“Find out the movies a man saw between ten and fifteen, which ones he liked, disliked, and you would have a pretty good idea of what sort of mind and temperament he has.” I’m sure Vidal meant women, too, so I checked Wikipedia (sorry library gods) for lists of movies made from 1966 through 1971, the years I turned 10 and 15.
Excerpts
- Below are excerpts from some of Gore Vidal's 25 novels and 200+ essays.
Narratives of Empire
Other Novels
Essays
Essays [full text]
Satirical Novels
Gore Vidal and Child Development | City of Austin - Austin Public Library
| | | |
| | |
Gore Vidal: The United States Of Amnesia (screened at Tribeca 2013) :: EDGE New York City
A "mix of Mark Twain and Henry James," Vidal skewered religion as a "born-again atheist," and, when many other journalists shied away, held politicos in the 80s, 90s, and aughts accountable due to his "great shit detector."
Vidal’s political predictions have come true with a vengeance, such as the unchecked rise of American empire that has united the Muslim world against this country, and that George W. Bush was a "goddam fool, answering to his boss Cheney." He also foresaw the termination of the Republican Party (fingers crossed).
The film [Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia] skillfully weaves a half-century of interviews and stills, notable quotes, and conversations with acolytes including Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, actor Tim Robbins, and the late Christopher Hitchens.
Gore Vidal worried "We learn nothing because we remember nothing." Watch this documentary to stave off our collective amnesia.
Read Louise Adams' review in full at www.edgenewyork.com
Don't forget the documentary's Kickstarter campaign! Help fund the archival and post-production costs and get mentioned in the credits of the final version of Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia!
| | | |
| | |
Help with the archival costs for Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia had a very
successful premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, but director Nicholas Wrathall and his team still need help with the final
archival materials and post production.
You can help...and you'll get mentioned in the credits!
Check out the Kickstarter campaign.
But deadline is fast approaching… please get involved.
| | | |
| | |
Gore Vidal: The Last Patrician Comedian – IFC
Of all the documentaries about comedians at the Tribeca Film Festival this year – Richard Pryor, Moms Mabley, immediately come to mind – it is the documentary about Gore Vidal, “The United States of Amnesia” that made on me the strongest impression.
.....
At the screening during the Tribeca Film Festival rarely a minute went by without Vidal’s on-screen commentary eliciting raucous laughter from the knowledgeable fans, critics and VIPs assembled. Even Robert DeNiro, the festival’s founder, has said that the film stands out. Nicholas Wrathall, the film’s director, had full access to Gore Vidal’s last months and captures the man in full, winding down his worldly affairs, moving out of his house overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Ravello, Italy because he can no longer walk unaided. The film briefly looks backwards at Vidal’s vivid life. But Wrathall mainly focuses on the last days, allowing Vidal and his contemporaries to give their impressions of his life and times. It is like Gore presiding and present at his own wake. That is something that every author craves.The cinematography is exquisite. The directors of photography: Derek Wiesenhahn, Joel Schwartzberg, Armando De’Ath do a fine job of capturing everything from that gloomy cemetery in Washington where the film begins to the unique natural light of Venice. Everything is gloriously vivid, and the archival footage blends seamlessly into the meat of the film, the present, where Gore Vidal is getting ready to exit stage left.
via www.ifc.com
| | | |
| | |
Tribeca Review: Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia - FLIXIST
the documentary Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia is not just a celebration of Vidal the public intellectual and the wit. It's also a fond look back at a time when public intellectuals would be on the airwaves talking about things that mattered. Maybe there's a subtle call for other writers, social critics, and raconteurs out there to take up the gauntlet of the gadfly, because a vital democracy needs intelligent irritants to thrive.
Read the insightful review by Hubert Vigilla (Flixist, News Editor) at www.flixist.com.
Remember, you can get film credit in Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia by helping fund its post-Tribeca life via its Kickstarter campaign (deadline May 11, 2013).
Vidal had the uniquely privileged upbringing that joined young scholarship and erudition with early political consciousness.
.....
Vidal...was ahead of his time in many respects. He advocated for gay rights back in the middle of the 20th century.... Back in the '60s he talked about the dangers of income inequality, which have only gotten worse in the decades since. Vidal was also against the war in Vietnam before Johnson escalated the conflict. Vidal's close association with the Kennedy White House also meant greater disappointment in Kennedy as a president.
.....
[The documentary] reminds Vidal's fans and latecomers that what The United States needs the most are its critics and historians. They're the mirrors and the healthy kicks in the pants that help the country wake up and do something, even if that something is as simple as the mere act of thinking.
Photo: Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer
| | | |
| | |
Official Website for "Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia" - gorevidaldocumentary.com
Here's the official website of Nicholas Wrathall's new documentary Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia:
The documentary garnered a great review by Erica Abeel (author, Conscience Point) in HuffPost:
For sheer entertainment value, few docs can equal Gore Vidal the United States of Amnesia...a portrait of the novelist, playwright, polemicist, public intellectual, and bullshit detector. Screenings at the Tribeca Film Fest [sold out].... Vidal (who died at 86 in 2012) was of the aristocracy and related to American royalty (his mother married an Auchincloss). Yet he betrayed his class a la FDR with a vengeance. An iconoclast ahead of his time, he candidly wrote about homosexuality in an early novel, The City and the Pillar, which got him blacklisted by book critics at the New York Times. He knew everyone and went everywhere but became mordantly critical of privilege and what he called the "American Empire," offering, in his view, "socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor."
The documentary was written up in Rolling Stone recently, and Robert De Niro stated that it was on his personal short list of must-see films at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. Ron Mwangaguhunga of IFC TV tweeted "amazing documentary on the irrepressible Gore Vidal "The United States of Amnesia" is the best doc I've seen in years.…"; Carl Ansley the tech entrepreneur and investor in TapMesh and TxVia tweeted, "really funny, thought-provoking shit-stirring stuff. Needs/deserves/will get a wide audience"; and Bevy Smith tweeted it was "More than a doc it was an autobiography" of a man she "long admired."
See the interview with Nicholas Wrathall on HuffPostLive about the documentary:
Remember, you can help fund the completion of this documentary to ensure it enjoys a post-Tribeca life. You can make a tax-deductible contribution via USA Projects (deadline May 13, 2013) or you can contribute via Kickstarter (deadline May 11, 2013).
| | | |
| | |
Tribeca: 'Gore Vidal' Filmmaker on the Late Author's Life and Legacy (Q&A)
Wrathall: [Vidal's] grandfather opposed entering World War I and lost his seat in the [US] Senate for years because of that. Then he was reelected, but was always known as a very honest man. And Gore was brought up that way. So he felt his way of being honest from outside the system was to point out all the faults and point out what people were really up to and what their motivations were. And sort of expose the 'inside of the Beltway,' so to speak.
.....
You think of this man who was friends with Eleanor Roosevelt and J.F.K. and then later in life became friends with Mikhail Gorbachev, you couldn’t have a bigger political spectrum. I’m from Australia, and he knew the ex-Prime Minister of Australia, Gough Whitlam, and the premier of my state New South Wales, Bob Carr, really well. When I found that out, I was just stunned that even in far-flung Australia, he knew these people. They visited him in Italy and had phone conversations and talked politics.He was a very engaged person who wanted to know what was going on in every aspect of the world. He studied history and philosophy and he knew everyone. It was exciting for him. He wanted to know what people were doing. He had such a thirst for knowledge that he needed to know what everyone was doing everywhere all the time. It’s insane to think, but he managed to keep up before the Internet with all these people all over the world.
Read the entire interview at www.hollywoodreporter.com
| | | |
| | |
Tribeca ’13: “Gore Vidal” director seeks finishing funding » Realscreen
Nicholas Wrathall, director of Gore Vidal: the United States of Amnesia, has launched a Kickstarter campaign seeking finishing funds for his buzzy Tribeca hit. ["We] still need to pay for all the archive and licensing to pay for the release beyond the festival life,” he said.
Wrathall is seeking US$30,000 on Kickstarter to complete the doc, writing on the fundraising site: “We still need to do the music composition and online post production, as well as archival clearances.” The project has a May 11 fundraising deadline.
The director’s film comprehensively covers the life of Vidal, the acclaimed essayist, novelist and screenwriter, who passed away last year at the age of 86. It features a number of interviews with him from throughout his life, as well as new interviews and commentary from notable figures such as the late intellectual Christopher Hitchens and the writer Robert Scheer.
via realscreen.com
| | | |
| | |
Trailer for Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia, a 2013 Tribeca Film Festival documentary
The trailer is out!
About the film:
No twentieth-century figure has moved as easily and confidently, and had a more profound effect in the worlds of literature, drama, film, politics, historical debate, and the culture wars than Gore Vidal. He was a brilliant novelist, political essayist, literary critic, historian, scenarist, television pundit, political activist and candidate. As a raconteur, lecturer and platform performer he was rivaled only by Mark Twain. Vidal was an American icon, yet an intimate, accurate picture of the man has eluded us until now. This film dramatizes Gore’s amazing life and political views, highlighting his concern of the unraveling American Democracy. His beliefs are at the centre of the film and we journey with him as he takes us through the reasoning (both historical and ethical) on which he’s founded his political and world view. This is Gore Vidal’s last word and testimony. It is a stern warning to the viewer of the direction the country is taking. Never has Vidal been so timely.
| | | |
| | |
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia | 2013 Tribeca Film Festival
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia will be a featured documentary in the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.
The 89-minutes-long feature is directed by Nicholas Wrathall
The documentary includes Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens, Jay Parini, Nina Straight, Burr Steers, Jodie Evans, and others.
Cinematographers: Derek Wiesenhahn, Joel Schwartzberg, Armando De'ath, Jake Clenell; Editors: Suresh Ayaar, William Haugse, Rob Bralver, Derek Boonstra; Executive Producers: Nicholas Wrathall, Erik Nelson, Mike Barnett. Producers: Nicholas Wrathall, Theodore James; Screenwriter: Nicholas Wrathall.
| | | |
| | |
