeous cliffside house they shared in Ravello, Italy.
The meat of the film consists of Vidals gloomy thoughts on American
history and politics and his conviction that the United States had
metamorphosed from a republic into an empire in the thrall of imperialist
grandiosity. His estimation of other politicians is devastating: John F.
Kennedy was charming and an inspiring speaker but a poor leader who
dragged us into Vietnam; Ronald Reagan was the best cue card reader
they could find; and George W. Bush was a fool. About American
involvement in the Middle East, he said: What weve done is unite the
Muslim world. Weve made a lot of trouble for ourselves. This is only the
beginning, and we will wish we had not done it.
Asked what he thought his legacy might be, Vidal replies in a tone of
withering indifference, I couldnt care less.
Gore Vidal
The United States of Amnesia
Opens on Friday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Nicholas Wrathall; directors of photography, Derek Wiesehahn, Joel
Schwartzberg and Armando Death; edited by Suresh Ayyar, William Haugse, Rob Bralver
and Derek Boonstra; produced by Mr. Wrathall, Theodore James and Burr Steers; released
by IFC Films. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. This film is not rated.
A version of this review appears in print on May 23, 2014, on page C10 of the New York edition
with the headline: An Intellectual and His Lofty Contempt.

2014 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/movies/gore-vidal-united-states-of-amnesia-a-documentary.html?rref=movies&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Hea

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