Political Corrida

Films with Andrei Zadansky

Alexander Genis: When America seems to be experiencing unique times, there is nothing better than turning to history. This is exactly what the host of the film reconciliation of the American hour Andrei Zagdansky suggested that we take the documentary of Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville “The Best Enemies” for discussions.

Best of Enemies, By Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville

Andrei Zagdansky: The painting "The Best Enemies" about the famous television debate in 1968 between the two famous American intellectuals Gor Vidal and William F. Bakley is cognitive in many ways.

Alexander Genis: First of all, we must imagine the heroes: who is Buckley and who are the mountains? Of course, our listeners know the mountain, because it was translated into Russian a lot, it was also read in Soviet times, and now they read it now, it is almost all in Russian, a very popular author, mainly thanks to historical novels. I myself read a mountain, I can say that this is an average good writer, maybe a second class, but a good second class. For me, Feikhtwanger is better. Nevertheless, he wrote excitingly, he knew his material very well. The film has his wonderful phrase: “How can I blame me for the absence of patriotism, if I am a biographer of America.” And he really wrote biographical novels about Lincoln, he wrote a very good novel about the third US Vice President Aaron Berra, the most exciting book from his historical works. But the mountains wrote about the ancient Persia, and about Julian of the apostate. A lot of films on his books. But now he has already forgotten him, and he remained in his time.

Bacley is a completely different story.

Andrei Zadansky: Before we move on to Buckley, I must say that, it seems to me, one book from the mountain saw his time. And this, oddly enough, is not his fiction literature, but memoirs, which are called "Palimpsest". This is an exceptionally interesting, ironic, sarcastic, angry prose about contemporaries with whom he had a chance to divide time, and among them there are a lot of famous people.

Alexander Genis: We all love gossip, especially since the mountain was distinguished by mighty sports anger, but it also had William Bacley, who was considered and is still considered the largest conservative, intellectual, and the founder of the neoconservative course of thought in America. He was the ideologist of Reagan, which is of great importance for history, including the history of the Soviet Union.

Andrey Zadansky: fundamental importance. In 1955, Bakli began to publish National Review - this is the very small magazine that exists to this day and who influenced the formation of a new conservative school. In fact, he created that political philosophical movement, which led to the victory of Reagan.

Alexander Genis: And the mountains were his direct opposite: the left, the defender of all liberalism, all sorts of minorities, including the rights of homosexuals. Two people who were a direct opposite, but in many ways they were similar, starting with the fact that both were born in 1925, and the mountains survived Bacley for only four years. They are people of the same class and classes - public intellectuals.

Andrei Zagdansky: They both belonged to the same intellectual elite, but they really hated each other-it was not a game on television, they did not pretend that they did not like each other, they did not love each other truly, sincerely and deeply. They directed all their mutual hostility to these television debates.

Now I need to say a few words about why this is an important chapter in American history and in the history of television. In 1968, congresses were held first of the Republican and then the Democratic Party. It was a very difficult year in the history of America. We will not dive deep into history now, but we must identify the milestones of 1968. The Vietnamese War, President Johnson said that he would not run for the next term, so there is a free struggle within the Democratic Party: who will be a representative of the democrats in a general election.

And this political battle is taken to two congresses - the Congress of Republicans and the Congress of Democrats. What is happening in the field of television? There are three television corporations - ABC, CBC and NBC. In the news area, ABC is categorically lagging behind its sisters, from NBC and CBC. Moreover, someone witty in the film says that the ABC in the news would be the fourth in a row, not the third, but there were only three of them, which very accurately determines the ABC position in television. In order to make your news cycle about the congresses of the two parties, ABC does not have enough resources to talk about it non-stop 24 hours, as happens on two other channels. ABC decides that they will make selective congress lighting and provide two intellectuals with the opportunity to discuss the problems of parties, to discuss what is the essence of the political struggle within a particular party. For this, two characters from which we started our program are invited.

Alexander Genis: Buckley said: "I am ready to talk with anyone except the mountain." In ABC they said: "Here you are just talking to the mountain." But here we still need to recall that then in 1968 the TV was not just the main media - it was a universal media. All America watched the news in the evening. I arrived in America ten years later, I still found this period when it seemed not to watch the news in the evening before dinner, because you can’t live without them. Without a TV, you did not know how to relate to them: they digested the events of the day. The leading news was the gurus of the nation. Especially Kronkait, which is shown in this film. He was the conscience of the nation. Then the journalists were not yet called “enemies of the people”. Now, when the media are infinitely crushed, as long as the half -hour news turned into a three -second tweet with errors, it is difficult for us to imagine how important the television was then.

Andrei Zagdansky: You remembered Kronkait, which is the standard of American objectivity, this is the golden mean of journalism. But in the debate between our two characters, the task was completely different. In ABC, they wanted to find something polar and subjective. The tension between the two heroes. They splash out on the television screen not only their attitude to problems, but the attitude to each other. Because the entire exchange of remarks is attacks against each other. Both one and the other, not so much in these debates, were interested in political problems as the opportunity to humiliate their enemy. They perfectly understood that in reality people follow a fight. It was a fight of two brilliant thinkers. Even now, when their time has gone, they have the same acute and the same ...

Alexander Genis: I would say, wit. After all, both of our heroes were famous of the Krasnobai. Each of them led his television show, each of them was able to answer questions instantly, each of them was famous for what he could, wants and will certainly defeat his opponent. This struggle, which I would call the political corrid of intellectuals, is a pleasure to watch. Their arguments were not reasonable, logical, rational, but they are always witty and sharp. This is an intellectual fight “Pandites”. I would really like to introduce this word into the Russian language. Pandit is a sage in Sanskrit, exactly, sometimes ironically, they call public intellectuals in America.

Andrei Zadansky: And to say in Russian the "smart man", it turns out not at all.

Alexander Genis: Mikhail Epstein said: the Russian language is so strange that if a man is called "wise guy", then this is bad, but if he is called "clever", then this is good. So what about our wise men about? About anything and about anything. I would not say that their arguments are convincing, mainly they are engaged in catching each other at some nasty things. For example, the mountains say Buckley: "The Vietnamese War is all going on and you protect it. In such a number of your magazine from such and such a number you said that it would be nice to throw the atomic bomb on Vietnam." Bacley does not answer this, but begins to jump on the bones of the mountain.

On the other hand, the only argument that I really liked belongs to Bakley. It was this argument that just led to the victory of Reagan at one time, gave the goal to the conservatives. The mountains accuse the republican party of that it does not care about the poor, which is why the difference between the rich and the poor is monstrous in America. (Of course, since then it has become much more than it was then.) In response, Buckley speaks simply, clearly and absolutely convincing: if there is freedom, that is, inequality - and this is the price of freedom. Under this, of course, it is difficult not to subscribe.

Andrey Zadansky: A wonderful argument. To this day, this phrase resonates. You can agree or disagree with the property polarization that occurs in American society, but it is very difficult to challenge this truth.

Returning to our debate and returning to the assessment of the television influence of the two "clever" on the audience in America. Each of them says that mass coverage, large ratings do not correspond to the level of education that they would like to achieve.

Alexander Genis: They have not yet seen the current political picture. Most of all I was struck by the fact that they use a lot of smart, scientists, complex words in the dispute, they use the elite English: long complex sentences, endless play of words. You need to be a sufficiently educated person to understand what they are talking about. If millions of people followed these disputes, then this suggests that the level of education in America has probably fallen.

However, I myself do not like such conversations, because every time they begin to say that everything was better before, I remember Andrei Sedykh, whose honor I had to work in a "new Russian word". He told me that after Bunin there are no writers. I say: "And Shukshin?" He says: "Who? What kind of surname is funny." That's why I do not like to say this. Nevertheless, the rhetorical level was impossible in the current political struggle.

Andrei Zadansky: There is no such left one as the mountains saw, there is no such right as William Buckley.

Alexander Genis: That is why today they shot a film about this discussion. 1968-it was a very difficult time in America, but there was a meaningful political struggle, in any case, a rhetorical struggle. This film is a product of nostalgia for it. It is interesting that Aaron Sormin, who is the largest specialist in the dramatization of political life in America, belongs to him the scenarios of the best series on this subject, immediately bought the rights to this film. He wants to make a long series about these debates, use them, because this is a lesson.

Andrei Zadansky: We must say how the debate ended - the crushing defeat of William Buckley. Just to say about protests in Chicago in 1968.

Alexander Genis: Protests during which protesting students were killed.

Andrei Zadansky: This is a really terrible chapter in American history.

Alexander Genis: This should be remembered today when we are talking about how America is polarized. This is not the first time - this is important to understand: democracy is always dangerous, democracy is always an experiment. There have already been in America more than once such situations when the country was divided into two irreconcilable parts that could not sit at the same table. The events of 1968 - an example of this.

Andrei Zagdansky: At the very end of the Debats of the mountains, Baklo reproaches that he is a neo -fascist, a crypto -fascist, that he is responsible for what is happening. To which Buckley cries: “If you call me a crypto-fascist once again,” says Buckley, who fought during the Second World War and knows something about the war with fascism, “I will hit you on the face.” Then he uses one English word, which is best translated into Russian as a “blue” in this context. A pause comes because both sides perfectly understand that this is no longer a debate, this is a threat of a fight. On this, ABC turned the whole program, it all ended, a pause came, which everyone considered Buckley's defeat. For him, it was a fundamental defeat. After all, they led the whole brilliant intellectual game in the language of verbal insults, but they never crossed the line.

Alexander Genis: We must remember that Bacley was an American patrician. He wrote 50 books, including sailing. He was a sort of aristocrat of democracy. And in such a rough way to lose his face was offensive to him, he remembered this all his life, regretted it, and he did not let the mountains forget him.

Andrei Zadansky: Buckley wrote an essay about this.

Alexander Genis: Mountains also wrote an essay about these debates, because they became a historical event. Of course, each of them remembered this incident in his own way.

Andrey, why did this film play this film today?

Andrei Zadansky: Maybe because we are seeing the reflection of today in that time. It turns out that America is changing and does not change, the same forces are opposed to each other. Buckley relied on the same forces, the same political alignment that Trump is based today: white offended Americans, who believed that they were bypassed in the section of the world American project.

Alexander Genis: I do not agree with this point of view, because the Reagan coalition was economic, political and, first of all, anti -Soviet, this is a very important factor.

Andrei Zagdansky: Regarding Buckley, it should be remembered that in 1955 he wrote a book that protects Senator McCarthy. He wrote that McCarthy was achieving the right goal with his anti -communist persecution, and his enemies deprived him of the opportunity to achieve justice.

Alexander Genis: At the moment I understand the mountain.

Andrei Zagdansky: The beauty of this film is that both are pretty and antipathetic.

Alexander Genis: Accurate observation. Because, looking at them, I do not know who to give preference. They both maneuver in American politics as two sharks who deftly envelop each other. And we follow them with admiration: two such powerful predators.

But most importantly, this film inspired me with hope, optimism. Today, when the political situation in America seems to be gloomy, when excessive polarization in the country does not understand what will lead to, I think about something else that the radical division into two parties is the property of the original American system, which allows the country to move forward only tacks, no one tears in a straight line, everyone goes to the side. And, moving tacks, there are less chance of making fatal mistakes.