Nealon and Raskin’s film benefits from the directors’ access to footage from the videofreex’s extensive video archive as well as from interviews with many of the group’s members. The group began with the backing of CBS, but when that backing fell through, they continued on their own, first living and working in a large loft in the SOHO neighborhood of New York City and eventually moving to a farmhouse in New York’s Catskills Mountains. The videofreex were one of the first independent production groups to use the earliest portable video cameras that offered both long recording times and instant playback. Sticking to the late 1960s, Jon Nealon and Jenny Raskin’s Here Come the Videofreex! tells the story of the radical video collective that, from 1969 to 1978, produced hours and hours of videotape of everyday people and events unfolding in their own neighborhoods and across the country. ![]() Instead of rooting for one man over the other, the film leaves you feeling rather sympathetic for both, and, given the strong feelings these two figures arouse, that’s a feat to be sure. ![]() Neville and Gordon’s often very funny film deftly charts its terrain, taking a position on neither the left nor the right, but rather providing insights from many sides and from many voices connected to the network or to the two men. The Vidal-Buckley debates were conceived by ABC as a way to compete with the two dominant news networks, CBS and NBC, during the coverage of the Republican and Democratic national conventions, and over the multiple evenings, ABC’s viewership rose considerably. (left) and Gore Vidal (right)īest of Enemies is an important and well-crafted entry into the annals of media history it shines a light on a moment when television news, and especially political news on television, shifted from more or less informational coverage of political events and characters to what has now become so commonplace on 24 hour cable news: debating pundits who wrestle one another verbally. Best of Enemies, a new documentary directed by Morgan Neville (whose 20 Feet From Stardom won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2014) and Robert Gordon, focuses on those debates, their impact on broadcast news and on the relationship and the careers of these two once prominent public intellectuals.īest of Enemies: William F. In August of that year, American viewers of the nightly news were treated to their own small screen turbulence in the form of ABC’s broadcast of a series of political debates between the archconservative, William F. Among the many nonfiction features at this year’s two-week festival, two loose themes emerged: a fruitful preoccupation with media history, and a willingness to shine a light on highly challenging topics.ġ968 saw a number of turbulent events unfolding in the United States and around the globe. Documentary encompasses experimental efforts of certain self-portraitists, essayistic encounters of urban observers, revolutionary projects of everyday activists, powerful polemics of ideologues, and, yes, historical narratives that help us better picture our past and understand how it continues to inform our present. ![]() Documentary, as so many of its fans have long known, is not the fusty genre of forced schoolhouse boredom. BAM’s selections, in fact, highlight the expansive scope of documentary as a genre. One of New York City’s premier showcases for new American independent film, BAM’s lineup regularly includes many important feature-length and short documentary films covering a wide range of topics and styles. New Documentaries at BAMcinemaFest (June 17-28, 2015)īy Leah Anderst Volume 19, Issue 6 / June 2015 11 minutes (2528 words)īAMcinemaFest, now in its seventh year, has a history of screening strong nonfiction films.
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